Iron and Steel Trades Confederation

Biographical notes:

The Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC), the largest union in the steel industry, was formed in 1917. The British Steel Smelters, Mill, Iron, Tinplate and Kindred Trades Association (founded 1886), the Associated Iron and Steel Workers of Great Britain (founded 1887) and the National Steel Workers' Associated Engineering and Labour League (founded 1888) formed the Confederation and agreed to transfer their industrial relations functions to the new organisation. The confederated unions were restricted thereafter to membership and benefit administration and recruited no new members. New members joined the British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades Association, the central association of the ISTC. By means of these complicated arrangements the legal restrictions on amalgamations, imposed by the Trade Union (Amalgamation) Act 1917, were circumvented. The Amalgamated Society of Steel and Iron Workers (founded 1888) and the Tin and Sheet Millmen's Association (founded 1899) joined the ISTC in 1919 and 1921 respectively. In 1924 the Constructional Engineering Union was formed by the transfer of members to it by ISTC confederated unions.

In 1985 the National Union of Blastfurnacemen, Ore Miners, Coke Workers and Kindred Trades transferred its engagements to the ISTC. The origins of this union lay in a number of local associations of blastfurnacemen which came together in the National Federation of Blastfurnacemen, Ore Miners and Kindred Trades in 1892. This federation had developed from the National Association of Blastfurnacemen which had been formed in 1887 by the merger of the Cleveland Association of Blastfurnacemen and the Cumberland Association of Blastfurnacemen. The local associations came together to form the national union in 1921, after which date the union remained strongly independent until it finally decided to transfer its engagement to the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation.

Reference: Sir Arthur Pugh, Men of steel (London, 1951).

From the guide to the Papers of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, 1886-1990, (Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library)