United States 1942

Synopsis

On 22 May 1942 the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), a group established by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to organize the largest nonunion industry in the United States, adopted its first constitution at its convention in Cleveland, Ohio. In so doing, the organization became the United Steelworkers of America (USW). SWOC President Philip Murray continued in the same role in the new union. Future USW president David J. McDonald took the post of secretary-treasurer. The convention set up the locals in geographic districts, authorized a biennial international constitutional convention, and required officers and district directors to be voted in every four years. The new union inherited all of the old contracts that had been signed by SWOC.

Like the SWOC before it, the USW was organized on a top-down basis. No local could call a strike without the approval...