Encyclopedia of american business history part 17 docx

443 U Union Pacific Railroad The railroad company that helped build the transcontinental link connecting the East and West Coasts in 1869. Impetus for creation of the company was given by Congress in the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, which authorized the building of a rail line by private carriers that would connect both coasts. Throughout its early history, the company was plagued by scandal as well as engineering success. The company that completed the massive building job was founded by Oakes Ames, Oliver Ames, and Thomas Durant. They invested some of their personal fortunes into an effort that was floundering until they became involved. They were charged with building the eastern link of the rail connection westward from Nebraska while the Central Pacific Railroad built the western link eastward from California. Both companies took over the job from earlier companies that had started building lines but never completed them. The building took six years and occupied more than 20,000 men, mostly immigrants from Europe and China. It became the most daunting engineering and construction project yet undertaken in the United States. One river, the Weber, had to be crossed 31 times. The two lines were connected at Promon- tory Point, Utah Territory, on May 10, 1869. The original trip from New York to San Francisco took 10 days. After the work was complete, the Crédit Mobilier scandal erupted concerning the financ- ing of the railway. In 1872, it was revealed that the construction firm that built the road, named after a French finance company and bank, had embezzled millions of dollars of government- provided funds, raising the cost of construction substantially. The result left the Union Pacific heavily in debt, and it was forced into BANK- RUPTCY in 1893, during a depression that also forced many other RAILROADS and businesses to close. Jay GOULD controlled the railroad until 1892, when he died, passing ownership to his son George. The company was resurrected as the Union Pacific Railroad Company by E. H. HARRI- MAN, who owned the Illinois Central at the time; others invested $110 million in the railroad in 1897, and it became a viable company again. In 1901, the railroad bought the stock of the Southern Pacific and merged it with its own operations. After Harriman’s death, UP was 444 United Automobile Workers forced to relinquish the Southern Pacific by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1913. In the 1920s and 1930s, the railroad began to diversify its holdings, first by opening the Sun Valley resort in Idaho in 1936 and then by moving into the trucking business. It also premiered the “City of Salina,” a high-speed diesel train that featured luxury dining and touring cars. In 1969, the Union Pacific Corporation was formed as a HOLDING COMPANY, and the railroad became one of its holdings. By 1971, the company effectively was out of the passenger business and concentrated exclusively on freight. In 1980, the Union Pacific, Missouri Pacific, and Western Pacific railroads filed merger appli- cations with the INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMIS- SION, and the consolidation was approved two years later. It also purchased other railroad companies, including the Chicago & North Western, which was completely absorbed in 1995. The company recorded $1 billion in revenues in 1999. Further reading Ambrose, Stephen E. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. Bain, David H. Empire Express: Building the First Conti- nental Railroad. New York: Viking, 1999. Davis, John P. The Union Pacific Railway: A Study in Railway Politics, Histor y, and Economics. Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1894. Klein, Maur y. Union Pacific: Birth of a Railroad, 1862–1893. New York: Doubleday, 1987. United Automobile Workers (UAW) Founded in the mid-1930s, the UAW challenged managerial prerogatives in automobile factories and would become one of the most powerful labor unions in the United States. The UAW was, in a way, a byproduct of mass production tech- niques pioneered by Henry FORD in the 1910s. By striving to make jobs simple and deskilled, Ford and other promoters of highly efficient production inadvertently helped create an enormous number of potential recruits to the industrial unions that formed during the Great Depression. During the Depression, auto production plum- meted from 5.3 million cars in 1929 to 1.3 million in 1932. Likewise, the number of autoworkers dropped during the same period from 450,000 to 250,000. Employment totals varied throughout the 1930s, however, and were actually on the upswing in 1936, when the UAW began to gain momentum. The UAW held its first convention in 1935 in Detroit as part of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which consisted mainly of craft unions for skilled workers. Historically, the AFL had not been enthusiastic about organizing the masses of unskilled production workers, who were mainly first- and second-generation Euro- pean immigrants and rural internal migrants from the Midwest, the upper South, and Canada. UAW activists envisioned a union that encom- passed all automobile workers, skilled and unskilled, but there was much competition in the early years for the allegiance of the work force. Many skilled workers remained reluctant to make common cause with unskilled employees, and there were disagreements about whether autoworker unions