Strike Ended in Portsmouth Steel Region

Article taken from The Lima News, July 7, 1936

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PORTSMOUTH, O., July 7 --(UP)--A strike that for six weeks threatened to explode the impending steel labor war ended today with the Wheeling Steel Corp. a victor over 5,500 employees by the terms of a tentatively approved peace.

Details of an agreement to end the strike, reached at Pittsburgh last night in a conference of five representatives of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin worker with Parker F. Wilson, Wheeling company president, were not announced, but the general terms were reported to be a los of al that the union sought.

all strikers will return to their jobs, probably late this week, at the same wage scale in effect, when they struck, reports here said.  Five union leaders accused of leading a riot in which one man was killed will not be reemployed.

A further company victory was reported in an agreement that the company may continue dealing with the 17 departmental workers' councils instead of recognizing the Amalgamated as a bargaining agency.

Some of the discharged strike leaders will be employed by John L. Lewis his challenged organization of the 500,000 steel workers, it was understood.

The agreement still must be ratified by the workers here but it relieved fears of an immediate general uprising throughout the industry.

James F. Dewey and Robert M. Pilkington, conciliators from the department of labor, helped in the successful negotiations for the temporary agreement after Wilson had once refused to meet with union representatives as the agreement was announced.

"It isn't just everything that labor organizations might hope for," Vice-President Joseph K. Gaither of the union's industrial division said, "but for reasons we are accepting it."