Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America

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Founded in 1934 to unite all shipyard workers, irrespective of their particular trade or level.

Merged, in 1988, with the International Association of Machinists.

From the description of Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) archives, 1934-1970. (University of Maryland Libraries). WorldCat record id: 22233191

Prior to the 1930s, shipyard workers had been organized into a number of craft unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (A. F. of L.). During the First World War, A. F. of L. unions flourished as the demand for wartime shipping led to an unparalleled expansion of the industry. Yet following the signing of the Armistice, government construction orders fell sharply and the industry entered a sustained period of economic stagnation. The massive layoffs that followed the collapse of the wartime boom rapidly depleted trade union membership, and the high unemployment accompanying the general postwar depression of 1920-1921 further undermined union power. It was at this time, moreover, that the various shipbuilding firms launched their "open shop" offensive in an effort to eliminate remaining trade union presence. By 1923, the employers had defeated the unions, and many established company-dominated unions to replace legitimate labor organizations.

Both the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe in the early 1930s, however, brought about abrupt changes in the status of the shipyard workers. Confronted by severe, arbitrarily imposed wage reductions and the spread of massive unemployment accompanying the Depression, workers increasingly turned to unionism as a means of resistance. By September 1933, workers employed at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, New Jersey, had organized an independent union which defeated the company union. And in March 1934, following a strike under the leadership of John Green, a sheetmetal worker and shipfitter who emigrated to the United States in 1923 from Clydebank, Scotland, this union won recognition and successfully negotiated immediate wage increases and improvements in working conditions. Other shipyard workers employed along the east coast soon joined in the struggle to achieve organization, and in September 1934, six locals met in Quincy, Massachusetts, to form the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA). The IUMSWA's subsequent organizational drive was thus propitiously launched at a time when the Roosevelt administration's preparations for the war against Nazism necessitated both the revival of naval shipbuilding and the rapid expansion of the merchant marine fleet.

The emergence of the IUMSWA marked a new departure in the nature of shipyard unionism. Like most of the new unions formed in the early thirties, the IUMSWA eschewed organization along craft lines, which would have created a separate union for each of the shipyard trades, and instead adopted the strategy of industrial unionism, by which all workers, irrespective of their particular trade or level of skill, were brought together into a single organization. In keeping with this "one union, one yard" plan of organization, the IUMSWA affiliated with the Committee for Industrial Organization (later the Congress of Industrial Organizations) in 1935. With the added strength provided by the CIO movement and the benefits of federally-supervised collective bargaining provided by the Wagner Act, the IUMSWA's bold organizing drives brought membership to well over 100,000 by 1940.

With the enormous expansion of shipbuilding during the Second World War, the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America achieved unprecedented gains in both membership and influence. A major victory for the IUMSWA during the buildup of the national defense, 1940-1941, occurred when Local 15 secured an agreement with the Bethlehem Steel Corporation for workers employed at the firm's Hoboken, New Jersey, shipyard on May 15, 1941. This agreement effectively ended Bethlehem's maintenance of the open shop in shipbuilding, an industry which it had dominated throughout the prewar years, and prepared the path for the successful organization of that company's steel manufacturing plants by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC-CIO). As membership reached 250,000 during the war years, IUMSWA officials held important posts in government agencies responsible for setting wartime labor policies. When the war stimulated steady membership growth in the more established east and west coast locals, the previously weaker locals in the South Atlantic and Gulf shipbuilding districts likewise experienced dramatic gains.

In the years immediately following the war, the IUMSWA suffered huge losses in membership, as the industry once again experienced rapid decline in the wake of demobilization. Although in the ensuing period, the IUMSWA launched campaigns to secure federal commitments to rebuild the nation's merchant marine, no such action was forthcoming. The Korean conflict (1950-1953) only temporarily reversed the general post-WWII slump in new ship construction. The decisions of U. S. investors to finance shipbuilding overseas severely undercut the union's efforts to maintain jobs in the later postwar decades. Indeed by 1973, the IUMSWA's membership had shrunk to approximately 21,000.

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, the IUMSWA has concentrated its efforts on two major issues: 1) worker health and safety, and, 2) revival of the shipbuilding industry in the face of continued unfair trade practices by foreign builders, which have been bolstered by the willingness of U. S. companies to utilize foreign-built ships under American flags.

In attempting to extend worker control over issues of job safety and health, the IUMSWA has conducted several major studies to measure the effects of asbestos exposure and the harmful impact of exposure to various metals during such processes as welding and burning. The first Occupational Disease Study was begun at the Bethlehem-Key Highway yard in Baltimore, Maryland, directly under the auspices of Local 24 and the Mt. Sinai Medical Center. Additional studies have since been conducted at other major shipyards under IUMSWA contract.

The influx of foreign-built vessels into the American merchant fleet has led to massive layoffs in several important yards. In 1979, workers at Bethlehem-Sparrow's Point, Maryland, were hit with some 2,000 layoff slips. In addition to unemployment caused by merchant fleet usage of foreign-built ships, the IUMSWA has also had to deal with the Reagan administration's encouragement of foreign companies in producing material for the U. S. Navy. The problem of foreign competition was aggravated by the refusal of the Administration to provide the industry with the type of protections other governments have afforded to their home producers, especially heavy domestic subsidization. To counter the foreign-built problem, the IUMSWA has been working closely with the AFL-CIO Maritime Trades Department to secure much-needed legislation to make the market fair, and has successfully won application of the 1974 Trade Adjustment Act, which made workers laid off by unfair trade practices eligible for cash allowances, to the shipbuilding industry.

