United Steelworkers

We are the United Steelworkers, North America’s largest industrial union. We’re 1.2 million members and retirees strong in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. We proudly represent workers in nearly every industry there is. Our members are leaders in your communities, in your work places, in our governments and more. We have a presence in the United Kingdom, Ireland, England, Scotland, Mexico and many other places around the world. Because since the beginning of our being, we have been fighting for better workplaces, better lives for everyone and a better world.

Our Founding Principles
The work of Steelworkers Organizing Committee begin in 1942 with a set of founding principles – values that still guide us today:
1. To unite in one organization, regardless of creed, color or nationality, all workers eligible for membership.
2. To increase the wages, and improve the conditions of employment of our members by legislation, joint agreements or other legitimate means.
3. To endeavor to obtain by joint negotiation or legislative enactment a six-hour day and five-day week.
4. To strive for a minimum wage scale for all members of our organization.
5. To provide for the education of our children by lawfully prohibiting their employment until they have reached eighteen years of age
6. To secure equitable statutory old-age pension, workman’s compensation and unemployment insurance laws.
7. To enforce existing just laws and to secure the repeal of those which are unjust.
8. To secure by legislative enactment, laws protecting the limbs, lives and health of our members; (laws) establishing our right to organize; (laws) preventing the employment of privately armed guards during labor disputes and such other legislation as will be beneficial.

One Member, One Vote
USW democracy begins at home, in more than 1,800 local unions throughout Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. Membership is open to all without discrimination.

Steelworkers come from cities and towns in every region of our countries, workers who join together in local unions to bargain a better deal – more job security, a healthier and safer place to work, better benefits, and an end to arbitrary, unfair treatment.

Union officers at every level are responsible to the membership. And the principle of “one member, one vote” applies whether we’re electing our local officers, deciding our goals and priorities in contract negotiations, choosing delegates to help establish the USW’s overall policy at our triennial international convention, or voting for the international, national and district officers who make up our executive board and direct the Union’s day-to-day work.

USW collective bargaining agreements set the pattern for hundreds of thousands of workers in dozens of industries. Union contracts do more than raise wages and deliver an array of benefits such as pensions, health care and vacations. They also secure equal treatment on the job and provide an established procedure for resolving differences with supervisors and management — a grievance procedure that resolves disputes on their merits, not on favoritism.

Trained professional staff provide our districts and local unions with expertise in research, economics and public policy, legal services, health and safety, and communications. Equally important, thousands of USW members are trained every year by our Union in these and other skills.

This is Our Union, an organization fighting to improve our wages, benefits and working conditions; to ensure justice and dignity on the job; and to create a social movement to better the lives of all working people.

Our Industries and Work Places
We slurry and smelt aluminum. We mine for iron ore and create cement. We make glass and metals of many kinds. We produce paper and paper products. And we craft energy-saving wind turbines that help save our Earth.

We’re nurses and nurses’ aides. We make Harley Davidson motorcycles and Carrier air conditioners. We’re rubber workers who make your tires; metal workers who make the materials that go into buildings, homes, automobiles, planes and roads.

We serve you at banks and teach at universities. You’ll find us in oil refineries and grocery stores. At utility companies and in chemical plants. We work in the public sector and in the forests. We drive taxi cabs and work in airports. We’re security guards and electricians. We’re miners and pharmaceutical workers. We work in all these places and so many more.
Just a few examples of our industries:
⦁ Atomic
⦁ Chemical
⦁ Education
⦁ Energy and Utilities
⦁ Glass
⦁ Health Care, Pharmacies and Pharmaceuticals
⦁ Manufacturing
⦁ Metals (Steel, Aluminum, etc.)
⦁ Mining
⦁ Oil and Petroleum
⦁ Paper and Forestry
⦁ Public Employees
⦁ Rubber and Tires
⦁ Transportation

Contact Us:
United Steelworkers
60 BLVD of the Allies
Pittsburgh PA 15222
412-562-2400