Question

businessYou are a Slovak immigrant steelworker in Pennsylvania. What reasons would you have for joining a union? Describe your hopes and aspirations for yourself and your family. You must specifically use Thomas Bell’s novel as your source tocraft this answer. Each of the sections of the book, Kracha, Mike Dobrejcak, Mary, and Dobie is loaded with information to help you answer this

Answer 1

Reson for joining a union for a Slovak immigrant steelworker in Pennsylvania is described below.

Explanation:

• Lack of a representative form of government. The government of Pennsylvania has officials whose major concern is to protect their personal interests like industrial and financial interests rather than focusing on the needs of the people.

• Despite the citizens voting, their votes don’t count as the rich dominate in the positions of leadership. The union should therefore seek to ensure that the seats are taken by those who rightfully deserve them in order to give equal opportunities to everyone to be part of the government and to ensure better utilization of resource.

• A great deal of attention is paid to the attempts of the immigrant steelworkers in Braddock to improve their lives by organizing a union. During the 1930s the eyes of the labor movement as a whole in the United States were often focused on the struggles for unionization of the steelworkers. The final section, Book 4, "Dobie", is largely taken up by Dobie's gaining work experience, coming to recognize the need to help organize a union despite the risk of losing his job, and of the Braddock steelworkers' several attempts to organize. But the successful attempt by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, or S.W.O.C., is the culmination of almost 50 years of struggles to organize, in order to lesson the sharp exploitation of the workers by U.S. Steel.

• It's helpful to get an overview of the steelworkers' attempts to unionize from 1889, the first Homestead strike (mentioned by Andrej on p. 38) through the big Homestead Steel Strike of 1892, the Great Steel Strike of 1919 right after World War I, and the events of the 1930s.