Strike Wave of 1946: Labor's greatest upsurge

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Forty years ago during a period that lasted from the end of World War II through 1946—the United States witnessed the greatest strike wave in American labor history. Sweeping across the country like a rolling thunder storm, millions of American workers and their unions mobilized on the picketline and in the streets to win economic gains from America's industrial and business giants.

Ultimately, the militancy that was displayed in many long and bitter strikes in 1945-46 forced the corporations to make considerable concessions to an aroused working class. Unlike today, it was a time when it was the bosses who had to make concessions.

The great American labor upsurge of 1945-46 was one part of a worldwide radicalization that followed the end of World. War II. In countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and India, freedom fighters were organizing and arming themselves to prevent the re-establishment of colonial rule by France, Britain and Holland.

In Europe, which was prostrated by the destruction of World War II, the working classes of both the "victorious" and the vanquished countries flexed their political muscles in the quest for peace and progress. In Great Britain, for example, the working class ousted Prime Minister Winston Churchill and elected a Labor Party government in 1946.

Setting the stage

In the United States, the mass upsurge of labor that followed World War II was a response to mass layoffs, bitterness at hav -ing to work under a "no strike" pledge during the war, and outrage at the superprofits made by the capitalists through war production.

Although the post-war labor upsurge in the United States never reached revo -lutionary proportions, a study of 1945-46 is instructive because it gives us a peek at the potential political and social power of the trade unions when their ranks are mobilized.

World War II was a bonanza for the American capitalist class. Many corpo -rations had profit rates of over 600 percent.

Production by worker-hour was raised by 26 percent while the hourly wage rate increased by only 0.6 percent. The government's policy of awarding "costplus" contracts guaranteed super-profits for America's rich. The workers were expected to make all the sacrifices.

This "welfare for the rich" was aptly summarized by Secretary of War Henry Stimson when he confided in his diary: "If you are going to try and go to war in a capitalist country you have got to let business make money out of the process, or business won't work."

Workers serve notice

Even before the imperialist war had come to an end, the class war was beginning to heat up.

Anticipating mass layoffs, the workers forced their leaders in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL)—which at the time were separate and competitive labor federations-—to formulate a strategy and demands for the post-war period.

Both the leadership of the CIO and the AFL yearned for a period of "class peace" with the corporations following the war. The rank and file, however, had no such illusions. They knew that the capitalists were preparing for the post-war period.

Spokespersons for the National Asso -16 SOCIALIST ACTION 30% MEans FOOD& Workers, almost every sector of the organized industrial working class was engaged in strike action against the employers at some point in late 1945 and 1946. Ultimately, the strike wave involved over 5 million American workers.

The vacillation of the labor bureaucracy kept many of these strikes uncoordinated and narrow. In most cases, it was the workers who initiated the actions in defiance of the bosses, the government, and the bureaucrats.

Like the fires that break out at different spots in a dry forest, one strike after another ignited throughout the country:

• 200,000 coal miners walked out of the pits.

• 44,000 AFL Lumber Workers struck in Oregon and Northern California.

• The AFL International Longshoremen's Association struck and tied up harbors on the East Coast for 19 days.

• The CIO Glass Workers Union struck the flat glass industry and held the line for 102 days.

• Almost 40,000 AFL and CIO machinists in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area joined forces in a strike that lasted 140 days.

• CIO textile workers went out for 133 days, and 70,000 AFL truck drivers in the Midwest struck for 81 days.

But the biggest battle of all was the 113day strike of 200,000 GM autoworkers who demanded a 30-percent wage increase with no raise in prices. The GM autoworkers prepared for the strike with a relish. They organized flying picket squads, mass picketlines, women's auxiliaries, and soup kitchens.

The auto workers would sometimes find themselves alone in a battle that was based on attrition. But the GM workers knew that the next strike wave by steelworkers, packinghouse workers, and electrical workers was just around the corner. Workers based their tactics on the fact that reinforcements for the fight against the bosses were on the horizon.

The corporations tried to break the strike through police attacks, scab-herding, government back-to-work orders, and court injunctions. But, unlike today, these tactics didn't work against a rank and file that was mobilized and extremely combative. As one autoworker said in retrospect, "There were damn few would-be scabs in 1946, and they never got through the picketlines.

Capitalists pull back

In the face of such mass insurgency, the corporations had to concede to the demands of the workers. The average wage increase—in general-was around 20 percent and sometimes was retroactive. In addition, the workers won a number of paid holidays and health benefits.

The corporations were able to make these concessions so they could buy some labor peace at home during a period that was to be the beginning of a capitalist "boom" cycle.

On the legislative level, however, the capitalists set the stage for 1986 by passing reactionary labor laws like the Taft-Hartley Act.

The labor bureaucrats, who tried to hold back the independent mobilization of the workers in 1946, were successful in the ensuing 20 years in giving up many of the gains—specifically the right to settle grievances through strike action-that were won with so much sacrifice and solidarity.

The first step to resolving the problems facing American workers today is to return to the class struggle methods which won the great victories of 1945-46. Except this time the workers will have to go much further.