should be limited to individ- ual companies or should represent all workers in the industry. The most important factors in the rise of the UAW were the living and working conditions of unskilled autoworkers. Surprisingly, wages were not the workers’ main concern. Instead, the arbi- trary and often punitive power of foremen fig- ured most prominently in workers’ complaints. Foremen controlled hiring, firing, transfers, layoffs, rehiring, and even bathroom breaks. More than anything else, workers wanted job security, with hiring, layoffs, and transfers determined by seniority rights independent of a foreman’s whims. Workers also wanted input into the speed and content of their particular jobs. In response to extremely difficult market conditions during the Great Depression, automakers had increased the speed of production on assembly United Automobile Workers 445 lines and had demanded that workers meet higher production quotas. From the workers’ perspective, this quest for greater productivity had increased stress, fatigue, and the potential for injury to unacceptable levels. Workers wanted to be treated like human beings, not like purchased labor, but if they were to gain redress for any of these grievances they would have to impinge on what had traditionally been management’s domain. Adding to the complexity of the situation, a number of the UAW’s most effective organizers, such as Wyndham Mortimer and Bob Travis, were members of the Communist Party, which from 1936 to 1939 adopted a strategy of working with non-Communist, progressive constituen- cies in American political life. By virtually all accounts these Communist organizers worked tirelessly in the interests of autoworkers, and there is little evidence to suggest that many of these workers desired the overthrow of power relations in the workplace or in the larger society. Nevertheless, the presence of Communists in the UAW helped auto companies and other antiunion forces argue that the union was un-American and was not acting in the best interests of its potential members. The UAW, however, including Communists, argued in response that they had federal law on their side. In 1935, President Roosevelt had signed the N ATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT (NLRA, also called the Wagner Act after its chief sponsor, Senator Robert Wagner from New York), which guaranteed the right of workers to organize into unions without interference from employers. But few employers obeyed the law. Certain that the NLRA would be declared uncon- stitutional by the Supreme Court, major automakers continued to fire anyone suspected of harboring union sympathies. In response, the UAW embraced a strategy, the “sit-down” strike, designed to fight lawbreaking with lawbreaking. By sitting down in factories and refusing to leave until demands were met, workers violated tres- passing laws but also prevented management from using its regular arsenal of strike breaking tactics. It was impossible to maintain production with strike breakers when plants were occupied—physically attacking sit-down strikers would likely result in enormous damage to machinery. Led by Mortimer and Travis, the UAW used this tactic effectively in Flint, Michigan, during the winter of 1936–37. At least 80 percent of Flint citizens relied on GENERAL MOTORS for their liveli- hoods, but until the sit-down strike, which began on December 30, 1936, only a few workers had been willing to risk their jobs and associate openly with the UAW. By February 11, 1937, however, after groups of committed workers suc- cessfully shut down production of Chevrolet and GM suffered significant loss of profits and market share, the corporation was forced to recognize the union. Immediately, thousands of GM employees shook off their fear and joined the UAW. Within weeks, Chrysler capitulated to unionization with only mild resistance, while Ford continued to fire thousands of workers annually for union activity. Indeed, in 1937 Ford security personnel administered a bloody beating to four UAW officials, including future UAW president Walter REUTHER, outside the River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Despite widely publicized photographs of the attack, Ford violated the National Labor Relations Act with impunity until 1941, when it was finally forced to recognize the union. The UAW also worked, with mixed success, to organize employees at the hundreds of parts suppliers, largely in the Midwest, that were vital to the auto industry. The UAW’s first contracts with GM and Chrysler were slender and not very specific, guaranteeing mainly that the union would be the sole bargaining agent for employees, that seniority would determine layoffs and rehiring, and that multistep grievance procedures would be used to resolve disagreements. It remained to be seen whether any of these provisions would help resolve workers’ grievances. Having a voice at all, however, was enough to increase dues-paying 446 United Automobile Workers membership in the UAW to 220,000 by Septem- ber 1936. That number rose to 375,000 by August 1937. Within a year, however, the UAW barely existed. Auto production slumped from 4 million in 1937 to 2 million in 1938. The auto work force, hence union membership, dropped accordingly. By mid-1938, the UAW had only 90,000 dues-paying members, and by early 1939, only 500 members in good standing remained in Flint. Bitter disagreements within the UAW leadership, often about the role of Communists, also