1942: Strikes

As the first full year of this country's participation in the war as a belligerent, 1942 was relatively free of long and serious labor disputes. Though there were many strikes, they were of brief duration and the time lost through strikes was the smallest in recent years.

In industries engaged in war production, strikes and time lost were even less. During the first 10 months of the year the number of strikes in war industries was 1,179 and man days lost were 1,942,932.

Unlike the experience of 1941 there were no prolonged stoppages which crippled the production of war materials for long stretches of time. Strikes, though serious, were brief, the majority of them lasting only a few days. Many of them took the form of local protests against union leaders or against what the members deemed excessive delay by the authorities in passing upon their demands.

The source of this spell of labor quiet was the no-strike pledge made by the unions of the country shortly after the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor. On Jan. 12, 1942, the President created the National War Labor Board. To this agency both employers and employees agreed to submit all disputes and to abide by its decisions. Since the unions received considerable concessions in these decisions, they displayed little disposition to challenge the board's findings. The employers, likewise, in the interest of continuous war production contented themselves with protesting decisions they did not like and refrained from direct action. In a handful of cases, in which men struck in violation of their pledge or employers refused to accept decisions of the board, the Government intervened and took over plants. When peace was restored, they were returned to their owners.

1941: Strikes

In contrast with its predecessor, the year 1941 was marked by numerous, prolonged and serious strikes. By Dec. 1, the number of strikes had multiplied so rapidly and the time lost through strikes had increased so greatly that the year became one of the most troubled in recent history.

The entry of the United States into the war in early December called a halt to demands and stoppages. Existing strikes in defense plants were called off and no new ones were ordered. The two federations of labor, the C. I. O. and A. F. of L., instructed their affiliates to seek the peaceful settlement of differences and to avoid interruptions under all circumstances. The month, consequently, was a quiet one. But whether relative peace would be maintained the following year remained to be seen.

The important strikes of the year presented a variety of features and problems. The earliest—the strike against the Allis-Chalmers Company in Milwaukee—was one of the most stubborn. The principal issue of this strike—the effort of the union to protect itself against aggressions by rival organizations and to extract dues from its members—was to be repeated in the major labor battles of the year. The Allis-Chalmers strike also won extensive public attention when an investigation by the Wisconsin authorities disclosed that the strike vote taken by the union had been fraudulent and that the strike was presumably not supported by the majority of the employees. These disclosures had no effect and the decision of the Defense Mediation Board was in the main a victory for the union.

The same issue of union security, or of the closed shop, was the cause of the important strikes against the North American Aviation and Federal Shipbuilding companies and the strikes called by John Lewis's union, the United Mine Workers, against the captive coal mines. All of these encounters severely impeded war production, aroused public and congressional resentment against unions and strikes, and induced the Defense Mediation Board to devise a novel formula for settling the closed-shop issue. This formula in substance provided that all employees who were members of the union on the date of the signing of the contract would be required to remain members in good standing during the life of the contract. The arrangement was satisfactory to the unions, at least as an interim measure. But it was widely opposed by employers, who saw it as a first and long step toward the full closed shop. In the captive mine dispute, no compromise arrangement was acceptable and the outright closed shop was conceded to the miners before the year was over.

Earlier strikes in the coal mines of the country were concerned with still another fundamental issue. In the negotiations for a new contract, the United Mine Workers demanded not only a substantial increase in wages, but also the elimination of the North-South differential in wages. Since this differential had prevailed for a long time, the Southern coal operators fought hard to retain it. Their mines were struck, the case was finally adjudicated by the Mediation Board, which yielded to the pressure of the United Mine Workers. The effect of this decision was not restricted to this industry, because it encouraged the movement, already well under way, to reduce or eliminate regional wage differentials and create a more uniform wage level throughout the United States.

As the year ended labor conditions were peaceful. The Defense Mediation Board was in process of liquidation and the way was being paved for a new board. The question before the country was whether the stubborn issues of wages and closed shop would be handled in 1942 peacefully and with due regard to the legitimate interests of industry and labor.

See also LABOR ARBITRATION; LABOR LEGISLATION; WAGES, HOURS AND WORKING CONDITIONS.

1940: Strikes

The year 1940 was marked by less serious labor disturbances than any twelve-month period in recent times.

The complete record for 1940 is not available. The figures for the first 10 months show that, although the number of strikes was larger than in 1933 and 1934 and, for the full year will probably exceed 1935, their effect on industry was relatively slight because the number of strikers was small and the duration of strikes much briefer than usual. There were no large prolonged stoppages, involving the whole or large parts of an industry, like the automobile and steel strikes of 1936-37, or the coal strike of 1939. Such strikes as did break out were promptly settled before they could be converted into stubborn tugs of war.

The machinery organized by the Defense Advisory Commission had much to do with preserving industrial peace. Soon after his appointment, Sidney Hillman, labor member of the Commission, addressed himself to the problem of preventing and settling strikes in defense industries. The first agency he created, a committee of A. F. of L. and C.I.O. union leaders, he apparently devised for the purpose of placing the responsibility for maintaining peace on the unions themselves. He added to his staff individuals whose function it became to adjust impending trouble before it broke out. At the same time, the United States Conciliation Service, under improved management, sent its representatives to all important centers of disturbance. In the vital shipbuilding industry, Mr. Hillman set up a joint industry, labor, and public commission to handle labor matters, as well as problems of production. And by the end of the year, he had decided to establish throughout the country regional branches of his office to deal with labor troubles on the spot. For the greater part of 1940, these plans and machinery worked and strikes proved to be no serious impediment to defense production.

