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Key words from Industry |
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| Steel- A hard, strong metal made from iron and carbon. |
Automation- The use of automatic machines to do work. Automation makes producing goods easier, less expensive, and faster. |
| Alloy- A metal made by combining two or more metal elements to give greater strength. |
Port- A place where boats and ships can dock, load and unload goods or cargo. |
| Mass production- Producing large amounts of goods or products using machines and other automatic equipment. |
Smelt- To separate metal from the rock or other materials that are joined to it when it is mined. |
| Sheet Steel- Steel that has been formed into a flat shaped by pressing or rolling it using heavy pressure and heat. Sheet steel is used in large amounts in the automotive industry. |
Steel mill- A factory where steel is processed for use in manufacturing. These mills perform many different tasks. These include refining Iron into Steel, making Steel stronger by adding Carbon, forming the Steel into shapes, or making steel into a final product. |
| Manual operation- To do tasks by hand. |
Hot mill- In a rolled-steel mill like the Newton Steel mill in Monroe, this was the area in the mill where heated bars of raw steel were taken from a furnace and rolled back and forth repeatedly under heavy pressure, reheated, then re-rolled until they had the desired thickness. |
| Automotive Industry- All companies and factories that help produce cars, trucks, and other road vehicles are part of the Automotive Industry. |
Hand-rolled steel process- A way of shaping steel into sheets using manual equipment. Shaping Steel in this way required many workers. |
| Machine-rolled steel process- A newer way of shaping steel into sheets that used machines powered by electricity or other automatic equipment. |
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| Key words from organized labor | |
| Employer- A company, group of people or person that a worker does work for in exchange for money. |
Union- A group of workers that join together to protect their rights, standards of work and standard of living. |
| Collective bargaining- Negotiating wages and other work conditions by a union or group of employees. |
Lockout- Preventing workers from doing their jobs until they agree to their employer’s terms. |
| Picket- A public protest by workers about their work conditions usually held outside of their workplace. Signs and pamphlets are often handed out stating their concerns. |
Strike- A group protest where workers refuse to work in order to gain goals. Often these goals were increased wages, fair treatment, and safer work conditions. |
| Wages- The amount of money or other benefits a worker receives for doing work for their employer. |
Work conditions- All of the factors involved when working for an employer. These include wages, safety at work, the amount of work done per week, fair treatment, and any other things that impact the worker. |
| Advocate- To publicly support and encourage others to support a cause or person. |
The New Deal- A series of government programs from 1933 to 1937 to aid financial recovery during the Great Depression and reform the free market financial system by allowing government intervention. |
| Labor Organizations | |
| SWA- (Steel Workers Association.) A company union that was formed by Newton Steel. Newton Steel funded and influenced it with high-level company supervisors. The existence of this union violated the Wagner act since it was required that unions be independent from the companies they negotiated with. |
SWOC- (Steel Workers Organizing Committee) An organization of steel workers in the United States. It was formed by the CIO in 1936 and was replaced by the United Steel Workers of America in 1942. |
| AFL- (American Federation of Labor) The AFL is a federation or grouping of separate unions for the purpose of furthering the shared goals of organized labor. Each of the member unions is independently led but cooperates to advance the federation’s larger goals. A man named Samuel Gompers formed the AFL in 1886. He was its’ president until his death in 1924. |
CIO- (Congress for Industrial Organizations) Previously named the Committee for Industrial Organization (1932-1936), the CIO was a group that was part of the larger AFL organization. It was founded on November 9, 1935 with the hopes that it would encourage the AFL to organize workers in mass production industries, where the AFL concentrated on organizing more skilled workers. When all of the labor unions aligned with the CIO were suspended by the AFL, it broke away. The CIO was seen as more aggressive than the AFL. However this aggression made the CIO more effective at winning strikes. In 1955 the CIO joined the AFL to form the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations). |
| UAW- (United Auto Workers) Labor union based in Detroit, Michigan. This union was formed in 1935 under the guidance of the AFL to represent workers in the automotive industry. |
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