This edition of Labor's Corner has been underwritten by the Steam Fitters Union Local 449, the Union of Operating Engineers and the Philip Murray Institute for Labor Studies of Community College of Allegheny County.

Brothers and sisters, my name is Lou Pappalardo, director of the Philip Murray Institute at the Community College of Allegheny County.

The institute is dedicated t preserving the memory of Murray, the first president of the United Steelworkers union.

Pre-Civil War America saw the birth of the Sons of Vulcan, representing iron molders and puddles.

Workers unified for the purpose of protecting their rights and their interests.

They and the Amalgamated Iron and Tin Workers were the forerunners of the US.

The history of the steelworkers, the story of workers and their struggles to secure a safe workplace, and decent wages.

Tonight's program is about the United Steelworkers 50 years of struggle.

Stay with us.

[Music Plays] This is Labors Corner, a weekly forum for discussing issues faced by today's working people and their unions.

Presented by WQEX in conjunction with the Philip Murray Institute of Labor Studies at Community College of Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh Labor Archives, Labor's Corner is a Pittsburgh first dedicated to presenting the workers point of view.

We have with us today Jim Seagriff, local president.

1196 Breckenridge.

And Mary Moore, staff rep of the Steelworkers civil rights department.

Jim, your local, in fact, was one of the locals that was original to the Steelworkers organizing committees.

Perhaps, Jim, you could speak to us about how you think that world of organizing and battles has changed.

What's your world like today?

Well, to compare the in the early days, earlier, union leaders faced great struggle with powerful companies who controlled the communities they faced, the government that had turned their back on the working and the poor people of our nation.

And they faced a community that just didn't understand what the union was all about, and that the union was going to make a better standard of living for everybody.

The goals of these early union leaders was to organize and to make a better standard of living just in the workplace safety and health pension.

And that's what they worked for in the 50 years from then until now.

In comparison, today we still face powerful corporations who battle the union in every step of the way.

They have used more sophisticated means by using labor consultant who were out to break the union.

We have a government in the Reagan administration that has totally turned its back on the working people and the poor people of our nation and we have a community that has forgotten about the gains that the Union has made for all the American people.

Mary, as a representative of the Steelworkers, the world of work has changed.

What are some of those changes?

What are some of the needs and problems of those workers as being addressed by the steelworkers today?

Well, first of all, we have seen drastic declines in some of our major steel industries throughout the United States.

Secondly, we have to look at the overall picture of women who are coming into the workforce now.

They are heads of households.

They are sole supporters of their families.

And thirdly we have to think in terms of the anti-discrimination protection laws, the parental leave, pay equity, adequate childcare.

These are some of the needs that all workers are concerned about.

I think we'll take this opportunity to view a video prepared by the steelworkers called We Are The People.

[Music Plays] These are the people with flaws and failings, with patience, sacrifice, devotion.

The people.

They get out the ore and send it to smelters.

The converters whereby the hands and craft of furnace crushers and hot blast handlers labors, puddlers, forgers, grinders.

There is steal a weaver of steel and concrete floors and walls 50 floors up.

Drivers, designers, life's caretakers, chemists.

researchers and alliance of work.

The people.

They go to their homes in province or county, frame houses at crossroads or flats in the city.

The faces of families, the voices of children, the people.

You can hear these people talk.

You can hear them tell each other, look at my day and look at tomorrow.

In the past, I think that outsiders, as well as the members within the steelworkers themselves, they got the impression when they seem to seal of the United Steelworkers that they were all steelworkers.

Everybody worked in a basic steel plant.

Well, that wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.

And we're going to be a mighty union for all of the people.

[Music Plays] Steelworkers.

The very name raises images of strength and courage, of struggles and victories and pride and of democratic unionism.

Banks and companies do not make steel.

People make steel.

Even before there was a union, the poet Carl Sandburg wrote the bar of steel.

It is only smoke at the heart of it.

Smoke and the blood of a man.

We became a great union for all the people, but not without great struggle, where there was much to overcome.

Before there was a union, an industrial town was owned lock stock and barrel by the company, isolated in islands of autonomy in an otherwise free continent.

All we knew were ten hour days of dangerous toil.

We saw local government as a puppet of the company and the town policeman as the arm of the industrial master, we were divided by grade of worker, by nationality, by race.

Division, the mighty weapon of the industry, used to the fullest to suppress solidarity, to keep workers from the strength we could gain through unity.

Until Franklin Roosevelt rose to the presidency of the United States, until landmark legislation gave workers the right to organize, until the CIO Committee for Industrial Organization began to unite workers in the United States and Canada until on June 17th, 1936, 11 men met in Pittsburgh, resolved to unite regardless of race, creed, color, or nationality, all workers and working men and women.

They began a drive to unionize.

From that meeting of 11 trade unionists, the spirit of unity, once dormant from defeat, arose alive and vibrant.

We were steelworkers.

No celebration of our 50th anniversary would be complete without a look at this famous old photograph.

Here are our roots plante firmly in the soil of adversity.

These men and thousands o others took on the most powerful and heartless industry in North America.

