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Bernard Kleiman (1928-2006) was an American lawyer.
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Bernard Kleiman (1928-2006) was an American lawyer.
Although born in Chicago, Bernard Kleiman grew up in Kendallville, Indiana, where his father was a scrap metal dealer. He played center on the varsity basketball team in high school, and graduated in 1944.
He delayed his acceptance to Purdue University to enlist in the Army. He toured with the Army basketball team and served in Korea. His military service was cut short by scarlet fever. He returned to Purdue and graduated in 1951, having majored in metallurgical engineering. He then attended the Northwestern University School of Law, from which he graduated in 1954.
In 1960, Kleiman became counsel for District 31 of the United Steelworkers Union, covering Illinois and Indiana. He spearheaded a successful lawsuit that forced Illinois to reapportion its legislature to assure it followed the principle of one person one vote.
Impressed by Mr. Kleiman's accomplishments, I. W. Abel, the union's president, named him the union's general counsel in 1965. As general counsel Mr. Kleiman often served as the union's chief negotiator, helping make the nation's steelworkers some of the highest-paid blue-collar workers in the world. During his tenure as general counsel, Kleiman negotiated a 1973 agreement that barred strikes in the steel industry for a decade. The agreement was designed to curb steel imports, because six months before every contract deadline, the nation's automakers and other steel users began greatly increasing their purchases from abroad.
Kleiman negotiated contracts that helped keep several steel companies afloat during the 1980s, when the industry was traumatized by recession and surging imports. He also helped negotiate an affirmative action agreement for the steel and aluminum industries, paving the way to hire more minority workers. The aluminum agreement was upheld in a landmark Supreme Court case, United Steelworkers v. Weber .
He negotiated with many leading companies, including United States Steel, Kaiser Aluminum, Bethlehem Steel, Goodyear and Bridgestone Firestone.
Leo W. Gerard, the USWA's president, was quoted as saying that “It is difficult to overstate his impact on the union....His role with the union was much broader then the typical duties of general counsel.”
In the 1980s, Mr. Kleiman negotiated deals with two companies that were close to bankruptcy, the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation and the Allegheny Ludlum Corporation, allowing them to pay smaller compensation packages than steelmakers in better financial shape. When the industry rebounded in the late 1980s, Mr. Kleiman spearheaded efforts to restore a pattern in which all steelmakers provided similar wages and benefits.
Mr. Kleiman stepped down from the general counsel's position in 1997, but remained special counsel to the union's president. He officially retired in the summer of 2006, but continued working, most recently in the union's two-month-old strike against Goodyear. [1]
Mr. Kleiman was instrumental in bringing the Civil Rights Act to the steel industry in 1974, when a federal judge issued a consent decree establishing goals for hiring women and minority workers and promoting them. This opened U.S. steel mills jobs to both blacks and women. [2]
Philip Murray was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
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Iorwith Wilbur Abel, better known as I. W. Abel, was an American labor leader.
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Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers was an American labor union formed in 1876 to represent iron and steel workers. It partnered with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and CIO, in November 1935. Both organizations disbanded May 22, 1942, to form a new organization, the United Steelworkers.
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Lloyd McBride was an American labor leader and president of the United Steelworkers of America from 1977 to 1983.
David John McDonald was an American labor leader and president of the United Steelworkers of America from 1952 to 1965.
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Nathan Paul Feinsinger was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He mediated and arbitrated a number of strikes, and served as general counsel to the Wisconsin Labor Relations Board and associate general counsel to the National War Labor Board (WLB).
Roger Lowell Putnam was an American politician and businessman. A member of the prominent Lowell family of Boston, he served as Mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1937 until 1943, and as director of the Economic Stabilization Administration from 1951 until 1952. During his short tenure in federal office, the nation's steelworkers struck—leading United States President Harry S. Truman to seize the nation's steel mills.
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Ron Bloom was a senior official in the Obama Administration from February 2009 to August 2011. This included working as the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy between February 2011 and August 2011, in the Department of the Treasury as a senior advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and member of the President's Task Force on the Automotive Industry, and also as Senior Counselor to the U.S. President for Manufacturing Policy. From 1996 to 2008, Bloom served as Special Assistant to the President of the United Steelworkers Union. Bloom also worked for the investment banking firm Lazard on two separate occasions, the second as Vice Chairman, U.S Investment Banking. Bloom is currently Vice Chairman and a Managing Partner at Brookfield Asset Management and serves as chairman of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service (USPS).
Eugene L. Stewart was an American lawyer and founder of the law firm Stewart and Stewart, an international law firm based in Washington D.C. He was known for his work in international trade law. He was the recipient of numerous awards including the John Carroll Award, an award given to Georgetown University Alumni whose achievements exemplify the ideals and traditions of the university. He is credited with being the leading organizer and founder of the Sursum Corda Cooperative in Washington D.C. and was also a former law professor at Georgetown University.
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Terence P. Stewart is an American lawyer and managing partner of the law firm Stewart and Stewart. He has authored books on international trade law and testified numerous times before Congressional Committees on trade matters. He is notable for his focus on trade remedy law and has published extensively on law review in publications including the Georgetown Journal of International Law and The Washington Times.
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