I. W. Abel

Laid off during the Great Depression, Abel worked at a brickmaking company loading a kiln at less than a quarter his former pay.

He proved an effective and strong negotiator and union president, and in one year alone, he led 42 wildcat strikes.

When SWOC merged with the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers in 1942, to form the United Steel Workers of America (USWA), Abel was appointed director of the Canton District of the USWA and became a member of the executive council of the Ohio CIO Council.

Unlike the flamboyant and vocal McDonald, Abel remained in the background as the union's secretary-treasurer.

In the early 1960s, Abel was angered by what he perceived as McDonald's weakness in winning new national contracts for steelworkers.

Abel accused McDonald of being too cozy with employers by substituting fringe benefit gains for wage increases and ignoring members' concerns.

However, union officials and federal monitors eventually declared Abel the winner by a razor-thin margin of 10,142 votes, out of 600,678 cast, and on May 20, McDonald declined to challenge the result.

He encouraged open discussion of controversial issues among the staff and membership and decentralized a number of union functions.

Workers sued the union for race and sex discrimination numerous times in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In 1974, Abel was forced to sign a consent decree to alter seniority rules that discriminated against women and minority workers.

The ENA contributed to a second round of successful contract talks in 1977, but employers unilaterally withdrew from the pact in 1980 after the steel industry recession of 1979.

On January 11, 1977, Abel was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford.

Abel's strong advocacy of the rights of minorities within the union led him to be appointed in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson to the Kerner Commission, which was created to investigate the rioting that had occurred that year in Black neighborhoods in more than 150 cities.

In 1971, Abel was appointed to the Economic Stabilization Program, President Richard Nixon's wage and price restraint board.

Despite Abel's successes at the bargaining table, steelmakers continued to cut back production, and union membership sank by 650,000.

Sadlowski, a member of the union's Rank and File Caucus, had mounted an insurgent campaign for the post of director of District 31 in 1973.