Ruttenberg, Harold J.

Harold J. Ruttenberg (1914- ) was research director for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and the United Steelworkers of America, and an industrialist of Pittsburgh, Pa.

Harold J. Ruttenberg began his career working with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, which became the United Steelworkers of America (USW). He left his position as the chief economist and director of research for the USW and became an industrialist. He owned several companies, including Stardrill-Keystone Company, United States Steel and Wire and American Locker Group.

Harold J. Ruttenberg, labor leader and business executive, worked for the Pennsylvania Security League and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He served as an investigator for the U.S. Senate Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry and was assigned to Federal Laboratories, a Pittsburgh-based company which provided munitions to various steel companies as well as to both warring factions in Cuba. He was active in the formation of the United Steel Workers Association (USWA) as it evolved from the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). Ruttenberg was research director for SWOC and retained the position after SWOC became USWA in 1942. From 1942 until 1944, Ruttenberg served as assistant director of the steel division of the War Production Board in an effort to increase the steel supply for the benefit of the war effort. In1946, Ruttenberg resigned as research director for USWA and began his career as a business executive who was always active in labor/management issues. Ruttenberg died in Pittsburgh in 1998.

Mr. Ruttenberg was born in St. Paul and grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, received a bachelor's degree in 1935 from the University of Pittsburgh and went on to hold posts as regional research director for the Pittsburgh area of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, and research director of the United Steelworkers of America from its formation in 1938, on leave to serve as assistant director of the steel division of the War Production Board during World War II . From 1944 to 1946, he was chairman of the wage research committee of the Committee of Industrial Organizations (CIO), while still research director for the steelworkers. He was a close associate of Philip Murray, president of the CIO from 1940 and the steelworkers' union from 1942. In his years with the union, Mr. Ruttenberg developed a thorough working knowledge of steel industry employment and wage statistics. Ruttenberg was a determined proponent of a policy to tie steelworkers' wages to productivity. When that policy was not implemented, he left the union in 1946, hired by financier Cyrus Eaton to be an executive of the Portsmouth Steel Company. After three years in management there, Mr. Ruttenberg was successively, president and/or chairman of five other companies. Lee Pressman (1906-1969) was an American attorney and activist who worked for Federal government agencies and labor unions. In 1950 he declared his role in the Ware group of Communist-led government employees.