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United States 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]

Background[edit]

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 and company policies or firings.

(March 1945)

10,500 film crew workers

43,000 oil workers (October 1945)

(November 1945)

320,000 United Auto Workers

Large 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."[11]: 248 

List of US strikes by size

Strike wave of 1919

Striking US workers by year

similar period of widespread strikes in 1978–1979 Great Britain that led to the election of a Conservative government that passed new restrictions on union activities

Winter of Discontent

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.

Newsreel May 23, 1946: Rail strike paralyzes the nation

Newsreel May 29, 1946: end of coal strike