Leon Lynch (June 4, 1935 - May 4, 2012) was an American trade union leader. He was the first African American to be an international vice president of any major labor union, serving in that role for the United Steelworkers from 1976 to 2006. He was elected to the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO in 1995 and served on that body until he retired in 2008. [1] He was co-chair of the A. Philip Randolph Institute [2] and a member of the Democratic National Committee. [3]
Lynch was born in Edwards, Mississippi, in 1935 [4] to Herman Lynch, a mill worker, and Ethel Marie (née Lyles) Lynch, a restaurant cook, dry cleaning and domestic worker. When he was a boy, the family of eight migrated to Gary, Indiana, where he attended public school, graduating from Theodore Roosevelt High School.
In 1956, Lynch began working as a pipe mill loader [5] in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana, where he joined the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) - Local 1011. [1] The former USWA is now known as the United Steelworkers or USW. He soon became a union activist, serving as a grievance representative, member on several of the local union’s committees, and as president of the credit union. In 1968, he was hired by the union as a full-time staff representative. After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, he was sent to Memphis, Tennessee, to organize the African American workers there.
In Memphis his first assignment was to work with Local 7655, which represented employees of the Carrier air conditioning plant. Although the wounds Memphis suffered following Dr. King’s 1968 assassination were still fresh, he quickly worked to conciliate black and white workers. His success led to the Carrier workers hanging a sign in front of their first meeting facility designating it as “Leon Lynch Union Hall.”
During their 1976 convention, the Steelworkers created the position of Vice President for Human Affairs and he was appointed to the new role, which oversaw the union’s civil rights and human rights initiatives. Former union president David J. McDonald was opposed to creation of the new position, but was powerless at that time. [6]
In this new role, he chaired the Steelworkers’ Container Industry Conference, where he handled contract negotiations, and the Public Employees Conference. [1] He was the first African American to serve as an international officer of any major union, and was described as part of the "top leadership" of the union. [7] Subsequently, he was elected and re-elected for six consecutive four-year terms until he retired from the USW in 2006.
During his lengthy tenure, Lynch acted as a bridge between the union movement and the civil rights movement, serving as national chairman of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an executive committee member of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and a leader in the U.S. struggle against South African apartheid. At his request, his friend, Coretta Scott King, persuaded her father-in-law, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., to speak at an organizing rally at Newport News, Virginia. The community responded by filling a stadium.
Lynch was elected to the AFL-CIO Executive Council in 1995, serving on committees that included Civil and Human Rights, Immigration, Legislative/Public Policy, and Safety and Occupational Health. [1] Active in many political and human rights organizations, he was a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee, president of the Workers Defense League, a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, and a member of the Labor Roundtable of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. [8]
In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed him to the Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation. In 2000, he was appointed by President Clinton to the Air Traffic Service Board of the Federal Aviation Administration. [9]
In 2005, USW Local 1011 in East Chicago, where Lynch began his career and union membership, dedicated the Leon Lynch Learning Center. The facility supports steelworkers by providing them with updated skills and training to prepare them for opportunities in today’s changing job market. [10]
Lynch married Estella Wheeler Smith in 1956. [10] Although their more than 29-year marriage ended, they remained close friends, having raised three daughters together. [10] [11] In 1998, he married Doris Tindal. In 2006, upon retirement from the USW, he and his wife moved to Bullhead City, Arizona. A few years later, he also purchased a home in Collierville, Tennessee, near one of his adult children and youngest grandchild. [12] Lynch died on May 4, 2012, of cancer in Memphis, Tennessee. [10] His wife, daughters and five grandchildren survived him. [8]
John Joseph Sweeney was an American labor leader who served as president of the AFL–CIO from 1995 to 2009.
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The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the United Steelworkers represents workers in Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States. The United Steelworkers represent workers in a diverse range of industries, including primary and fabricated metals, paper, chemicals, glass, rubber, heavy-duty conveyor belting, tires, transportation, utilities, container industries, pharmaceuticals, call centers, museums, and health care.
Iorwith Wilbur Abel, better known as I. W. Abel, was an American labor leader.
In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the Little Steel strike in the United States.