A more subtle factor no doubt also contributed to this condition. This was the failure of the defense program to show its effects on employment and business until well along in the year. In fact during the last quarter of 1940, when the rate of industrial expansion was rapidly increasing, strikes likewise increased and threw more people out of work. The drive of the C.I.O. for higher wages and union recognition precipitated a strike of considerable proportions in the shops of the Vultee Airplane Company in southern California and threatened additional trouble in that industry. Another strike in one of the plants of the Aluminum Company of America, also concerned with the question of union control, threatened to stop the flow of a vital defense product. But both strikes were quickly settled. Nevertheless, the beginning of extensive and vigorous organizing campaigns by both the C.I.O. and the A. F. of L. made the outlook for peace in the next years less certain.

The fear that strikes and lockouts might increase and cripple defense production produced an extensive public reaction against any stoppages. There was much talk of compulsory arbitration or of some measure which would require a waiting period of at least a month before a strike was called. But these proposals failed to go beyond the stage of discussion and the year ended without action.

1939: Strikes

In 1939 labor trouble again became more widespread. The comparative quiet of 1938, which was often interpreted as the consequence of the spread of collective bargaining and the methods of peaceful negotiation associated with that instrument, was succeeded by a year of considerable unrest. Although the complete record for the year is not available, conservative estimates suggest that the number of man-days lost through strikes was more than double (or, roughly, 16,000,000 man-days) that of 1938, exceeded every year since 1933, but was materially smaller than in 1937 — the period of phenomenal organizing activity and the sit-down strike.

Sources of Trouble.

The upward swing in business activity and the approaching political developments of 1940 were probably the determining factors in this reversal of trend. In 1939, as in other periods of business recovery, organized as well as unorganized labor was impelled to take advantage of favorable conditions by demanding the restoration of concessions made the year before and by seeking improvements in the status of workers and their organizations. In industries like textiles where the depression had forced reductions in wages, the unions sought to recover in whole or in part the cuts of the year before. Where they were unable to gain wage increases through peaceful negotiations, they resorted to strikes.

A more fertile source of labor trouble was found in the efforts of many new organizations, most of them founded since 1935, to create a firmer foundation for their future existence and of all organizations, old and new, to protect themselves against the contingency of a changed political administration and labor policy following the presidential elections of 1940. Added to these influences was the fear of the majority of unions, affiliated with either the C.I.O. or the A.F. of L. of attacks upon them by rival organizations. Since a large number of unions in both federations of labor had overlapping jurisdictions, this fear was widespread and hardly any important union was free from it.

United Mine Workers Strike.

The largest and most significant stoppage of the year was that which took place in the bituminous coal industry, where close to 500,000 men were kept out of work by the failure of the United Mine Workers and the coal operators to agree upon the provisions of a new labor contract. The stubborn issue was the demand by the union for an arrangement tantamount to a closed shop, whereby all employees of the industry would be required either to join the union or lose their jobs. The purpose of this demand was twofold — to protect the United Mine Workers from defections in its ranks and, hence, to assure the union greater permanence and stability, and to prevent the Progressive Miners, a rival union affiliated with the A.F. of L., from taking away members and local unions. This demand was bitterly resisted by important groups of operators and the resistance was broken only after a prolonged strike and intervention by the President of the United States, himself. The settlement gained for the union not only the equivalent of a closed shop, but also union agreements in the hitherto non-union strongholds of Kentucky. For the time being, also, it effectively blocked the efforts of the Progressive Miners to obtain a foot-hold in the soft coal industry.

United Automobile Workers Strikes.

Equally important strikes were waged by the faction of the United Automobile Workers, affiliated with the C.I.O., against the General Motors' and Chrysler Corporations. Both strikes had much in common, although they took place at different parts of the year and differed materially in specific issues. But in each case, the main purpose of the strike was directed toward strengthening the ties between this union and its members and preventing the rival union of automobile workers, affiliated with the A.F. of L., from making gains at the expense of its C.I.O. counterpart.

In the General Motors strike, called in the spring of 1939, the C.I.O. union sought to disestablish the Federation union altogether whereas the Corporation refused, in those plants in which both factions were represented, to bargain with either until the status of the competing unions was determined by the courts or the National Labor Relations Board. While the strike ended in a compromise, the position of the C.I.O. union was strengthened by it.

The Chrysler strike was more complex. The immediate cause of the shut-down was a concerted restriction of output, or slow-down, obviously inspired by the union in various shops of the company. But the real purpose of the union policy was the winning of concessions in the provisions of a new contract which it was about to negotiate with the company. Although the C.I.O. union had won an overwhelming victory throughout the Detroit plants of the Chrysler Corporation in elections held under the direction and supervision of the National Labor Relations Board shortly before the slow-down and stoppage and, hence, had won the right to be designated as the exclusive bargaining agent of all the employees in these plants, the union apparently hoped to safeguard its position still further. It, therefore, demanded machinery for the arbitration of disputes and joint union-management control over standards of production in order to assert its control over the shops, and some form of union or closed-shop aimed to force all employees into the union and to facilitate the collection of dues. In the settlement of the strike none of these demands were granted and the union was, as required by the law, recognized as the exclusive bargaining agency. The outcome of these strikes leaves the issues of the permanence of the C.I.O. union and its relations with its rival organization still unsettled. See also AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR; CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS; UNITED STATES: Supreme Court Decisions; UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE.

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.