1886 - - - - - 1952
President
United Steelworkers of America
1936 - 1952
Congress of Industrial Organization
1940 - 1952
Philip Murray went into the coal mines as a boy of 16. By 1916 he had risen through the ranks of the United Mine Workers to become President of District 5, in southwestern Pennsylvania, an important ally of UMW President John L. Lewis, and an International Vice President of the union.
In 1936 Murray was a key figure in the development of the organizing strategy of the Committee for Industrial Organization. Under his leadership the Closed Shop of the giant North American Steel industry was opened and by 1942, when SWOC was constituted as the United Steel Workers of America, more than 600,000 were in its ranks. Later to exceed a million members.
Murray succeeded Lewis as the second President of the renamed Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO). A confidant to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, he served in several Presidential Committee Appointments. Known as an architect of Industrial Unionism and Advocate of Industrial Democracy, Murray is honored by name in a variety of Union Halls, Schools, labor institutes and lecture series across the Nation.
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