weakened the union, while automakers cracked down on workers who, unwilling to wait for grievance procedures to run their course, engaged in unauthorized “wildcat” strikes. To many, it looked like the union might disappear. World War II saved the UAW. Long before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, wartime production had begun to revive the nation’s economy. The war economy eventually created virtually full employment and allowed the UAW to reassert itself as the sole bargaining agent for autoworkers. By mid-1940, the UAW had contracts covering more than 410,000 workers. UAW membership surpassed 1 million by 1945, including large numbers of women and African Americans who entered the industrial work force during the war, as well as many workers in the aerospace and farm implement industries. During the war, UAW leadership emphasized the patriotism of its 250,000 members serving in the armed forces and its production workers turn- ing out war materiel. At the federal government’s urging, the union signed a no-strike pledge for the duration of the war in return for the automatic check-off of union dues and a “maintenance of membership” clause designed to guarantee a strong union presence in defense plants. UAW leaders also argued that since the government placed ceilings on workers’ wages, it should also limit corporate profits and businessmen’s salaries. Although union officials were never convinced that businessmen and corporations sacrificed equally with labor, the UAW supported the con- tinuation of a government-business-labor partnership in organizing the American economy after the war. UAW leaders hoped to avoid any postwar recession, like the one that followed World War I, and they hoped that the labor movement would have a formal, permanent voice in postwar economic affairs. Those dreams did not materialize. Auto companies strongly opposed postwar government control of the economy, especially in partnership with the labor movement, and in the emerging cold war any plan with even a hint of central planning had little chance of survival. The UAW’s GM director, Walter Reuther, launched a show- down with GM in late 1945, demanding a 30 percent wage increase to compensate for wartime inflation while challenging GM not to raise the prices of its automobiles and to open its financial records if the corporation claimed that it could not afford to do so. In this strike, GM held the line against having to share financial information with the union and escaped with having to pay far less than the 30 percent wage increase. All the UAW could hope to gain in the future, it seemed, was increased wages and benefits from automakers. In the postwar boom, this often seemed pos- sible. Profits in the auto industry soared, and wages rose dramatically. In addition, in the early postwar years GM offered an Annual Improve- ment Factor (AIF) and an annual Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) to allow workers’ incomes to rise with productivity and not be eroded by inflation. Ford and Chrysler followed suit. During the 1950s, the UAW negotiated health benefits for its members, as well as Supplemental Unemploy- ment Benefits that protected workers against financial ruin during layoffs and increased the incentive for companies to maintain high employment. The UAW sought federally funded pensions, unemployment insurance, and health benefits. The union thought the Big Three would support this expanded federal role because government responsibility would substantially reduce the automakers’ financial commitments. GM, Ford, and Chrysler, however, feared an United Fruit Company 447 increasing role for government in the economy and supported company-paid benefits instead. This private commitment would vex manage- ments in later decades when large numbers of autoworkers retired under UAW contracts and continued to expect their benefits. (In 2003 contract negotiations, for example, the UAW bar- gained for about 300,000 active autoworkers and more than 500,000 retirees.) In order to bargain with large auto companies and monitor the expanding details of contracts, the UAW became highly centralized, depending more on skilled attorneys than shop-floor activists. Coupled with the influx of new employees after the war who had no experience working without a union and might have taken their working conditions for granted, the crusading, reform- ing spirit of the early UAW seemed to wane. A number of union critics argued that the UAW too often appeared to side with management in oppo- sition to the interests of its members. Still, throughout the 1960s the union appeared to have achieved many of its early goals—workers had far more job security than in the 1930s, they had some input over the speed and content of their jobs (although line speed and safety grievances increased in the 1960s), and they were buffered from the wildest swings of the economy. But that was true only for those whose jobs continued to exist. Automation in the 1950s elimi- nated thousands of jobs, mainly the dirtiest and hardest positions that had generally been rele- gated to African Americans. Moreover, plant relo- cations began in the 1950s, moving many auto jobs away from Detroit and to the suburbs, to rural areas in the Midwest, and to the South. Union membership remained between 1.1 and 1.5 million until the late 1960s, but in future decades the union’s inability to control the placement of factories would decimate its membership, just like