United States Steel Corporation

United States Steel Corporation appears as a major industrial force whose decisions shaped two consequential confrontations over wages, prices, and the federal government’s authority. In both 1946 and 1952, the company’s president, Benjamin Fairless, was its public representative in negotiations with Harry S. Truman. The episodes reveal the corporation’s importance not through a general account of its history or organization, but through its position at the center of disputes affecting workers, national production, and government policy.

Industrial Influence and Labor Negotiations

In January 1946, steel companies faced a wage demand from the union headed by Phil Murray: an increase of 19½ cents an hour. The companies, represented by Fairless of United States Steel Corporation, offered 15 cents. Truman intervened at the White House, where he sought to postpone a strike and broker an agreement. On January 12, after a long meeting, Murray agreed to delay the walkout for a week. A further session on January 17 produced no agreement. Truman then proposed an increase of 18½ cents, giving both sides until noon the following day to consider it.

Murray accepted the President’s proposal; Fairless refused. On January 19, 1946, 800,000 steel workers walked off the job at more than 1,000 mills across the country. The account describes it as the biggest strike in history. The dispute was part of a much wider wave of labor stoppages: meatpackers, glass workers, telephone workers, coffinmakers, and workers at General Electric were also on strike, while a Pittsburgh utility walkout shut plants and affected other workers. United States Steel Corporation’s rejection of the proposed settlement therefore marked a pivotal breakdown in an already tense national labor crisis, though the strike involved steel workers across the industry rather than only the company’s employees.

The episode established a recurring pattern in the corporation’s dealings with Truman: an industrial decision became a test of whether private bargaining could be reconciled with the public costs of a stoppage. The 1946 evidence identifies Fairless as the representative of the companies and records his refusal of the President’s offer; it does not detail the corporation’s internal deliberations or explain Fairless’s reasoning. What it does show is the consequence of the impasse: a negotiated delay ended, and the workers left their jobs.

Prices, Inflation, and the 1952 Seizure

Six years later, the central dispute had shifted from wages to the price of steel. During the Korean War, Truman regarded the companies’ proposed price increase as a threat to his effort to contain inflation and the cost of defense. The government, he stressed, was by far the largest customer for steel and steel products; higher prices would mean that it paid more for the materials needed to equip the armed forces. His opposition also reflected his longstanding distrust of powerful corporations, a view he had voiced during his Senate years.

The administration’s position was not that any increase was intolerable. Truman was prepared to accept a modest increase of $4.50, but rejected the industry’s demands. Charles E. Wilson, the director of defense mobilization, considered the companies’ position valid. Truman went over Wilson’s head, and Wilson resigned—a consequence Truman regretted, though the resignation added to criticism of the President. The disagreement thus divided the administration as well as pitting the President against the steel industry.

The dispute carried immediate stakes beyond prices. Secretary of Defense Lovett warned that even a short interruption in steel production would increase the risks of the expanded armament program. He emphasized that the armed services’ combat methods depended on full use of industrial facilities and that troops were holding the line with ammunition rather than lives. Truman nevertheless refused to invoke the Taft-Hartley Act, which would have allowed the government to halt a strike for 80 days while an impartial study was conducted. He considered another delay unlikely to settle the dispute, noted that steel workers had already remained at work voluntarily for nearly three months, and regarded a further 80 days without a pay change as unfair. He also opposed using a law disliked by labor when he believed the facts were already clear.

On April 8, only hours before the mills were scheduled to be struck, Truman signed Executive Order No. 10340 and ordered the steel mills seized. He treated seizure as a temporary last resort, but the move transferred the dispute from bargaining into a constitutional contest over executive power. The corporation sued to recover its property. Federal district judge David A. Pine ruled the seizure illegal, and the Supreme Court announced that it would hear the case. Truman repeatedly read Pine’s opinion but remained unable to understand why the judge had found against him; he told his staff that he would be deeply disappointed if the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion.

Settlement and Significance

After returning to the White House in July, Truman was asked what could be done about the steel strike and said that he did not know. He described the situation as a lockout and characterized United States Steel Corporation as opposing both the smaller companies and labor, as well as opposing him. That was Truman’s assessment of the company’s stance, not a neutral description of its motives. Three days later, on July 24, he summoned Murray and Fairless to his office, demanded a settlement, and obtained one. Truman announced that the agreement should lead to a speedy resumption of steel production; the strike was over.

Across the two disputes, United States Steel Corporation’s role was consequential but specific. In 1946, Fairless rejected a wage proposal accepted by the union leader, and a vast steel walkout followed. In 1952, the company’s position on prices fed a conflict over inflation and wartime production, while its lawsuit challenged Truman’s authority to take control of the mills. The evidence ends not with a judicial resolution of that challenge, but with a negotiated settlement between Truman, Murray, and Fairless. Together, the episodes place the corporation at the intersection of private industrial power and public responsibility: steel prices and labor relations became national questions because the material was essential to both the economy and the defense effort.