In 1936, they founded the Steelworkers Organizing Committee, the forerunner of the United Steelworkers of America.

[Music Plays] Those people were great men because they stepped out when it wasn't fashionable to be in a union or there wasn't anything there.

They had to have and see the hardships and take a leadership role and care about those people to organize, to try and make conditions better.

They had to go get the cards.

They had to fight the fights.

They had to convince the membership, the uneducated, the immigrants.

These people were being taken advantage of.

And the people that organized this great union really had a sense of caring for them.

I really believe that they fought for themselves, their families and for us.

Some of them even died for us.

They were led by this man, Philip Murray, who went on to become the first president of our union.

And what a great one he was.

Those of us who have followed him during these 50 years, Dave McDonald, I.W.

Abel, Lloyd McBride and myself have always felt his spirit at our side.

[Music Plays] Well, when I first joined the United Steelworkers of America, I saw nothing but black people during labor work.

Not only black people, but all minorities.

That I wondered to mysel whether or not this was going to go on and on forever.

Well I didn't have to wonder too long because we had enough of progressive thinking.

White people who linked up with the black people and other minorities, and they decided that the change had to come and the change had to come.

Then this spelled unity, and this was the thing that we had mired.

This was the thing that brought joy to our heart and brought smiles to our faces, and created a situation where we were ready to die for our United Steelworkers of America.

December 7th, 1941.

A date which will live in infamy.

It was difficult times.

We had just bought a home and we almost lost it.

And that was the reason I went out to work.

I had no problem getting in, and they hired me and they trained me to be a crane operator, and I went into a 20 ton crane, and from there they bought a great big 60 ton crane.

And I moved into that.

And I spent 26 years there.

And I'm sure happy that they had a union because I fought plenty, you know, and if I didn't have my union behind me, I don't know what would happen.

It happened in stages of struggle.

First the 40 hour week and pay for working overtime.

And then we got one paid holiday to spend at home with a family.

Well, I remember when I first began working, I started working at $0.40 an hour, and you can see I had no aspiration benefits.

That's all I had to bring home.

All this and many other things were changed through the union movement.

[Music Plays] We were together, working for a better way of life.

Our show of strength, begun in the workplace, now extended into Congress.

Into Parliament.

We were a mighty voice for all working people.

We wanted social change across North America and we got it.

Safety in the workplace.

Adequate pensions for our retirees.

Improved health care, better education for our children, and the hope that comes with opportunity.

We change the lives of millions of people across North America by speaking up, by fighting for the rights of working people.

We were the people a steelworkers.

The past has been glorious.

We have every reason to be proud and to celebrate, but we live in the present.

These are new times!

For whatever shifting new problems for us and for all working people.

One bright hope is the international union itself.

We recognize not only the past, but the present and the future.

That' why we merged with other unions, why we are aggressively seeking to organize men and women in new industries who need the benefits of being our brothers and sisters.

Today's workplace is changing and complex.

You may do your work with the crane, or a computer, or a microscope or a hammer, but one thing is sure you'll always be proud to say you're a member of the United Steelworkers of America.

Being a steelworker to me means belonging to one one great union.

That, to me, is like my second family.

It's like a family that I have at work other than my real family.

And it's real brotherhood.

We care for each other.

We breathe for each other, we heard for each other.

And you know, that's what union is all about.

[Music Plays] And we're always striving to to organize the non non-unionized people, regardless of where they come from.

Oh, and beyond just getting a contract for the working people, we also have pension plans.

We're constantly working on safety and health in the working conditions of the shops.

We elect our own, our ow leaders from our own membership.

And I feel that that's a very integral part of our union.

We've got to keep and we got to preserve its.

I don't think yo you have that in many countries.

You don't even have that kind of liberty.

We've come into a new era where change is constant and choice is endless, where information and learning are ever present needs for all working people.

As steelworkers, we share information through training.

We teach our member who in turn teach other members.

It may be about technological change, job counseling for displaced workers, or how to be an effective participant in our democratic union.

Well, that worker, after coming off of a seminar, a weekend seminar, taking a basic stewards training, maybe an individual, a brother or a sister that didn't even really know what a union was all about until he was elected.

And he goes to that weekend seminar and he can walk in that following Monday morning, and he can talk to that foreman, and he's not afraid.

He realizes that he has rights, and his rights are to protect the rights of his members, and so that the education gives them that area of confidence as well as that area of expertise, because the steelworker have realized that the real push is in the members, and the more they're involved, the better we all get, and that's through education.

One thing I can say about steelworkers, they're really into education, and they want everybody to be organized.

And this helps a lot.

And we did organize with the steelworkers because the hospital wasn't treating us equally, but they still work a contract.

We do have a lot more job security than we had before.

I do feel like I'm a person now, and my advice to everybody is to organize.

You know, I used to come home and talk about everything bad about what was going on in the hospital, but I don't even have to do that anymore.

The union has taken care of a lot of that pressure off of my back.

[Music Plays] The United Steelworkers of America, we were formed out of six separate and distinct unions, each bringing a rich legacy, a diversity of work.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers born with America's industrial era.