job losses had devastated the city of Detroit. In addition to plant relocation, foreign competition began making inroads into the U.S. auto market. As early as 1959, foreign cars constituted 10 percent of domestic sales. European and Japanese competition would intensify after the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, when the large, “gas guz- zling” cars produced by GM, Ford, and Chrysler fell out of favor. By 1980, Detroit factories were producing only half of what they had in the mid- 1970s, and the UAW accepted wage concessions to help survive the crisis. Working with management, however, did not guarantee any favors in the future. Eventually, the UAW lost members as American auto companies transferred much work to new factories outside the United States, often in Mexico. Meanwhile, foreign car companies began building factories in the United States and managed to stave off organizing efforts by the UAW, generally by offering UAW-style wages and benefits to their workforces. Although some argue that the UAW priced the labor of its members out of the global auto manufacturing market, it is unclear what the long-term ramifications will be from the decline in unionized manufacturing jobs in the United States. After all, by increasing the purchas- ing power of its members, the UAW was central to post-WWII American economic prosperity. Further reading Asher, Robert, and Ronald Edsforth, eds. Autowork. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Barnar d, John. American Vanguard: The United Auto Workers during the Reuther Years, 1935–1970. Detroit: W ayne State University Press, 2003. Boyle, Kevin. The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni- versity Pr ess, 1995. Chinoy, Ely. Automobile Workers and the American Dream. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Serrin, W illiam. The Company and the Union. New Y ork: Knopf, 1970. Daniel J. Clark United Fruit Company Boston-based banana producing and marketing company. In 1870, Captain Lorenzo Dow Baker made an experimen- tal import with bananas he bought in Jamaica for 448 United Fruit Company a shilling and sold in Jersey City for $2 a bunch. After this success, Baker joined Bostonian entrepreneur Andrew Preston and created the Boston Fruit Company. This company owned a large fleet of steamships that, with time, became the largest private fleet in the world—the Great White Fleet. In 1899, another Bostonian entrepreneur, Minor C. Keith, approached Preston and Baker and proposed to merge their company with his business. Keith had built railways in Central America and Colombia, owned lands in those countries, and was also involved in the banana export business. They agreed, and on March 30, 1899, the United Fruit Company was born. The new company had Preston as president and Keith as vice president. Keith had his railroad network and plantations in Central Amer- ica, plus the market in the U.S. Southeast, and Preston grew bananas in the West Indies, ran the Great White Fleet, and sold to the U.S. North- east. As the company grew, Keith continued with his railroad projects in Central America. United Fruit needed to assure a steady output of bananas to its consumer market in the United States. This was a difficult task because bananas, contrary to other goods, rot quickly. Given that they could not be produced in the consumer markets, the company developed an impressive production and distribution network between the tropical lands in the Caribbean and the United States. This included plantations (with health and housing infrastructure), railways, ports, telegraph lines, and steamships. In 1900, United Fruit owned 212,394 acres of land, while in 1954 it owned 603,111 acres scat- tered in Central America and the Caribbean. The company also established the Fruit Dispatch Company, a subsidiary in charge of distributing bananas in the United States. United Fruit was a major shareholder of the Hamburg Line, a Ger- man shipping company, and also bought 85 percent of the shares of the British banana import and shipping company Elders & Fyffes, with which United Fruit assured itself a privileged position in the British market. By 1928, United Fruit had bought 99 percent of Elders & Fyffes shares. In 1913, the company also created the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company to keep in constant communication with its ships and plantations. Finally, United Fruit quickly elimi- nated its smaller competitors such as the Atlantic Fruit Company and Cuyamel Fruit Company. The company’s expansion was facilitated by a business-friendly environment in Central America. Before World War II, United Fruit counted on dic- tatorships that repressed labor unionism and gave generous concessions in terms of land grants and tax incentives. In some of these countries, United Fruit was the major employer, was the largest investor in infrastructure, and was permitted the international marketing of the country’s main export. Countries such as Guatemala, Panama, and Honduras depended on bananas for more than 60 percent of their total exports. Because of this, the local governments encouraged the company’s operations in their national territories. After World War II, the company faced serious threats that obliged it to change its internal structure from a producing company to a marketing one. The rise of nationalistic governments and stronger labor unionism in Latin America made its investments in the region riskier. In 