Philip Murray (May 25, 1886 – November 9, 1952) was a Scottish-born steelworker and an American labor leader. He was the first president of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), the first president of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and the longest-serving president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Murray was born in Blantyre, Scotland, in 1886. His father, William Murray, was a Catholic coal miner and union leader who emigrated from Ireland to Scotland prior to his son's birth. His mother, the former Rose Layden, was a cotton mill weaver. Rose died when Philip was only two years old. William Murray remarried and had eight more children. Philip was the oldest boy, and after only a few years of public education, he went to work in the coal mines at 10 to help support the family.
In 1902, Philip and his father emigrated to the United States. They settled in the Pittsburgh region and obtained jobs as coal miners. Young Philip was paid for each ton of coal that he mined. By the following year, they had saved enough money to bring the rest of the family to America.
Murray was working in a coal mine in 1904 when he became involved in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). Feeling that a manager had purposefully altered and lowered the weight of the coal he had mined, Murray punched the man and was fired. The other coal miners went on strike to demand his reinstatement. In response, the company threw Murray's family out of their company-owned home. Murray was shocked and angered by the company's actions. Convinced that unions were the only means workers had of protecting their interests, Murray became an avid and lifelong unionist.
In 1905, Murray was elected president of the UMWA local in the Pittsburgh area town of Horning, Pennsylvania. Determined to become the best local president he could, he enrolled in an 18-month correspondence course in mathematics and science. Although he had little formal education, he completed the course in just 6 months.
Murray married Elizabeth Lavery (the daughter of a miner killed in a mine accident) on September 7, 1910. They adopted a son.
In 1911, Murray became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Murray, who favored co-operation with management rather than militancy, came to the attention of UMWA President John P. White. After White won the UMWA presidency in 1912, he appointed Murray to a vacant seat on the UMWA executive board. White then backed Murray in 1916 when Murray ran for president of UMWA District 5.
Despite his relative conservatism, however, Murray became a close associate of John L. Lewis. He supported Lewis's bid to become a UMWA vice president in 1917, and UMWA president in 1920. In return, Lewis appointed Murray to the position of vice president. Murray became a strong supporter of and assistant to Lewis. Lewis handled relations with employers and politicians, and Murray handled relationships with UMWA members.
Murray strongly supported America's entry into World War I and worked closely with government officials and employers to ensure that labor cooperated in the war effort. President Woodrow Wilson appointed him to the Pennsylvania regional panel of the National War Labor Board and the National Bituminous Coal Production Committee.
In the 1930s, Murray continued to serve on government committees. When General Hugh S. Johnson formed the Labor and Industrial Advisory Board in 1933 to implement Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act, Murray agreed to serve on the new body. He played a key role in writing the "Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935" (also known as the Guffey-Snyder Act), later struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Carter v. Carter Coal Co.
Murray was active both in the CIO and in SWOC, the steelworkers' organizing project.
When the American Federation of Labor ejected the unions that composed the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) in 1936, Murray supported Lewis's decision to form a new labor organization and was named a vice president in the new CIO. When the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was formed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 7, 1936, Lewis named Murray its chair. Murray oversaw a $500,000 budget and 36 (eventually 200) organizers.
Under Murray, SWOC made a dramatic breakthrough when, on March 2, 1937, it signed a collective bargaining agreement with US Steel. SWOC infiltrated the employer's company unions and turned them against the company, foregoing a traditional organizing campaign.
Murray and SWOC suffered their first defeat when SWOC attempted to organize workers laboring for "Little Steel:" Republic Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, National Steel, Inland Steel and American Rolling Mills. Employers used violence, espionage, and many strikebreakers to defeat the organizing drive.
Murray was elected second vice president of the CIO at its first formal convention in November 1938.
Organizing slowed after the initial burst of success at US Steel. By 1939, SWOC was in debt by $2.5 million. Little Steel continued to strongly resist unionization, and SWOC made few inroads at mills in the Deep South.
When Lewis retired as CIO president in 1940, Murray was elected president as his successor. The CIO absorbed a large amount of UMWA's dues at a time when the ongoing Great Depression and employer resistance had stalled the influx of new members. Lewis soon broke with Franklin D. Roosevelt, over the need for war with Germany and Japan and with his CIO colleagues over the need for government protection, as embodied by the National Labor Relations Act. Lewis endorsed Wendell Willkie for president just 11 days before the 1940 presidential election and secured union members' support for Willkie by threatening to resign as CIO president if union members did not follow him. Despite a Lewis draft at the CIO convention two weeks after the November election, Sidney Hillman and other CIO leaders pushed for a Murray candidacy. Although Murray had supported Roosevelt in the election, Lewis placed Murray's name into nomination himself. Murray was elected president of the CIO on November 22, 1940.