Mergers Boost Steelworkers Membership Union Trying To Expand Rolls Quickly Through Consolidation
The United Steelworkers of America, its ranks more than halved by steel industry layoffs in the 1980s, is moving to boost its membership the fast way, through mergers.
The union added about 90,000 members by joining up with the United Rubber Workers on July 1. Its planned merger with the United Auto Workers and the Machinists unions will swell the ranks of the labor organization to about 2 million active workers.
Slightly more than 2,000 workers at Kaiser Aluminum’s two Spokane plants and many of the workers at Northwest mines are represented by the Steelworkers union.
Jim Swartz, 42, who mixes paint at specialty steel maker Allegheny Ludlum Corp.’s plant in Bagdad, Pa., welcomed the move.
“We’ve got to get more members,” he said. “Ever since they started cutting the hell out of the steel mills in the 1980s, we’ve lost a lot of members.”
Membership had risen to 1.2 million by 1981, but plunged to about 540,000 in early 1983. The union had about 610,000 members before the Rubber Workers merger pushed the total to 700,000.
Union officials said the merger, announced Thursday morning, would give all three unions more clout.
But Bob Crandall, an economist and steel industry expert with the Washington-based Brookings Institute, predicted that the merger will be of little benefit. He said merging will allow the three unions to reduce their operating costs slightly by combining their managements, but questioned whether it will add greatly to their power.
Crandall said a prolonged strike against both the steel and auto industries - the union’s ultimate weapon - would not be to the workers’ benefit given the competition both industries face from overseas.
He pointed out that the trend in the steel industry is away from integrated steel mills, which are heavily unionized, toward new minimills that resist union organizing.
“I just think they’re in an impossible situation,” Crandall said.
xxxx STEELWORKERS PROFILE Facts about the United Steelworkers union: Membership: Current: 700,000. Peak: 1.2 million, in 1981. Recent Low: 540,000, in 1983. Industries in which it represents workers: Steel, rubber, plastic, chemicals, nickel, copper and aluminum refining, health care. Union wage: Ranges from the minimum wage at some companies where the union has yet to negotiate a contract to $15 to $16 an hour.