Homestead Steel Mill–the Final Ten Years

Mike Stout

Description

Spanning the famous Homestead steel strike of 1892 through the century-long fight for a union and union democracy, Homestead Steel Mill—the Final Ten Years is a case history on the vitality of organized labor. Written by fellow worker and musician Mike Stout, the book is an insider’s portrait of the union at the U.S. Steel’s Homestead Works, specifically the workers, activists, and insurgents that made up the radically democratic Rank and File Caucus from 1977 to 1987. Developing its own “inside-outside” approach to unionism, the Rank and File Caucus drastically expanded their sphere of influence so that, in addition to fighting for their own rights as workers, they fought to prevent the closures of other steel plants, opposed U.S. imperialism in Central America, fought for civil rights, and built strategic coalitions with local environmental groups.

Mike Stout skillfully chronicles his experience in the takeover and restructuring of the union’s grievance procedure at Homestead by regular workers and put at the service of its thousands of members. Stout writes with raw honesty and pulls no punches when recounting the many foibles and setbacks he experienced along the way. The Rank and File Caucus was a profound experiment in democracy that was aided by the 1397 Rank and File newspaper—an ultimate expression of truth, democracy, and free speech that guaranteed every union member a valuable voice.

Profusely illustrated with dozens of photographs, Homestead Steel Mill—the Final Ten Years is labor history at its best, providing a vivid account of how ordinary workers can radicalize their unions.

Sujets

• Solidarity unionism
• Working class culture

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781629638058
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mike Stout s well-constructed and splendidly illustrated memoir is about a special place and time, but it also serves as a window on a social insurgency that can provide inspiration for future social progress. It is a story of skilled workers who proudly got their hands dirty-an industrial world of crane men, machinists, mechanics, millwrights, laborers, and electricians that once dominated a region; men and women who also contributed to working-class culture as writers, poets, musicians, cartoonists, and even lawyers. Today, there are new skills and different jobs, but class domination and oppression endures. Greed without end or solidarity forever? The choice remains, and the consequences for a sick earth and an imperial world order could not be greater.
-Charles McCollester, former chief steward, UE Local 610, Switch and Signal plant and former professor of Labor Relations at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP)
This book should be read by activists in workplace situations all over the United States, not just as a stirring story but as a manual that responds to the question: What is to be done? The Homestead struggle demonstrated that imaginative and aggressive use of contract language can result in substantial monetary compensation for workers who are displaced. The spirit of solidarity so abundantly displayed in Local 1397 s struggle is what the rank-and-file labor movement-as well as the broader movement to change the larger society-is all about.
-Staughton Lynd, attorney, labor organizer, and author of more than a dozen books, including Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History , with Andrej Gruba i (PM Press 2008)
I can see this book finding a privileged place on the shelves of American radicals. This is a labor history that is exciting, emotional, and thought-provoking, a splendid example of radical history at its best.
-Andrej Gruba i , professor and chair of Anthropology and Social Change, CIIS-San Francisco, author of Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History , with Staughton Lynd (PM Press 2008)
Shop-floor activists at U.S. Steel s famous Homestead Works played a key role in the democracy movement that swept through their national union and almost toppled its top leadership in the late 1970s. After that Steel Workers Fightback campaign, they turned USW Local 1397 into a model local union, just in time to mount spirited resistance to mill closings throughout western Pennsylvania. Mike Stout s firsthand account of rank-and-file militancy and creativity in the face of deindustrialization and capital flight contains many relevant lessons for union members today. If every local union had the fighting spirit of 1397 in its heyday, the U.S. labor movement would be in far better shape.
-Steve Early, former international representative, Communications Workers of America, author of Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City (Beacon Press 2017)
Women of Steel was a pretty apt name for the women working in the mills, as Mike Stout shows us. These women stood together and stood up for themselves, as well as organizing the guys against corporate greed and union officials sexism. Stout s description of the women s strength, smarts, and leadership comes from the heart; he worked for members rights alongside these women or stood behind them when they stepped forward.
-Martha Gruelle, former co-editor of Labor Notes and co-author of Democracy Is Power: Rebuilding Unions from the Bottom Up , with Mike Parker (Labor Notes 1999)
The best movements have the most leaders, and Mike Stout does a great job introducing us to some of the many people who took on the steel industry and devious union bureaucrats during the last decade of U.S. Steel s Homestead Works in Pittsburgh. Mike s union sisters and brothers built community alliances, and they had fun, partied together, and mourned together. They made mistakes and scored victories. It s a story from the era of deindustrialization, but with lessons for all of us working to rebuild a powerful labor movement for the future.
-Ken Paff, national organizer, Teamsters for a Democratic Union
Mike Stout s Homestead Steel Mill: The Final Ten Years: Local 1397 and the Fight for Union Democracy tells the story of the Rank and File Caucus at the Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill from 1977 to 1987. Homestead was an epicenter of the era s burgeoning rank and file revolt against sclerotic union bureaucracies-and of its freewheeling working-class cultural and political anti-authoritarianism. The book vividly describes how the Rank and File Caucus evolved tactics ranging from a rank-and-file newspaper to inventive grievance campaigns, union elections, rock concerts, unemployed committees, food banks, coalitions with community and environmental groups, occupations of corporate headquarters, work-ins, work stoppages, and working to rule, complete with practical details that workers in any workplace could learn from today. Laced with compelling stories, lively oral histories, and the author s own rock and roll song lyrics, Mike Stout s book truly exemplifies its claim that solidarity and democracy are our main weapons against greed, money interests, and a system that is crushing us all.
-Jeremy Brecher, best-selling author of S trike! (PM Press 2014/2020)
In his moving book, informed by years of real experience as a worker and union activist in a Homestead steel mill, Mike Stout demonstrates the continued importance of unions today, as well as the need for unions to be authentically run by their members. Stout pulls no punches in telling the story of how he and his fellow union brothers and sisters fought on a daily basis against both corporate tyranny and union bureaucracy to defend their rights. This is a story that everyone interested in workers rights and the labor movement should read.
-Daniel Kovalik served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers (USW) International Union for over twenty-five years

