Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of North America

The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers (AAISTW) was an early steelworkers labor organization, which represented primarily English-speaking, white skilled workers. It formed in 1876, lost membership during strikes in the 1880s, and regained strength after joining the newly formed American Federation of Labor in 1887. By the early 1890s it had about 24,000 workers and it played a central role in coordinated strike efforts during the Homestead steel strike, one of the most prolonged and bitter clashes in American labor history. This strike eviscerated the AAISTW and afterward it represented workers only at a handful of steel mills, mostly in the West. By the 1910s, low pay and six twelve-hour work days remained standard in most steel mills. In 1935, when the AAISTW had only 8,600 members, its efforts to organize steelworkers were largely taken over by Phillip Murray and the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee (SWOC). At that time, the AAISTW joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and ceased to exist as an independent entity.