US strike wave of 1945–1946

The US strike wave of 1945–1946 or great strike wave of 1946[1] were a series of massive post-war labor strikes after World War II from 1945 to 1946 in the United States spanning numerous industries and public utilities. In the year after V-J Day, more than five million American workers were involved in strikes, which lasted on average four times longer than those during the war.[2] They were the largest strikes in American labor history.[3][4] Other strikes occurred across the world including in Europe and colonial Africa.[5][6]

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Background

Throughout the Second World War, the National War Labor Board gave trade unions the responsibility for maintaining labor discipline in exchange for closed membership. This led to acquiescence on the part of labor leaders to businesses and various wildcat strikes on the part of the workers. The strikes were largely a result of tumultuous postwar economic adjustments; with 10 million soldiers returning home, and the transfer of people from wartime sectors to traditional sectors, inflation was 8% in 1945, 14% in 1946, and 8% in 1947. Many of the protests from 1945 to 1946 were for better pay and working hours, but only one study done by Jerome F. Scott and George C. Homans of 118 strikes in Detroit from 1944 to 1945, found that only four were for wages, with the rest being for discipline, company policies or firings.

The strikes

Large strikes in 1945 included:

In 1946, strikes increased:

  • 174,000 electric workers (January 1946)
  • 93,000 meatpackers (January 1946)
  • 750,000 steel workers (January 1946)
  • 340,000 coal miners (April 1946)
  • 250,000 railroad engineers and trainmen (May 22–25, 1946)[7][8][9]
  • 120,000 miners, rail and steel workers in the Pittsburgh region. (December 1946)[10]

Others included strikes of railroad workers and general strikes in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Stamford, Connecticut; Rochester, New York; and Oakland, California. In total, 4.3 million workers participated in the strikes. According to Jeremy Brecher, they were "the closest thing to a national general strike of industry in the twentieth century."[11]: 248 

Aftermath
Number of striking workers each year, after 1946.
See also: Second Red Scare (1947-1957)

In 1947, Congress responded to the strike wave by enacting, over President Truman's veto, the Taft–Hartley Act, restricting the powers and activities of labor unions. The act is still in force as of 2023.

The strike also caused a rally in support for the Labour Party, prior to the 1945 United Kingdom general election.[12][13]


See also

References
  1. Richter, Irving; Montgomery, Montgomery (2003). Labor's Struggles, 1945–1950: A Participant's View. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511572371. ISBN 9780521414128.
  2. Cochran, Bert (1979). Labor and Communism: The Conflict That Shaped American Unions. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691005898.
  3. Brecher, Jeremy (1997). Strike!. South End Press.
  4. "From Class War to Cold War", John Newsinger
  5. Ross, Arthur M.; Irwin, Donald (April 5, 1951). "Strike Experience in Five Countries, 1927–1947: An Interpretation". ILR Review. 4 (3): 323–342. doi:10.1177/001979395100400301. S2CID 153992454.
  6. Cooper, Frederick (January 5, 1990). "The Senegalese General Strike of 1946 and the Labor Question in Post-War French Africa". Canadian Journal of African Studies. 24 (2): 165–215. doi:10.1080/00083968.1990.10803857.
  7. "Wages and Working Conditions: The Railroad Strike of 1946". The National WWII Museum. 28 May 2021. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  8. Universal Newsreels. "Rail Strike Paralyzes Entire U.S." archive.org. Internet Archive. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  9. Denson, John (May 25, 1946). "'Run Trains or Army Will - Today!' - Truman". Milwaukee Sentinel. No. Final. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  10. "Request Rejected". digital.library.pitt.edu.
  11. Brecher, Jeremy (1997). Strike!. South End Press classics (Rev. and updated ed.). Boston: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-569-5.
  12. McCartin, J. A. (2009). Unexpected Convergence: Values, Assumptions, and the Right to Strike in Public and Private Sectors, 1945-2005. Buff. L. Rev., 57, 727.
  13. Sarkar, Sumit (1982). "Popular Movements and National Leadership, 1945-47". Economic and Political Weekly. 17 (14/16): 677–689. JSTOR 4370840 – via JSTOR.

Further reading
  • Bernstein, Barton J. "The Truman administration and the steel strike of 1946." Journal of American History 52.4 (1966): 791-803. online
  • Metzgar, Jack. "The 1945–1946 strike Wave." in The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History (Routledge, 2015) pp 256-265.
  • Wolman, Philip J. "The Oakland general strike of 1946." Southern California Quarterly 57.2 (1975): 147-178. online
  • Zetka Jr, James R. "Work organization and wildcat strikes in the US automobile industry, 1946 to 1963." American Sociological Review (1992): 214-226. online
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