Homestead Steel Mill: The Final Ten Years-Local 1397 and the Fight for Union Democracy
Mike Stout
This edition 2020 PM Press
Introduction JoAnn Wypijewski
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-62963-791-4 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-62963-805-8 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019946097
Cover by John Yates / www.stealworks.com
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , 2019, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Rivers of Steel , 2020, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
All other photos and images are from the private collections of Mark Fallon, Don Rudberg, Barney Oursler, and Mike Stout. Reprinted with permission.
Interior design by briandesign
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PM Press
PO Box 29312
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Printed in the USA
CONTENTS INTRODUCTION by JoAnn Wypijewski FOREWORD by Charles McCollester PREFACE CHAPTER 1 A Strange Beauty CHAPTER 2 Moving to Homestead-Becoming a Steelworker CHAPTER 3 Homestead-Forge of the Universe, Heart of Industrial Unionism CHAPTER 4 U.S. Steel and the Rebirth of Industrial Unionism CHAPTER 5 Origins of the Local 1397 Rank and File Caucus-Union Democracy Comes Alive CHAPTER 6 Local Union Democracy at Homestead CHAPTER 7 Birth of the 1397 Rank and File Newspaper CHAPTER 8 1978-1979, End of the Heyday CHAPTER 9 1397 Rank and File Caucus Takes Over the Local CHAPTER 10 Learning the Ropes and How to Handle Power CHAPTER 11 Local Union 1397-International Divide CHAPTER 12 Conneaut, Youngstown, and the Beginning of the End CHAPTER 13 My Last Hurrah Inside the Mill CHAPTER 14 Local 1397 Activity Grows CHAPTER 15 Rank-and-File Attempts to Go District-Wide CHAPTER 16 Unemployed and Living on the Edge CHAPTER 17 The Beginning of the End for Steelmaking at Homestead CHAPTER 18 Unemployed Organizing, Food Banks, and Rock Concerts CHAPTER 19 Union Elections-the Intraunion Battles Intensify CHAPTER 20 Envy and Jealousy-Wreckers and Splitters CHAPTER 21 Coalition with the Denominational Mission Strategy CHAPTER 22 Job Eliminations and Grievance Battles Escalate CHAPTER 23 Union-Company Relations Take a Turn for the Worse CHAPTER 24 Weisen s 1983 Presidential Bid and the Decline of the Rank-and-File Movement CHAPTER 25 The Channel 13 PBS Affair CHAPTER 26 Art Meets Labor-Springsteen Comes to Town CHAPTER 27 The Dorothy Six Campaign and Formation of the Steel Valley Authority CHAPTER 28 The 1985 Local Union Elections: How Did Weisen Win Again? CHAPTER 29 Fighting to the End CHAPTER 30 Ron Weisen-Heart of the Rank and File CHAPTER 31 The Last Attempted Bribe CHAPTER 32 The 1986 Lockout CHAPTER 33 The Mill Is Gone, but the Grievance Fights Continue CHAPTER 34 The Valley Machine Shop Lawsuit CHAPTER 35 Saving the History of Local 1397 CHAPTER 36 Running for State Representative-a Political Nightmare CHAPTER 37 The War is Over, One Last Fight CHAPTER 38 Conclusion AFTERWORD by Staughton Lynd ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INDEX ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INTRODUCTION
JoAnn Wypijewski
U nfolding in these pages is the radical history of a people too commonly believed to have none. It is a history largely absent from popular records of the political tumult of the 1960s and 1970s, though its energy, militancy, and imagination grew out of that era and extended, like so many fierce but near forgotten political projects, into the 1980s. It is a story of class struggle in a society whose official scribes a