THE MERGER OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF MINE, MILL AND SMELTER WORKERS INTO THE UNITED STEEL WORKERS OF AMERICA.

With the expulsion of the eleven unions' from the Congress of Industrial Organization (C.I.O.) in 1950, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (I.U.M.M.S.W.) remained an alternative to the political neutrality of American business unionism. However, from the decade leading to the merger with the United Steelworkers of America (U.S.W.A.) in 1967, the Mine-Mill Union was drawn into mainstream unionism. The thesis of this paper is that political radicalism cannot survive removed from economic realities. A political union can survive, as in the case of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, if it is able to provide for its membership on the economic front. In the recent General Electric strike, the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers and the International Union of Electrical Workers functioned together for economic gains. These unions have had a history of rivalry similar to that of the Mine-Mill Union and the Steelworkers. The C.I.O. and the Steelworkers failed to understand the psychology of the western miners, and the inefficient propaganda they developed reflected this failure.