Unionizing the Trinity Portland Cement Company in Dallas, Texas, 1934-1939

Abstract

1934-35, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration confronted a direct challenge to Section 7 (a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in Dallas, Texas. A local panel of the National Labor Relations Board established by the president through power given him by a congressional resolution in June 1934 ruled that the Trinity Portland Cement Company had to recognize the overwhelming desire of workers at the company's plant in Dallas to name Portland Cement Workers Union Number 1 93 1 o as their exclusive bargaining agent. Portland Cement Workers Union Number 193 10 was affiliated with the Texas State Federation of Labor (TSFL) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) . On December 10,1 934, however, the company notified the board that it refused to comply with the ruling.1 Although Trinity's workers had voted in favor of the union by a nearly unanimous margin of 150 to 2, company officials held out in defiance of the NIRA's labor provisions, hoping to retain their company union and reaffirm exclusive control over labor policies. Until January 1939, Trinity's workers battled an array of anti-union measures in an attempt to force the company to recognize their union and sign a collective bargaining agree-