E. T. Weir, Employee Representation, and the Dimensions of Social Control: Weirton Steel. 1933-1937

Abstract

This article analyzes early New Deal-era anti-union strategies at Weirton Steel Company, a subsidiary of National Steel Corpora tion. After a massive Weirton Steel walkout for union recognition in 1933, National Steel chairman Ernest T. Weir moved to pre serve his autocratic control. One means he used was the Employee Representation Plan, one of hundreds of such plans formed by steel managers to circumvent the collective-bargaining provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The article addresses the flourishing of rank-and-file militancy at Weirton, the fragmenta tion of unionization efforts, Weir's successful challenge to the le gitimacy of the National Labor Board, and the pattern of coercion that drove the Steelworkers Organizing Committee from Weirton Steel in 1936-37. It concludes that the virtual monopoly of shop- floor and civic power exercised by Weir's corporation, combined with employee skepticism about the organizing committee's effi cacy and structure, made accommodation to company prerogatives an understandable course of action for Weirton workers.