Philip Murray:Important
American,
Labor Leader,
hilip Murray was one of the most important American labor leaders of the twentieth century. He played a pivotal role in the creation of industrial unions as well as the utilization of federal government support in the growth of unions in the United States.
Born in Blantyre, Scotland, on May 25, 1886, Philip Murray was the eldest of thirteen children and began working in the mines at age 10. He immigrated to the United States with his father, also a miner, in 1902. Murrays long career as a union official began soon after. In 1905 he was elected president of his United Mine Workers of America Union (UMWA) local in Horning, Pennsylvania. In 1912 Murray was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the executive board of the UMWA and in 1916 he became president of UMWA District #5 in western Pennsylvania. Murrays advances in the UMWA and his early career as a labor leader were closely connected with the rise of John L. Lewis, president of the UMWA, and an AFL officer. Murray supported Lewiss rise to UMWA vice-president in 1917 and president in 1920. Soon after gaining the presidency Lewis appointed Murray, at age thirty-three, UMWA vice-president. Murray remained Lewiss faithful supporter until 1940.
Philip Murray was an early and ardent supporter of government involvement in labor relations. During World War I Murray served on the National Bituminous Coal Production Committee and on the Pennsylvania Regional War Labor Board. Both agencies were composed of labor, management, and government representatives, and sought to limit labor conflict through cooperation. After the war, government and business leaders had little interest in encouraging collective bargaining through cooperative organizations. Throughout the 1920s UMWA membership eroded as the mining industry became increasingly nonunion.
By the mid-1930s things improved. The National Labor Relations Act, or the Wagner Act, became law in 1935. This provided federal government support for collective bargaining. UMWA President John Lewis was a founding member of the CIO in 1935. Murray became a vice-president in the CIO and was chairman of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the steel industry one of the CIOs most important industrial targets. To the surprise of many, SWOC gained a contract with the stridently anti-union United States Steel in 1937. The Steelworkers Organizing Committee was renamed the United Steelworkers Union of America (USWA) in 1942 to indicate its position as a national union.
John L. Lewis voluntarily left the CIO presidency in 1940 and was succeeded by Philip Murray, and the long alliance between the two ended soon after. Though Lewis distrusted federal government involvement in labor relations, Murray vigorously supported it. Murrays support of federal government involvement proved advantageous during World War II. With the help of the federal government, nonunion steel companies finally signed contracts, as did other important nonunion employers in CIO organized industries. Murray introduced his own plan for establishing permanent industrial union councils, but this never materialized.
After World War II ended Murray continued as the president of both the CIO and USWA. The USWA president led successful national steel strikes in 1946 and 1949, but a difficult 1952 strike tested the aging labor leader. Although the USWA gained a satisfactory contract that year, the election of Dwight Eisenhower as president in 1952 ushered in a Republican federal administration. With this change, federal government support of collective bargaining had ended. In November 1952, within a week of the presidential election, Philip Murray died at age sixty-six.