1954, when Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz attempted to expropriate some of the company’s lands, the Honduran banana workers went on the biggest strike in that country’s history, and the U.S. government sued the company for failing to comply with antitrust legislation. These events made United Fruit’s shareholders think that land ownership in Central America increased the company’s risks, so in the 1960s the company gradually got rid of its plantations and RAILROADS and concentrated its efforts in the international marketing of bananas. With demand for bananas decreasing in the U.S. market after the 1950s, United Fruit diversi- fied its operations to processed food in the 1960s. This transformation went further when the company merged with AMK Corporation and United Mine Workers of America 449 created a food conglomerate in 1970 called United Brands Company. In 1989, this conglomerate changed its name to Chiquita Brands Inter- national, Inc. Further reading Adams, Frederick U. The Conquest of the Tropics: The Story of the Creative Enterprises Conducted by the United Fruit Company. Garden City, N.Y.: Double- day Page, 1914. May, Stacy , and Galo Plaza. United States Business Per- formance Abr oad: The Case Study of the United Fruit Company in Latin America. Washington, D.C.: National Planning Association, 1958. Mar celo Bucheli United Mine Workers of America Amer- ica’s mid-19th-century coal industry depended heavily on skillful immigrant colliers from the British Isles. Proud of their mining knowledge and skills, these British immigrants also brought a tradition of craft associations and proved to be a motivating force behind the formation of miners’ unions in the United States. The first British miners thought of themselves as craftsmen with a role equal to that of owners, but the growth of modern capitalism had intensified the separation between capital and labor. Labor constituted the major expense of mine operations, and, conse- quently, owners tended to reduce wages in an effort to remain competitive in the volatile coal market. Potential union leaders soon realized the need to abandon the craft association ideology for industrial unionism. Mine operators, embroiled in a fiercely competitive market and fearful that unionization might limit their ability to survive, developed methods of resistance that character- ized the industry’s antiunion efforts well into the 20th century: operator associations, private police, “blacklisting” of unionists, and legal actions based on the right to control and manage private property. Despite intense operator resistance, miners experienced an expanding collective conscious- ness during the 1880s. Yet rivalry continued among two associations, the National Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers and the National Trades Assembly No. 135 of the Knights of Labor. Attempting to end dual unionism, the two groups met at Columbus, Ohio, in 1888 and organized the National Progressive Union of Miners and Mine Laborers (NPU). But rivalry continued, and in January of 1890, again in Columbus, a conference reorganized the NPU into the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), with an American Federation of Labor industrial union charter. The new union hoped to resolve such issues as fluctuating wages, payment in company scrip, and private police forces that regulated everyday life, but also realized the need to assist operators in stabilizing a highly competitive market. Coal suffered from overproduction and intense price competition between regions. Wages constituted about 70 percent of production costs, and miners often suffered from market instability. Unfortu- nately, the economic downturn of the early 1890s led to wage cuts and strikes that nearly bank- rupted the fledgling UMWA. Union efforts rebounded with fiscal recovery and led to the first major success. In 1898, operators of the Central Competitive Field (western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) met jointly with the union and signed the Central Competitive Agreement. This “Interstate Agree- ment” gave miners an eight-hour day and standard wage rate, and the victory helped the UMWA expand membership from 33,000 in 1898 to a quarter-million in 1903. With this success, union president John Mitchell next decided to organize the anthracite coalfields of western Pennsylvania; the subsequent 1902 strike precip- itated a national crisis. A five-month deadlock led to shortages and higher coal prices, resulting in President Theodore Roosevelt’s first-ever federal intervention in coal’s labor conflicts. The 1902 anthracite strike opened the market for “smokeless” bituminous coal from nonunion areas. Mining expanded rapidly outside the 450 United Mine Workers of America Central Competitive Field, and operators in the newly opened areas embraced severe antiunion measures. In the first two decades of the 20th century, UMWA strength and resources proved unequal to private police and operator use of state-vested authority. This was particularly true in West Virginia and Colorado and led to the killing of unarmed workers in episodes at Holly Grove and Ludlow. Attempts at unionization produced two major mine “wars” in West Virginia, but the UMWA still failed to make progress outside the Central Competitive Field. Workers patriotically honored a “no-strike” pledge during the production upswing of World War I. Federal mobilization efforts had standardized wages and addressed some worker grievances