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Concept
Philip Murray
Summary
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.
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