Background
David John McDonald was born on November 22, 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pa. He was the son of Welsh-born David McDonald, a steelworker and union activist, and Mary Agnes Kelley. He grew up in a working-class and pro-union atmosphere.
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David John McDonald
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended both public and parochial schools in the Pittsburgh area, receiving a high school diploma in 1918. He originally aspired to work in the theater and took classes at the Drama School of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, from which he earned a certificate of graduation in 1932.
Career
McDonald was employed by several steel companies in the Pittsburgh area beginning at age fifteen. He worked successively as a stock boy, steelworker, and machinist's helper. The pivotal moment of his life occurred in 1923, when he applied for and was offered the post of private secretary to Philip Murray, then vice-president of United Mine Workers of America. First as Murray's aide and then as his protégé, McDonald traveled around the United States and served as a union organizer and coordinator in the coalfields of the Appalachian South. By the time the Council of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was formed in 1935, McDonald was one of labor's best-known union organizers. He was made secretary-treasurer of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, a group that intended to organize steelworkers throughout the United States and Canada. This organizing drive culminated in the formation of the United Steelworkers of America in 1942, with Murray as president and McDonald as its international secretary-treasurer. Just prior to their marriage, McDonald had served as a delegate to the World Federation of Trade Unions Conference in London. At that meeting he had taken a leading role in breaking up the federation by arguing that some of its Communist-dominated member unions had made the organization unworkable. McDonald also participated in the creation of its successor, the International Confederation of Trade Unions. When Murray died in 1952, McDonald was the natural choice to succeed him as head of the steelworkers.
McDonald had a good working relationship with the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower and with many business leaders in the steel industry, and in 1953 he successfully negotiated an agreement that recognized the needs of both workers and the steel industry by using his concept of democratic capitalism. He toured the United States with Ben Fairless, president of U. S. Steel, to advocate union-management agreements to solve problems without strikes. He was asked to serve on a special national security committee by President Eisenhower and thereafter communicated with Eisenhower frequently about economic issues. In 1956, McDonald successfully negotiated another contract beneficial to steel workers by using his personal contacts. John F. Kennedy attracted McDonald's attention in 1956 when Kennedy made an unsuccessful attempt to win the Democratic vice-presidential nomination. McDonald invited Kennedy to address the United Steelworkers convention that year. A bitter steel strike in 1959 that lasted 116 days convinced McDonald that an even stronger partner was needed in government at the national level, and he intensified his support for Kennedy. Economic growth was slow during the 1960's, and United Steelworkers contracts did not show the big gains registered in the 1950's. Many union members objected to the support McDonald gave to Lyndon Johnson when he was vice-president because they viewed Johnson as a reactionary. Despite a successful contract negotiation in 1962, many union members came to feel that McDonald was too closely allied with industry leaders and political figures to understand the needs and aspirations of working people. In a close and somewhat questionable election, I. W. Abel was elected head of the United Steelworkers in 1964. McDonald retired to Palm Springs, Calif. , in 1965, where he remained isolated from union activities until his death.
Achievements
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As head of the United Steelworkers, McDonald was also an important official in the CIO. He played a key role in guiding organized labor to a time of growth and increasing political power, accomplishments that must be viewed as almost extraordinary when viewed against a background of McCarthyism and probusiness conservatism.
Politics
McDonald advocated what he called "democratic capitalism. " This idea, partially borrowed from CIO president John L. Lewis, with whom he had worked closely in the 1930's, sees the relationship between management and labor as a partnership between equals who depend on each other for the partnership to work. McDonald argued that all partnerships involve occasional disagreements, but that once the disagreement is mediated, the partnership must begin to work again. An industry had to be successful if its workers were to earn a living, but to make the industry successful its workers must provide an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. His emphasis on the idea of partnership prompted many business leaders to view McDonald as a union "conservative" and to establish close personal ties with him. These ties led to his union's success in the 1950's but would eventually damage McDonald's standing with members in 1964.
Personality
McDonald was very detail-oriented and he was scrupulously honest in his management of union money. These characteristics earned him a well-deserved reputation for efficiency and honesty in his own union, in the world of unionism, and in the world at large. Indeed, his influence within the union movement and his reputation for probity led to many calls to serve in federal agencies during World War II, and with such charitable and civil organizations as the American Red Cross, the Community Chest, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In order to deal with the necessary correspondence and business arrangements in these assignments, McDonald hired a private secretary, Rosemary McHugh.
Because of his skill at negotiation, his ability to win members for the union during times of both economic expansion and contraction, and his skill at public relations, McDonald was a giant among union leaders whose stature was enhanced by his style of leadership. He associated as a peer with the labor leaders of his era.
Connections
McDonald married Emma Lou Price on August 4, 1937; the couple had one child. This marriage ended in divorce in 1947. On January 3, 1950, McDonald married his private secretary, Rosemary McHugh. They had no children.