under the Washington Agreement. Officials declared the compact binding until 1920, but miners complained about increased operator profits while inflation devoured wages. Postwar employers immediately attempted to protect profit increases by maintaining fixed wages, invalidating union recognition, and abol- ishing the right of collective bargaining. Owners refused to negotiate, and a widespread strike crippled the industry in 1919. Miners vehe- mently complained that national authorities had abandoned forcing companies to abide by coal prices or labor rules, but instead were using wartime legalities to impose a comprehensive injunction on workers. Colliers ignored the injunction despite claims that Bolsheviks financed the strike, and President Woodrow Wil- son ordered a temporary 14 percent wage increase and appointed an investigative Bituminous Coal Commission to direct a final settlement. Unionism held the promise of stabilizing the industry by encouraging corresponding operator associations, but these groups varied in pur- pose—some to facilitate bargaining with the UMWA, others to prevent unionization. With the latter increasing in the 1920s, the UMWA entered a period of decline. Overproduction, cut- throat competition, and the development of other fuel sources blended with expanding anti- unionism to make the miners’ union ineffective by the end of the decade. John L. LEWIS, the most famous UMWA president, assumed leadership during this period. Elected in 1920, Lewis pledged to accept no reduction of past union gains and, in the Jack- sonville Agreement of 1924, convinced the Cen- tral Field producers to maintain the base wage rate. These high wages encouraged the growth of nonunion mines elsewhere, which placed the Central Field at a competitive disadvantage. Fed- eral attempts at stabilization failed when postwar operator unity declined, and entrepreneurs revived resistance to governmental interference. When Lewis rejected wage concessions, operators nullified the 1924 agreement and began a largely successful open-shop campaign. The shrinking UMWA seemed powerless in an overdeveloped coal industry. Coal companies, particularly in the South, continued to control workers through traditional methods, and governmental actions bolstered these antiunion efforts. Federal troops arrived to suppress major strikes, and court injunctions impeded organizing campaigns. Reckless competition intensified in an industry roughly divided between the northern fields and southern Appalachia. In this era of union decline, Lewis ignored UMWA ethics and moved aggressively to central- ize power in the international office. From the outset, the UMWA had based its administration on democratic principles. Local chapters elected delegates who voiced the concerns and opinions of rank-and-file members at district and national conventions. Lewis made himself a virtual auto- crat as he intimidated, discredited, and purged dissenters. He hoped that a similar autocracy might develop among the coal operators and result in industry-wide contract bargaining and a standardized wage scale. Lewis’s domineering practices, the long period of RECESSION, and company antiunion methods contributed to a resurgence of organiza- tional spirit in the 1930s. Rank-and-file militancy manifested itself in 1931 and 1932, when United Mine Workers of America 451 the upstart National Miners Union led strikes in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and wildcat walkouts occurred in southern Illinois. Lewis capitalized on the new militancy to both solidify his leadership and expand the union. In June 1933, Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act further fueled the movement, and the UMWA quickly organized more than 90 percent of the coalfields, including the historically violent antiunion operations of West Virginia. Unionization of the notoriously antiunion captive mines, those who sold only to a parent company in such industries as steel, provided a needed victory. Organizing the STEEL INDUSTRY could protect these newly established locals, and Lewis again recognized labor’s militancy and advocated the organization of mass production industries. When the AFL ignored the movement, Lewis established the Congress of Indus- trial Organizations (CIO) in 1938. UMWA human and financial resources supported the efforts that brought unionization to thousands of the nation’s mass production laborers. The UMWA left the CIO when Lewis fulfilled his pledge to resign from the CIO presidency if Roo- sevelt won reelection in 1940. Coal boomed during World War II, but Lewis ignored the wartime no-strike pledges of other labor leaders. Two strikes won significant gains but damaged the public image of organized labor. After the war, the UMWA demanded an end to the often substandard health care associated with “company” medical services. Thousands of miners lay disabled, and postwar strikes won a welfare and retirement fund financed by tonnage royalties. In time, the funds paid benefits to millions of miners and their families and subsidized the building of 10 miners’ hospitals in the mid-1950s. Postwar technological innovations enabled coal’s customers to turn to other fuels. Lewis had long believed that mechanization coupled with comprehensive unionization provided a solution for the unstable market; labor organization equalized wages, and increased tonnage might competitively eliminate less-efficient operations. By 1950, the Bituminous Coal Operators Associ- ation (BCOA) concurred and settled a new contract that established nationwide bargaining and promoted automation. Subsequent technological unemployment reduced the number of miners from 416,000 to 130,000 by the mid-1960s. A significant era of labor history ended when Lewis resigned the presidency in 1960, passing the reigns of leadership to the ill and elderly Thomas Kennedy. W. A. (Tony) Boyle actually controlled the union during Kennedy’s short administration. Boyle assumed the presidency in 1963 and attempted to wield the power established by Lewis, but Boyle had neither the per- sonality nor political skills of Lewis. America had entered an era of grassroots movements moti- vated by a distrust of vested authority, and Boyle’s tactics and a perceived disregard for miners aroused serious rank-and-file disapproval. Boyle tried to continue the Lewis-established BCOA- UMWA partnership, but unemployment, company flexibility in layoffs, and tendencies to cut financial support to widows and disabled miners energized a trend to revive union democracy. Boyle’s company-friendly attitude at the Farm- ington, West Virginia, mine disaster in 1968 seemed to validate suspicions of corruption. Grassroots reformers lobbied for the federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 as well as black lung compensation. Joseph A. (Jock) Yablonski represented the reformers in an unsuccessful attempt to oust Boyle in 1969. A few weeks later, rumors of election corruption escalated when assassins mur- dered Yablonski and his family. Reform efforts intensified, and dissenters formally organized as the Miners for Democracy (MFD) in 1972. A federal court convicted Boyle of illegal political con- tributions, and a judge abrogated the 1969 election. Arnold Miller of the MFD won the presidency in 1972 on a pledge to restore union democracy. In 1974, Boyle received a murder conviction for ordering the Yablonski killings. Miller’s administration fell short of reform expectations. The militant spirit of the era and a 452 U.S. Steel Corp. return to local union autonomy contributed to a rash of wildcat strikes in the 1970s. Miners lost faith in Miller, particularly after the 111-day 1977–78 contract strike. An oversupplied market gave coal consumers the upper hand in disputes, and conservative president Sam Church attempted to reestablish the industry-labor accord of the later Lewis years. An expansion of nonunion mining and use of western strip-mined coal had weakened UMWA bargaining power, but miners felt betrayed by the Church administration’s 1981 contract proposal. In 1982, intelligent miner-turned-lawyer Richard Trumka accused the union leadership of reactionary policies, and he won election to the presidency. Trumka’s administration returned miners’ faith in their leadership and restored order to the union’s democratic process. A more sophis- ticated approach broke from tradition with innovations such as selective strikes and pro- grams to raise public awareness of labor issues. This became particularly important in 1989, when the Pittston Company withdrew from the BCOA. Increasing health costs and the rising number of retirees led Pittston to rescind its obligation to the funds, and the resulting 10- month strike witnessed the adoption of new labor tactics such as mass civil disobedience. Facing a determined corporate effort, right-to- work law, and replacement workers, the union nurtured a community-based resistance that garnered an acceptable contract. In 1989, the UMWA reentered the AFL-CIO, and in 1995 Trumka became secretary-treasurer of that organization. Today the president of the 110,000-member UMWA is Cecil Roberts, whose strategies and coordination contributed much to the successful campaign against Pittston. While the union continues to represent the interests of American coal miners, it has also entered the arena of international labor issues. Further reading Fox, Maier B. United We Stand: The United Mine Work- ers of America, 1890–1990. Washington, D.C.: United Mine W orkers of America, 1990. Laslett, John H. M., ed. The United Mine Workers of America: A Model of Industrial Solidarity? University Park: Pennsylvania State University Pr ess, 1996. Seltzer, Curtis. Fire in the Hole: Miners and Managers in the American Coal Industr y. Lexington: University Pr ess of Kentucky, 1985. Paul H. Rakes U.S. Steel Corp. A company created by J. P. Morgan and Elbert GARY after Morgan acquired Carnegie Steel for almost $500 million in 1901. Carnegie Steel was merged with the Federated Steel Co., founded in 1898, and several other companies to form the largest company in the world. It was the first company with a balance sheet valued at more than $1 billion, and its ini- tial market capitalization stood at $1.4 billion. When it was first formed, the company was responsible for an explosive rally on Wall Street, followed by a sharp drop in the market index. Immediately after being founded, the company accounted for almost two-thirds of U.S. steel production. Its first president was Charles M. SCHWAB, who left after two years to run Bethle- hem Steel. Despite its size and potential for market domination, the company was loosely run and did not dominate the market as originally feared. The company boasted 170 subsidiaries and net earnings in its first year of operation of $108 million. It employed more than 160,000 workers. When first formed it accounted for 62 percent of domestically produced steel, but the numbers began to fall, to 52 percent during World War I and 46 percent in the 1920s. U.S. Steel was sued by the government for antitrust violations in 1912. The case was not settled until 1920, when the Supreme Court ruled that U.S. Steel no longer had a monopoly. The war years were among some of its most prof- itable. Free of antitrust problems, the company prospered in the 1920s as it had during World War I. Along with other “smokestack” stocks, “Big Steel” became known as one of the country’s “wheelhorse” industries, being emblematic of American industrial production. During the stock market crash of 1929, New York Stock [...]