The Little Steel Strike Airlift

摘要

On the eve of Memorial Day, 1937, in the small Ohio town of Niles, strikebreaking was lifted to new heights. In the skies over Republic Steel's plant, there began an airlift to rescue company employees locked inside during "the Little Steel Strike," one of the most turbulent and bloody in labor's long struggle to unionize workers. Republic Steel president Tom M. Girdler had created a Maginot Line with other "little" steel companies— Bethlehem, Inland, National, Youngstown Sheet and Tube—to stave off trade union formation by the newly formed Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a branch of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.