The IUMSWA has also been able to maintain union presence in related marine construction projects, including dredge building and offshore oil rig production, while at the same diversifying its membership to include city employees in Bath, Maine, fire equipment workers in West Virginia, employees in the New Jersey natural gas industry, and workers at an automobile dealership in Portland, Maine. Despite this diversification, the IUMSWA's membership numbers continued to decline, by approximately 50 percent, during the 1980s. The resultant financial difficulties led in part to the union's merger with the International Association of Machinists in 1988.

From the guide to the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) archives, 1934-1970 (University of Maryland Libraries)

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
referencedIn Copelof, Maxwell, 1879-. Papers, 1940-1954 Harvard Law School Library Langdell Hall Cambridge, MA 02138
referencedIn Pemberton, Robert W., Jr. Robert W. Pemberton papers, 1918-1999 (majority 1974-1995) University of Maryland (College Park, Md.). Libraries
referencedIn Seward, Ralph T. (Ralph Theodore), 1907-. Ralph T. Seward series 1. General arbitration files, 1944-1960, bulk 1949-1960. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Crawford, Cecil,. Labor history interviews, 1972 Sept.-Dec. Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History, Maine Folklife Center
referencedIn Koch, Lucien, 1907-. Lucien Koch papers, 1938-1965, (bulk 1948-1952). Wayne State University. Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs
referencedIn Hastie, William. William Hastie papers. 1916-1976. Harvard Law School Library Langdell Hall Cambridge, MA 02138
referencedIn Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) records, 1934-1970. University of Maryland (College Park, Md.). Libraries
referencedIn J. B. Matthews Papers, 1862-1986 and undated David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
referencedIn Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.). North Carolina Political Action Committee. Papers, 1944-1954. Duke University Libraries, Duke University Library; Perkins Library
referencedIn Delman, A.G. A. G. Delman papers, 1940-1960. University of Maryland (College Park, Md.). Libraries
referencedIn Feinberg, I. Robert (Irving Robert), 1912-1975. Series 2. Bethlehem Steel Corporation arbitration files, 1946-1967. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Wolf, Benjamin H., b. 1909. Benjamin H. Wolf series 1, subseries 1. Employers A-M, 1952-1975. Cornell University Library
referencedIn United States. National War Labor Board (1942-1945). National War Labor Board (1942-1945) series 1, subseries 7. Miscellaneous case files, 1942-1946. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Selected union contracts, 1891-1942. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Winstead, Ralph D. (Ralph Dimmit), 1894-1949. Ralph D. Winstead papers, 1922-1949. Cornell University Library
creatorOf Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) records, 1934-1970. University of Maryland (College Park, Md.). Libraries
creatorOf Pettis, Andrew. Papers of Andrew Pettis, 1924-1972. University of Maryland (College Park, Md.). Libraries
referencedIn Roy Pearson, Records of the IUMSWA and the War Manpower Commission, 1938-1950, bulk 1943-1944 California State University, Dominguez Hills Archives and Special Collections
creatorOf Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. [Constitutions, agreements, etc.] Wisconsin historical society
referencedIn United States. Dept. of Labor. United States. Dept. of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Collective Bargaining Agreements, 1958-1975. Cornell University Library
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Blood, Ross person
associatedWith Blood, Ross. person
associatedWith Congress of Industrial Organizations (U.S.). North Carolina Political Action Committee. corporateBody
associatedWith Copelof, Maxwell. person
associatedWith Delman, A.G. person
associatedWith Feinberg, I. Robert (Irving Robert), 1912-1975. person
associatedWith Green, John person
associatedWith Green, John. person
associatedWith Grogan, John person
associatedWith Grogan, John. person
associatedWith Hastie, William. person
associatedWith International Association of Machinists. corporateBody
associatedWith Koch, Lucien, 1907- person
associatedWith Matthews, J. B. (Joseph Brown), 1894-1966 person
associatedWith Pemberton, Robert W., Jr. person
associatedWith Pettis, Andrew. person
associatedWith Seward, Ralph T. (Ralph Theodore), 1907- person
associatedWith Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972 person
associatedWith United Railroad Workers of America corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Dept. of Labor. corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Dept. of Labor. Shipbuilding Stabilization Committee corporateBody
associatedWith United States. National Labor Relations Board corporateBody
associatedWith United States. National War Labor Board (1942-1945) corporateBody
associatedWith United States. Wage Stabilization Board corporateBody
associatedWith United States. War Manpower Commission. corporateBody
associatedWith Van Gelder, Philip H. person
associatedWith Van Gelder, Philip H. person
associatedWith Winstead, Ralph D. (Ralph Dimmit), 1894-1949. person
associatedWith Wolf, Benjamin H., b. 1909. person
Place Name Admin Code Country
United States 00 US
Quincy MA US
Subject
Shipbuilding industry
Shipbuilding industry
Occupation
Activity

Corporate Body

Establishment 1934-09

Disestablishment 1988

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