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
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.[citation needed]
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
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 2024.
Winter of Discontent, 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
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