Operation Dixie was the name of the post-World War II campaign by the Congress of Industrial Organizations to unionize industry in the Southern United States, particularly the textile industry. Launched in the spring of 1946, the campaign ran in 12 Southern states and was undertaken as part of a dual effort to consolidate wage gains won by the trade union movement in the Northern United States by raising wage levels in the South while simultaneously transforming the conservative politics of the region, thereby allowing the trade union agenda to win on a national scale.
Thomas Reilly Donahue Jr. was an American trade union leader who served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations from 1979 to 1995, interim president for several months in 1995, and was President Emeritus from 1996 until his death. He was considered one of the most influential leaders of the post-World War II American trade union movement.
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO on June 7, 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America. The Steel Labor was the official paper of SWOC.
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) was an American labor union formed in 1876 to represent iron and steel workers. It partnered with the Steel Workers Organizing Committee of the CIO, in November 1935. Both organizations disbanded May 22, 1942, to form a new organization, the United Steelworkers.
Edward Sadlowski was an American labor activist associated with Steelworkers Fight Back, a rank-and-file movement against corruption in the international United Steelworkers of America union. Sadlowski became the youngest president of his local union at U.S. Steel's South Works, later served as director of District 31, and became known nationally during his unsuccessful attempt to become the international union's president in 1977.
George Becker was a steelworker, American labor leader and president of the United Steelworkers (USW) from 1993 to 2001. During his tenure as president of the Steelworkers, Becker also served as a vice president of the AFL-CIO.
Leo W. Gerard is a retired steelworker and Canadian and American labour leader. He was elected president of the United Steelworkers (USW) in 2001, becoming the second Canadian to head the union. He served in the role until July 2019. He also served on the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO.
David John McDonald was an American labor leader and president of the United Steelworkers of America from 1952 to 1965.
The steel strike of 1959 was a 116-day labor union strike by members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) that idled the steel industry throughout the United States. The strike occurred over management's demand that the union give up a contract clause which limited management's ability to change the number of workers assigned to a task or to introduce new work rules or machinery which would result in reduced hours or numbers of employees. The strike's effects persuaded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to invoke the back-to-work provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. The union sued to have the Act declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court upheld the law.
Bernard Kleiman (1928-2006) was an American lawyer.
Meyer Bernstein (1914–1985) was a 20th-Century American labor leader and educator who worked for the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the United Steel Workers of America (USWA), the U.S. Department of Labor, and the United Mine Workers of America (UMW).
Harold J. Ruttenberg was an American labor activist for the Congress of Industrial Organizations's Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) and later United Steel Workers of America (USWA), who in 1946 left labor for management and became an "outspoken" business executive in the steel industry.
George Leon-Paul Weaver was an American labor leader, active in promoting civil rights both in the US and internationally. After serving as Assistant Secretary of Labor for International Affairs in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he was elected chair of the governing body of the International Labour Organization, a United Nations body, in 1968. He was the first American to be named "Honorary Commander" in the Order of the Defender of the Realm, a Malaysian federal award for meritorious service to the country.
Frederick D. Redmond is an American labor union official.
Boyd Daniel Young was an American labor union leader.
Fonow, Mary Margaret. Union Women: Forging Feminism in the United Steelworkers of America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 102, 145.
Hinshaw, John. Steel and Steelworkers: Race and Class Struggle in Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 210.
Needleman, Ruth. Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 154, 158, 208-9.
Stein, Judith. Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 354.
Honey, Michael K. Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 265.
Congressional Record: House of Representatives — Visclosky Honors Leon Lynch. May 18, 2012.
“Gary Native Lynch Enjoys Role as Top Union Official.” Times (Munster, Indiana). September 8, 1992.
“Union, Steel Officials to Speak at Import Rally.” Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania). October 5, 1982.
“Lynch Doesn’t Look Like Union Man.” Hattiesburg American (Hattiesburg, Mississippi). September 16, 1976.
“Memphis Labor Leader Leon Lynch Tiptoed to Power.” The Leaf Chronicle (Clarksville, Tennessee). September 16, 1976.
“Steelworkers Appoint Their First Black Executive Officer.” The Modesto Bee. September 3, 1976.