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1938: Strikes

Measured by the number of strikes, the year 1938 was one of comparative peace in labor relations. Comparing the first 10 months of 1937 and 1938, the number of strikes declined from 4,347 to 2,049; the number of workers involved in strikes from 1,769,749 to 580,784; and the number of man-days lost from 27,000,000 to 7,800,000.

Factors of Peace.

Among the factors responsible for this condition, the prevalence of business depression and the renewal of labor contracts were the most influential. The very deep depression and the large unemployment associated with it combined to moderate the demands of labor and to create conditions not conducive to successful striking. The employers, on their part, faced with poor business and a decline in earnings, were more than careful not to precipitate trouble. For this reason most unions found much less difficulty than they had anticipated in renewing their contracts with employers. Where, therefore, as in the General Motors and Chrysler companies, the previous year was marked by extensive and prolonged strikes for recognition and collective bargaining, in 1938 existing contracts were renewed with only slight changes and after not particularly troublesome negotiations. In the iron and steel industry, likewise, agreements with the United States Steel Corporation and many smaller companies were continued, in spite of the fact that a conflict over adjustments in wages appeared imminent on several occasions. But toward the middle of the year, signs of business improvement appeared, demands for wage cuts became less pressing, and peace was preserved.

Mediation in Railway Dispute.

In the railroad industry a threatened general strike over a demand for a reduction in the wages of railway employees was averted by recourse to the mediation machinery of the Railway Labor Act. The report of the President's Emergency Board, advising against a reduction in railroad wages, turned public opinion against a fight on that issue and induced the railway operators to withdraw their notice of a wage reduction. Consequently this dispute, which began May 12, 1938, with the railroad's notice of their intention to reduce wages by 15 per cent, was closed five months later on Nov. 4.

Strikes and Stoppages, Legal and Illegal.

The year, however, was not wholly free of strikes and stoppages. One of the largest strikes of the year, involving some 18,000 employees, was called against the Goodrich Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio, by the United Rubber Workers in May 1938. This strike, growing out of a dispute over wages, was terminated by the signing of the first contract which this company had made with the union. A strike, called early in October by the American Newspaper Guild against all of the newspapers of Wilkes-Barre, Penn., shut them all down for a period of months; and the strike remained unsettled, and the newspapers closed, at the end of the year. The same organization struck against the Hearst papers of Chicago and entered upon a long battle against both the publishers and the A.F. of L. unions. A particularly serious strike was waged by the C.I.O. Electrical and Radio Workers against the Philco Radio Company of Philadelphia, in protest against a wage cut. In the course of the strike, the company, complaining against the failure of the authorities to furnish adequate police protection, threatened to close its plants and move elsewhere. On the Pacific coast, a stubborn strike involving the A.F. of L. Union of Retail Clerks and the C.I.O. Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union was terminated by agreement between the union and a newly-formed association of employers, organized to negotiate for its members. This strike, arising out of a dispute over wages with the Woolworth, and Hiram Walker companies, spread to other warehouses when the warehousemen refused to unload a 'hot' car loaded by non-union office workers. The spreading of the strike induced employers to form an association and negotiate a single contract for all its members.

The most troublesome engagements of the year were the brief but numerous illegal strikes, most frequently employed in the automobile industry. For the past several years, local unions or shop committees, both affiliated with the United Automobile Workers, would call unauthorized strikes and slow-downs, in protest against real or imaginary grievances. These strikes, unauthorized by the national union, amounted to violations of existing agreements. Although the officers of the national union frowned upon these stoppages, no way has been found to bring them under control. See also LABOR ARBITRATION.

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