US strike wave of 1919

The US strike wave of 1919 was a series of massive post-war labor strikes after World War I in the United States spanning numerous industries.[1][2][3] More than four million American workers were involved in strikes that year.[4][2][1]

Mass meeting of Cleveland steel workers in Brookside Park during strike, October 1, 1919

Background

The years during World War I was a place of much greater strike activity then the previous years. The average number of workers on strike each year from 1916 to 1918 was 2.4 times higher than those on strike in 1915.[2]: 111 

This set the stage for the strike wave of 1919, as workers became directly aware of the power they had over production from those strike actions.[2]: 111  In addition, the environment had created ripe conditions with the cost of living in the US nearly doubling from August 1915 to August 1919.[2]: 111 

The recent success of the Russian revolution of 1917 also played a small role. There were sections of support among the more radical workers within US unions of it. And paranoia among business and government leaders that the existing set of industrial relations was under attack from a unified conspiracy of 'Bolshevism'.[2]: 112  With the 1919 Seattle General Strike, in part, inspired by the event.[5]

The strikes

After the war, following the end of wartime price controls & laxing of government regulation against union busting, the cost of living rose significantly. This led to anger among workers and subsequently large strikes.[2]: 112–113 

Some notable strikes in 1919 include:

Aftermath
Number of workers involved in US strikes each year according to the U.S. BLS, 1919 strike wave in purple

The results of the strikes were varied:

  • The UMW Coal strike was a success, winning a 14% wage increase.[15]
  • The steel strike was a crushing defeat without winning their demands and causing almost no union organizing to occur in the sector for the next 15 years.[16]
  • The New England telephone strike was a victory, winning wage increases.[13][11]

The wave of strikes as a whole has been speculated to have played a part in the emergence and intensity of the First Red Scare.[2][1]

The Red Summer also occurred that year, a set of white supremacist terrorism, and racially motivated attacks against Black Americans within the US.[17]

See also

References
  1. McCartin, Joseph Anthony (1997). Labor's great war: the struggle for industrial democracy and the origins of modern American labor relations, 1912 - 1921. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press. pp. 202–205. ISBN 978-0-8078-4679-7.
  2. Brecher, Jeremy (2020). "Chapter 4: Nineteen Nineteen". Strike!. Internet Archive. Oakland : PM Press. pp. 109–148. ISBN 978-1-62963-808-9.
  3. Dubofsky, Melvyn (1995). "Labor Unrest in the United States, 1906-90". Review (Fernand Braudel Center). 18 (1): 125–135. ISSN 0147-9032. JSTOR 40241326.
  4. "Pandemics Can Mean Strike Waves". jacobin.com. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  5. Murray, Robert K. (1955). Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920. U of Minnesota Press. p. 58. ISBN 9780816658336.
  6. "STRIKE TIES UP PORT; 100,000 IDLE; Tons of Food Lying on Piers, and Government Takes Charge of Freight Shipments. STRUGGLE WITHIN THE UNION Longshoremen's Officers Regain Measure of Control; Allege I.W.W. Influence. Yield to Union Leaders' Persuasion. STRIKE TIES UP PORT; 100,000 IDLE Quit Work by the Thousands. Plead for "One Big Union." Accuse Radicals In Strike". The New York Times. 1919-10-10. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
  7. "Harbor Men Begin 'War' By Big Riot In Brooklyn" (PDF). New York Tribune. October 28, 1919.
  8. "GARMENT WORKERS ORDERED TO STRIKE; Union Calls Upon 35,000 Members to Quit Their Employmentat 10 o'Clock This Morning. APPEAL FOR GOOD ORDER Right to Discharge at Issue--Demande Include 44-Hour Weekand Advance in Wages. (Published 1919)". The New York Times. 1919-01-21. Retrieved 2023-07-28.
  9. "June 18, 1919: Whole State Suffering From Telephone Strike". San Diego Union-Tribune. 2018-06-18. Retrieved 2023-07-29.
  10. "Chapter 23: The 1919 Telephone Strike". ibew1245.com. Retrieved 2023-07-29.
  11. "TELEPHONE STRIKE WON BY WORKERS; Settlement Is Announced and Service Will Be Resumed in New England Today. GIRLS GET INCREASED PAY Maximum Wage to be $19 a Week--Men Employes Also Receive an Advance. TELEPHONE STRIKE WON BY WORKERS Ends Rhode Island Strike. (Published 1919)". The New York Times. 1919-04-21. Retrieved 2023-07-29.
  12. "TELEPHONE STRIKE TIES UP 5 STATES; Girl Operators in New England Walk Out, Refusing Postmaster General's Offer.GOMPERS ADVISES CAUTIONTumulty Urges Strikers to Submit Their Case After Governors Appeal to Wilson. Governors Appeal to President. TELEPHONE STRIKE TIES UP FIVE STATES Ffforts to Restore Service. (Published 1919)". The New York Times. 1919-04-16. Retrieved 2023-07-29.
  13. "Telephone Operators Strike". www.massmoments.org. Retrieved 2023-07-29.
  14. Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States Volume 8: Postwar Struggles 1918–1920 New York: International Publishers Co., 1988. p. 88–92
  15. Marcus, Dr. Irwin M.; Mountjoy, Eileen; O'Leary, Beth (2019). "The coal strike of 1919 in Indiana County and its aftermath". Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  16. Brody, 1960, pp. 277–278; Dubofsky and Dulles, p. 258.
  17. Whitaker, Robert (June 23, 2009). On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation. Crown. ISBN 978-0307339836.
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