The strike wave of 1945–1946 (also called the great strike wave of 1946) was a series of massive post-war labor strikes from 1945 to 1946 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. They were the largest strikes in American labor history.
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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. Often the strikes were against work discipline, In a study done by Jerome F. Scott and George C. Homans of 118 strikes in Detroit from 1944–45, only four were for wages, the rest were for discipline, company policies or firings.
The strikes
After the war, wages fell across the board, leading to large strikes. Strikes in 1945 included:
In 1946, strikes increased:
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."
Aftermath
In 1947, Congress responded to the strike wave by passing, 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 2016.