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employee relations program. On the other hand, during 1937 SWOC filed a suit
against Bethlehem's company union as a violation of the Wagner Act, a suit that
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later dissolved the company union to make way for the CIO.
SWOC was, though, more successful at some smaller plants. At Eastern
Rolling Mill, which employed between 800 and 900 workers, an NLRB election in
June resulted in a 4 to 1 victory for SWOC, followed by a contract granting the CIO
exclusive bargaining rights. The Eastern Rolling Mill victory was a direct result of
the militant strike in waged in mid-1936 and the continued agitation in its
aftermath. SWOC also won a victory at Standard Sanitary Manufacturing
Company, employer of approximately 600, after the company locked its workers out
to preempt a strike and the workers retaliated with mass picketing; this picket line
was supported by workers at Eastern Rolling Mill. The resulting agreement,
mediated by Senator Pheobus, did not include formal union recognition, but it did
give the workers a 5-cent an hour wage raise, a 50-cent an hour minimum wage, and
a week's vacation each year.-*®
Generally speaking, the CIO in Baltimore had a number of successes in
smaller plants, although these companies were by no means amenable to
organization. In August, United Shoe Workers of America won an NLRB election
at the Chesapeake Shoe Manufacturing Company by a margin of 154 to 31. The
company refused to bargain and the union struck. Arter twelve weeks, and much
support from sibling CIO locals, the company capitulated and signed a contract that
included full union recognition, the eight hour day, and a wage raise. Despite this
outcome, the company president David Goldstrom issued a statement to the press
essentially denying that the company had been defeated, and a year and a half later
the NLRB had to order the company to live up to its agreement and bargain with
t_ • ^w
the union.
Another small company that put up stiff resistance to the CIO was the
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