Asserting Their Voice: A Brief History of Independent Steelworker Retiree Clubs and the United Steelworkers of America, 1946 to 1990

Abstract

Asserting Their VoiceA Brief History of Independent Steelworker Retiree Clubs and the United Steelworkers of America, 1946 to 1990 Henry Himes (bio) At the close of World War II, employers in the immediate postwar era worked to advance their political power at all levels of government. Business leaders developed a host of strategies to promote the virtues of free enterprise, and they vigorously pushed to reassert their “right to manage” in workplaces throughout the nation. Thus, to advance the immediate economic and long-term security needs of active workers and retirees within the new postwar order, the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), like many other Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) unions, came to rely heavily on their economic power as manifested through collective bargaining and labor’s right to strike, even as labor looked to strengthen its political power through organizing drives and the CIO-Political Action Committee (PAC).1 These postwar realities were at the heart of the USWA’s decision to secure pensions and social insurance through collective bargaining starting in the late 1940s, especially after the inability of labor to pressure lawmakers to pass comprehensive public healthcare as found in the World War II–era Wagner-Murray-Dingell [End Page 78] Bill.2 Moreover, the USWA’s decision to bargain for security was heavily influenced by a retiree crisis beginning in 1946. In that year, Inland Steel, and many other steel firms to include US Steel, began arbitrarily retiring steelworkers at age 65, ultimately dismissing them without a company pension or with a pension that did not provide subsistence level income. The only means of subsistence for these retirees was Social Security, which at that time had failed to keep pace with inflation, leaving many retirees in a state of poverty and reliant on their children or their extended family to make ends meet. It was within this postwar retiree crisis that we see the first efforts of retired steelworkers to organize in an attempt to better their condition. The result of their organizational efforts during World War II and the immediate postwar era were short-lived retiree organizations called “65-Clubs.” Although little documentation exists on these clubs, the sources that are available show that 65-Clubs fought against the practice of forced retirements and actively encouraged the union in its bid to bargain for security in 1949. Although the 65-Clubs supported and backed their former union, the unsettling fact remained that retired steelworkers were no longer dues-paying members of the union, and the USWA constitution did not provide any formal recognition of steelworker retiree associations. Thus, the development of independent retiree clubs such as the 65-Clubs raised some unsettling questions for both union leaders and retirees. For instance, how would union leaders represent the interests of retirees who, upon retirement, lost their rights as “industrial citizens” in the union? Would independent organizations be a threat or a liability to the union? How would retirees be represented and find a voice within the union over matters such as pensions and healthcare if they were not formally recognized? For the 65-Clubs, the issue of formal representation in the late 1940s was not yet a driving concern. The 65-Clubs advocated for stronger retirement security, which the USWA delivered to them via collective bargaining in 1949 and beyond. The issue of independent retiree organizations and formal representation within the union receded throughout the postwar “affluent era” due to a strong economy, rising living standards, contractual pensions, and healthcare—as well as various forms of public welfare protection.3 However, [End Page 79] as the economy transformed and slowed in the 1970s and 1980s, the unresolved legal relationship between retired union members and their independent organizations vis-à-vis the USWA reemerged as corporate decline and bankruptcy threatened to undermine the private security system built at the bargaining table from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s. Beginning in the 1970s, conflicts between the USWA and independent retiree clubs began to emerge; however, conflicts within industrial unions were not just confined to retirees nor the USWA. Many industrial unions in the 1960s and 1970s experienced a host of rank-and-file revolts as industrial union...