The amalgamated came as a strong partner to the success of our steelworker organizing effort of 1936, the Aluminum Workers merger of 1944 united two major area of the metal industry, at a time when war production was a its peak for both organizations.

The aluminum workers added their strength and experience.

The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers brought the rich history of hard rock mining to the Steelworkers in 1967.

This merger with the mine mill meant unity in mining towns across North America.

The United Stone and Allied Product Workers of America joined in 1970, bringing the workers in the limestone and quarry mining industries under the umbrella of the Steelworkers.

District 50, Allied and Technical Workers was an arm of the United Mine Workers, who in 1936 brought the first leadership and organizing skills to the Steelworkers.

The merger with district 50 and 1972 continued this tradition.

The Posters International Union of North America, a more than century old tradition of trade unionis in the United States and Canada, came under the banner the United Steelworkers of America with this merger in 1985.

Together as one, we have celebrated our first half century as steelworkers.

I had is a limitless future in a democratic union where every member has a vote.

We have the success of democracy.

We have the strength of unity.

We are the people, the steelworkers.

Fought for unions in our country.

What will we have?

And I think if you if you're a I don't care what union it is, if you belong to it, participate in it.

It's it's only as strong as its membership.

But [Speaking Spanish] I can stand up in pride and say I'm a United Steelworker because I know they're standing for people, not just their members and all the people in this country.

I believe the union represents people and what you believe in, and if you believe in it, you should fight all the way.

And that's what the union does for us.

The steelworkers is hope, pride, love in the future.

You have seen an exciting piece of the history of the United Steelworkers of America returning to our guests.

Mary, earlier you address the issues of the new kinds of workers.

And at a time when organizing is so very important.

What do you feel the steelworkers are doing and plan to do to reach this new worker, to service this worker, and to bring them into the ranks of organized labor?

Our union has fought long and hard to make sure that our union members are given the basic rights and also human dignity in the workplace.

We are faced with a great challenge but it isn't for the first time.

We feel that our union could provide for those unorganized workers their fundamental rights, freedom and dignity in the workplace.

And the message we'd like to leave for those unorganized persons is.

Those concerns that they have are the same concerns that we have.

Jim, yours is a local union in basic steel that in fact seems to have stem the tide.

Your story is a story of success.

How did you get there?

And what are you doing?

What are you doing?

That's right.

Well, first, Lou, our local, was an original steelworkers organizing committee.

Local, and a charter member of the United Steelworkers.

So that gave us a great foundation to work from in a great history to follow.

Secondly, we we worked for an industry, especially steel industry, that is going well.

And we have a chairman that has Richard Simmons that has often said that we have to find ways to agree, not disagree.

Thirdly, we've been blessed with leadership, like Lynn Williams, president of the United Steelworkers, and District Director Tony Rinaldi, who provided us with education and with technical assistance to be able to administer a large local like ours.

And I think the most important part is the membership itself.

Our membership is always there t stand up strong for their union.

They're always there to stand up for when the community needs them by donating and pitching in.

But most of all, they're probably the hardest, most productive workers in the world.

And I think that is the great reason for our success.

Mary, to you, I address the opportunity to say some things, and I guess something that catches in my mind from the video was the phrase, a mighty voice that speaks for all workers.

What does that do for you?

I think unionism in unity speaks for all I say to all our listeners.

Organize the unorganized.

Jim, how do you arrive at securing from your local members a witnessing of the past history and some appreciation of the battles that were fought?

How do you bring this history back to them?

I don't know.

I think the steelworkers vide in the program we're doing today is one way to bring this back to our membership.

I would hope that our younger members would remember the struggles of our older members, and remember that nothing came without hard work and without dedication, without suffering.

And to remember that the only way to keep what they have is to with hard work, dedication and maybe suffering.

I want to thank our guests, Jim Seagriff, local union president, and Mary Moore from the International Department of the Steelworkers.

Labor's corner has brought you a piece of the history of the working people of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh.

I would invite our audience to tune in next week to watch our next presentation on double breasting in the construction trades, the problems that provides for unions.

Thank you.

You've been watching Labor's Corner, Pittsburgh's only program dedicated to bringing you the workers point of view next week, double breasting union busting or just plain good business?

For a look at the hottest issue facing the construction industry today, join us Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

on QEX channel 16.

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(♪) Solidarity Forever!

Solidarity Forever!

Solidarity forever!

The union makes us strong!

(♪♪) What do we want!

Jobs with Justice!

What do we want!

Jobs with Justice!

What do we want!

Jobs with Justice!

Who need unions?!

The workers The Workers!

Who needs benefits?!

The workers the workers!

Who needs healthcare?!

The workers the workers!

What do we want?

Justice!

Justice!

Who built America!

The workers, the workers!

What do we want?

Jobs with Justice!

What do we want?

Justice Justice!

What do we want?

Justice Justice!

Get the working man together.

Get them together in the organization.

It's the only way to operate.

It's the only way we got to fight and chance.

This edition of Labor's Corner has been underwritten by the Philip Murray Institute for Labor Studies of Community College of Allegheny County, the Union of Operating Engineers, and the Steam Fitters Union Local 449.