Ernest T. Weir

Ernest Tener Weir (August 1, 1875 — June 26, 1957) was an American steel manufacturer best known for having founded both Weirton Steel (which became National Steel Corporation) and the town of Weirton, West Virginia.

Weir was well known in the 1930s for opposing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program, for resisting union organizing drives by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and its successor, the United Steelworkers, and for challenging the legal authority of the National Labor Relations Board.

Weir was called "the lone wolf" of the American steel industry for his willingness to oppose unionization and refusal to sacrifice his business interests in favor of the steel industry at large.

Biography Early life and career Weir was born in August 1875 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to James and Margaret Manson Weir. His parents were Scotch-Irish Americans who had only recently immigrated to the United States. His brother, David Manson Weir, was born in 1880. He was educated in the city's public schools. Weir's father ran a livery yard, and the family was poor.

He left school at the age of 15, when his father died. He obtained a $3-a-week job as an office boy at John Warne Gates' Braddock Wire Company (which manufactured barbed wire), but after a year took a job as a clerk at the Oliver Wire company. He was promoted to the position of general manager of its plant in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He became close friends with James R. Phillips, who ran the tin plate sales division for US Steel. The couple had a daughter, Dorothy Manson Weir, and twin sons, Henry Kline Weir and Ernest Tener Weir Jr.

On January 12, 1925, Weir married Aeola Dickson Siebert. The couple had no children. In 1941, accompanied by her sons and a daughter in law, she moved to Okeechobee County, Florida, and obtained a divorce on November 14, 1941 from Weir on the basis of mental cruelty and desertion. Weir was then free to wed his third wife 27 days later.

On December 11, 1941, the 66-year-old Weir married 25-year-old Mary Emma Hayward. The couple had one son, David Manson Weir II. After some recovery, he was taken to New York City and underwent what the press described as "minor" surgery in April.

Weir suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and on April 21 was hospitalized at the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. He was buried in a private ceremony in Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Phillips died in a train crash a few months after the company was formed, and Weir took as a new partner John C. Williams, a Welsh immigrant who was in charge of all tin plate operations at the plant. On September 27, 1929, Weir, Humphrey, and Fink agreed to form a new holding company, National Steel, through a stock swap. Weirton Steel held 50 percent of the stock of the new company, Weir was named chairman of the board, Humphrey was named chairman of the board's executive committee, and Fink was named president.

National Steel became the fifth largest steel producer in the United States, and never lost money during the Great Depression. Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed workers in the United States the right to form a union. Weir sued to have the act overturned on constitutional grounds. On May 29, 1934, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware held in United States v. Weirton Steel Co., 7 F.Supp. 255 (1934), that the act violated the United States Constitution. The federal government appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case was awaiting resolution when the Supreme Court declared the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional on other grounds.

When Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935, Weir said he would refuse to obey the law. Labor scholar James A. Gross says Weir was prepared to use violence to oppose unionization at his plants. Weir called the NLRA "one of the most vicious pieces of legislation ever proposed." Weir established an "employee representation plan" (a thinly-disguised company union) and the Weirton Steel Employees Security League (whose purpose was to discourage unionization through physical intimidation and violence) to beat back unionization efforts by the United Steelworkers. The effort succeeded, but the union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In June 1941, the NLRB ordered Weirton Steel to disband both organizations. Weir did so, but then supported the formation of the new Weirton Independent Union (WIU) and quickly signed a contract with it. The NLRB went to court, accusing Weir of illegally dominating his employees. In 1946, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit appointed a special master to collect evidence in the case. Hearings were held in 1947 and 1948. On February 1, 1950, the special master reported that while Weirton Steel did not create the WIU, it did dominate it illegally. Additionally, the special master found that Weirton Steel had blatantly interfered with workers' organizing rights at its plants. On July 28, 1950, Fourth Circuit upheld the special master, ordered Weirton Steel to withdraw recognition of the WIU, and ordered Weirton Steel to end all violence against workers attempting to organize an independent union. Weir called the court's ruling "pure nonsense" but he reluctantly agreed to comply with it. But in the intervening years, Weir attempted to portray large unions as anti-American. His campaign had an effect. A new, independent union—the Independent Steelworkers Union—formed and battled with the United Steelworkers to represent employees at Weirton Steel. On October 27, 1950, the Independent Steelworkers Union won a federally-supervised union organization election, 7,291 to 3,454. (The United Steelworkers merged with the Independent Steelworkers Union in April 2007.)

Cultural references and legacy After Weir's death, his widow Mary Hayward Weir married the author Jerzy Kosinski. The character of Ben Rand in Kosinki's novel Being There is based on Weir.

Weir founded People's Bank and the Bank of Weirton (later acquired by WESBANCO); donated $450,000 to build the Mary H. Weir Public Library in Weirton in 1956; built a football stadium at Weir High School; co-founded the Williams Country Club; and built the Margaret Manson Weir Memorial Pool and Park in Weirton,

In November 1952, the Great Lakes Engineering Works launched the SS Ernest T. Weir, a straightdeck bulk carrier. Commissioned by National Steel,