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1986 1986-12Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 17 →
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General Motors balked at opening their financial books when auto workers demanded shorter work week.
ciation of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce were actively campaigning for a five-point legislative program to outlaw strikes, guarantee government protection to scabs and strikebreakers, and prohibit the closed shop.
The capitalists and the government would try to use the post-war period to bust unions. Between the surrender of Germany in May 1945 and Japan in August 1945, more than 1 million workers were laid off in the plants. The specter of massive unemployment haunted the workers even before the war was over.
The May 18, 1945, edition of the Toledo Union Journal, a CIO newspaper, expressed the situation eloquently: "The threat of sudden peace is almost as terrifying as the sudden coming of war for many realize that at no time has peace provided an adequate number of jobs for the workers.' Open the books The backbone of the CIO was the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) and the United Steelworkers of America (USWA). On June 14, 1945, at a CIO conference organized in Detroit to map out strategy for the post-war era, the UAW sponsored a resolution for "a 30-hour week at no reduction in take-home pay." As a first step in this direction, the resolution called for a "40-hour week at 48 hours pay; that is, a 30-percent hourly rate pay increase.
The corporations-confident they had regained their authority on the shop floor during the war and aware they had the complete support of the Democratic Party administration of Harry S. Truman rejected all these demands.
The workers, fully aware of the fantastic profits accrued by corporations during the war, countered with the demand to "Open DECEMBER 1986 */ Dare You' PROFIT the Books!" This demand, put forth by UAW First Vice-President Walter Reuther, was originated by the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party.
Such a demand made the captains of industry shake in their boots. Their refusal to "Open the Books" exposed the lie that the bosses couldn't pay wage increases without raising prices. Even a government study had indicated that the corporations could afford a 24-cent-per-hour wage in -crease with no appreciable loss in profits.
The greed-motivated intransigence of the corporations precipitated a strike wave of unprecedented breadth and duration.
Rolling strike wave
The first shot was fired by the CIO Oil Workers Industrial Union. On Sept. 17, 1945, 43,000 members in 20 states went on strike around the demand: "52-40 or fight"—a 40-hour week at 52-hours pay.
Following the example of the Oil
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