... recognized as one of the top three business schools in the country, offering a range of specializations not found in most schools In 1988, it became the first American business school to establish representative offices overseas, marking the beginning 473 of overseas affiliations for the top American schools in general and recognition of the increasingly global nature of business education In 2000, it... history books, the prosperity of America is strictly man made.” Bird’s Enterprising Women was the first serious study of women in business in a generation and a harbinger of what has become a sustained exploration of women and gender in American business history While research in this field is ongoing, a number of general trends are becoming clear Whereas men took the reins of power in the railroad, steel,... infused an ethic of public service into the definition of business success They met gendered proscriptions against going into business with new prescriptions that valued “independent womanhood” as a mark of female success The study of women in American business is pushing historians to move beyond narrow considerations of leadership to reexamine the forces driving economic change The expansion of 19thcentury... the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in December of that year Finally, the statute had failed to outlaw the possession of alcoholic beverages, especially disappointing some Prohibition advocates, most notably Wayne B Wheeler, in charge of the legal department of the Anti-Saloon League of America Thus, under Prohibition, private owners of alcoholic beverages purchased before the imposition of Prohibition... chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, an essential position within the government Volcker assumed office at a difficult time in American financial history Carter’s handling of the economy resulted in double-digit inflation, while the value of the dollar spiraled downward Volcker, as head of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), decided to invoke draconian measures to rein inflation back Instead of controlling... was one of the rare instances in which the government entered the industrial sector to provide a service usually 454 utilities Edison electric plant, Detroit, Michigan, ca 1900 (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) delivered on the local level and has been cited as one of the accomplishments of the NEW DEAL As a result of the debate over ownership of utilities and the relationship of Wall Street with many of the holding... certain percentage of profits into ongoing research and development projects to maintain his competitive edge All told, the IBM management style was a unique blend of paternalism, obedience, and imagination in equal measures It gave the company unmatched intellectual vitality and rendered it one of the most influential companies in business history In fact, Watson’s near domination of the business machine... with Mary Katherine Goddard (173 8–1816) to print the first signed copy of the Declaration of Independence Goddard, publisher of Baltimore’s leading newspaper, the Maryland Journal, was a logical choice for this important and dangerous job Like many women of her time, Goddard learned women in American business this traditionally male craft as an assistant in the family business, in this case her brother... business success by the wealth or power they amassed, we might do better to measure success against the alternative of failure Businesswomen often eked out a poor living that managed, through dint of hard work and perseverance, to keep them and their children off the poor rolls Rachel Draper, widowed with two small children in the years leading up to the American Revolution, typified the colonial businesswoman... School The business school of the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton was established in 1881 through a $100,000 gift from Joseph Wharton (1826–1909), an industrialist who later donated more money to ensure the school’s success Wharton wrote the university asking it to create a business school to prepare young men for the rigors of the industrial economy It was the first collegiate school of business . as part of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which consisted mainly of craft unions for skilled workers. Historically, the AFL had not been enthusiastic about organizing the masses of unskilled. the ownership of electric companies became one of the major public policy issues of the 1920s. By the latter part of the decade, several larger utility holding companies controlled almost 50 percent of. Wheeler, in charge of the legal department of the Anti-Saloon League of America. Thus, under Prohibition, private owners of alcoholic beverages purchased before the imposition of Prohibition continued legally

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