UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA

(USWA) American union of workers in the steel industry, along with aluminum and other metallurgical workers. The union grew out of an agreement reached in 1936 between the newly formed Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO; later the Congress of Industrial Organizations) and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers, an older union that was unable to organize most American steelworkers. Under the agreement, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was formed with CIO financing and the right to organize on behalf of the Amalgamated Association. Under Philip Murray's leadership it quickly developed into a strong organization, and in 1937 the giant United States Steel Corporation recognized it as a bargaining agent. A group of independent steel firms, known as little steel, held out against the union until 1941, when, under pressure from the federal government, they too recognized it. In 1942 SWOC was officially transformed into the United Steelworkers of America, with Murray as president until his death in 1952. The USWA absorbed the Aluminum Workers of America in 1944 and had more than one million members by the mid-1950s, having achieved industry-wide bargaining power in steelmaking. It achieved unprecedented benefits for its members in the decades after World War II. From the mid-1970s into the '90s, however, the USWA saw both its membership and its bargaining power decline as the American steel industry shrank dramatically in response to increased foreign competition.