LERA Myron Taylor Management Award

DEADLINE: JANUARY 15

The LERA Awards Committee has issued a call for nominations for LERA awards to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of LER by a member of management.

This award commemorates Myron Taylor, Chairman of U.S. Steel who in 1937 signed a collective e bargaining agreement with the SWOC (the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee), which John H. Lewis had been instrumental in founding. Myron Taylor did not endorse the proposition that unions were essential to the long-run survival of the country, but were instead “ ... an unavoidable reality in the future of steel production, and that continued resistance would only delay the inevitable while exposing the company to considerable political and economic risks.” But regardless of Taylor’s motive, to his credit, Taylor made his decision to recognize the SWOC when the leaders of the rest of the steel industry persisted in their vigorous resistance to unionization. Indeed, the organizing campaign in the rest of the steel industry – known as Little Steel – that followed the recognition of the UWOC by U.S. Steel resulted in a series of violent confrontations that have been termed “The Last Great Strike” in American labor history.

Letters of nomination accompanied by vitas or accounts of the accomplishments of the nominee should be submitted no later than January 15, and winners will be notified in the Spring shortly thereafter. Awardees will be recognized at the LERA Annual Meeting.

SUBMIT NOMINATION

Myron C. Taylor Management Award History

2024
Kaiser Permanente

2021
Edward Potter USMCA Labor Rapid Response Panel

2020
Cyndi Furseth Portland General Electric (ret.)

2019
Bill Dirksen Ford Motor Company