Union Meeting 

Nominations for Elections

March 26, 2012 4 PM



Elections April 23, 2012 6am to 6 pm

                   The History Of Local 1014

   When the workers at the old Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. in Gary, IN. began talking union in 1933, they didn't have the benefits of a full service union hall.  They met in the basement of Chick's & Buck's Tavern at Fifth and Broadway.

   It was in these early meetings that the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers formed the John Mitchell Lodge of Gary Works employees.  In 1936, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) established the Rubicon Lodge at Gary Works.  A year later, Carnegie-Illinois signed the first company-wide labor agreement with SWOC on March 2, 1937.  By the end of 1937, the Amalgamated's Mitchell Lodge agreed to merge into the Rubicon Lodge Local 1014, with John Mayerick as the first president.

   After the merger, the SWOC Rubicon Lodge 1014 moved into a second floor office above the Blackstone Tavern at 560 Broadway.  The Rubicon Lodge slowly built strength, despite company intimidation, a company union called the Employee Representative Plan (ERP), and the 1938 depression.

   In 1941, whenever the SWOC treasury ran low and the rent had to be paid, there were several "dues inspection times" held at the Gary Works' plant gates.  Since there was no dues check off in the labor agreement until 1942, SWOC was forced to collect dues in a voluntary fashion.

   The United Steelworkers of America was finally established by SWOC delegates at a May 1942 convention in Cleveland, when the union had increased its membership to nearly 700,000.  Local 1014's financial strength increased too, and in early 1943, each of five Gary Works USWA locals purchased, at a reported cost of $100,000, the Philip Murray Building at 100 Fifth Ave.  This was the home of Local 1014 until August 1980, when the local moved into the $2 million Lloyd McBride Building.

Local 1014 Presidents

Philip Murray Building, 1943-1980

 

Lloyd McBride Hall, 1980-