United Steelworkers (USW)

historic labour union representing workers in steel, aluminum, and other metallurgical industries for much of the 20th century. In the U.S. it grew out of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), established jointly in 1936 by the Committee for Industrial Organization (see AFL-CIO) and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. Under Philip Murray it developed into a powerful union. In 1942 SWOC became the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), of which Murray served as president until his death in 1952. The USWA absorbed the Aluminum Workers of America in 1944 and by the mid-1950s had more than one million members. It won unprecedented benefits in the postwar period but saw its membership and power decline as the U.S. steel industry shrank from the 1970s onward. In 2005 the USWA combined with the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union (PACE) and was renamed the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union (USW). The USW represents workers in the United States and Canada.

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