The United States strike wave of 1919 was a succession of extensive labor strikes following World War I that unfolded across various American industries, involving more than four million American workers. [1] [2] [3] This significant post-war labor mobilization marked a critical juncture in the nation's industrial landscape, with widespread strikes reflecting the heightened socioeconomic tensions and the burgeoning demand for improved working conditions and fair labor practices. [3] [2] [4]
During World War I, the period witnessed a notable increase in strike activity, with the average number of workers participating in strikes each year from 1916 to 1918 being 2.4 times higher than in 1915. [5] : 111 This upsurge laid the groundwork for the subsequent strike wave of 1919, as workers began to grasp the influence they could exert over production through collective actions. [5] : 111 The economic backdrop further fueled discontent, with the cost of living in the United States nearly doubling from August 1915 to August 1919. [5] : 111
The aftermath of the war also introduced a complex sociopolitical environment. The success of the 1917 Russian Revolution found resonance among certain radical factions within U.S. unions. Concurrently, concerns among business and government leaders intensified, driven by a perception that existing industrial relations faced a unified challenge from what they regarded as a 'Bolshevist' conspiracy. [6] : 112 The 1919 Seattle General Strike, partly inspired by the Russian Revolution, served as a manifestation of these tensions, contributing to the overall atmosphere of unrest. [7]
After the war, following the end of wartime price controls and laxing of government regulation against union busting, the cost of living rose significantly. This led to anger among workers and subsequently large strikes. [2] : 112–113
Some notable strikes in 1919 include:
There was both support and opposition to numerous strikes across the country, resulting in various state and federal responses. In the midst of the Seattle strikes, Mayor Ole Hanson called upon Secretary of War Newton Baker to deploy federal troops to threaten strikers to return to work. [17] Additional federal actions were taken by President Woodrow Wilson and his administration, empowered by Congress passing the Lever Act in 1917, granting the president the authority to manage food and fuel distribution. [18] This allowed the president and his administration to engage directly with many large unions nationwide, aiming to prevent strikes and imposing fines, such as the United States Fuel Administration penalizing striking coal miners in Indiana with a $1 fine. [18]
Worker divisions were widespread, with native and immigrant workers often at odds as employers utilized propaganda to exploit racial tensions among some white native workers. [17] Riots erupted in several cities, including the Cleveland May Day Riot, where tensions escalated due to a series of strikes leading to conflicts between unionists and leftists, as well as anti-communist and anti-unionist residents. [19]
The results of the strikes were varied:
In broad trends, the number of strikes began to decline from their peak in 1919 as the United States war economy transitioned. The labor market tightened with the return of veterans, the resumption of immigration, economic contraction leading to two separate recessions, and rising prices. [22] These factors contributed to diminishing bargaining power for many workers, given the tightening job markets. The federal government, no longer protecting unions, dismantled its wartime labor agencies, enabling companies to resume union-busting efforts. [23] [22] The strike wave struggled to sustain continual growth and concessions due to state and federal governments actively suppressing strikes, both through military intervention and by invoking the fear of Bolshevism following the Russian Revolution. [24] This overall wave of strikes has been speculated to have played a role in the emergence and intensity of the First Red Scare.
Following the onset of the Great Migration, significant amounts of African Americans migrated to the industrial north. In some cities, they were hired as strikebreakers, especially during the strikes of 1917 and 1919 as it was one of the few ways for them to secure jobs. [25] This development triggered new racial tensions, largely instigated by white workers. [22] The Red Summer also occurred in 1919, a set of white supremacist terrorism, and racially motivated attacks against Black Americans within the US. [26]
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the labor movement that, through industrial unionism, seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes, with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of production and the economy at large through social ownership. Developed in French labor unions during the late 19th century, syndicalist movements were most predominant amongst the socialist movement during the interwar period that preceded the outbreak of World War II.
The United Mine Workers of America is a North American labor union best known for representing coal miners. Today, the Union also represents health care workers, truck drivers, manufacturing workers and public employees in the United States and Canada. Although its main focus has always been on workers and their rights, the UMW of today also advocates for better roads, schools, and universal health care. By 2014, coal mining had largely shifted to open pit mines in Wyoming, and there were only 60,000 active coal miners. The UMW was left with 35,000 members, of whom 20,000 were coal miners, chiefly in underground mines in Kentucky and West Virginia. However it was responsible for pensions and medical benefits for 40,000 retired miners, and for 50,000 spouses and dependents.
The Ludlow Massacre was a mass killing perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. Soldiers from the Colorado National Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) attacked a tent colony of roughly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families in Ludlow, Colorado, on April 20, 1914. Approximately 21 people, including miners' wives and children, were killed. John D. Rockefeller Jr., a part-owner of CF&I who had recently appeared before a United States congressional hearing on the strikes, was widely blamed for having orchestrated the massacre.
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The Seattle General Strike was a five-day general work stoppage by 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington from February 6 to 11, 1919. The goal was to support shipyard workers in several unions who were locked out of their jobs when they tried to strike for higher wages. Most other local unions joined the walk-out, including members of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The national offices of the AFL unions were opposed to the shutdown. Local, state and federal government officials, the press, and much of the public viewed the strike as a radical attempt to subvert American institutions.
The first Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the Russian 1917 October Revolution and anarchist bombings in the U.S. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of socialism, communism, and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a labor union founded in Marshall, Michigan, on 8 May 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Footboard. It was the first permanent trade organization for railroad workers in the US. A year later it was renamed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The B of LE took its present name in 2004 when it became a division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).
The following is a timeline of labor history, organizing & conflicts, from the early 1600s to present.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) cut wages for the third time in a year. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the first strike that spread across multiple different states in the U.S. This strike finally ended 52 days later, after it was put down by unofficial militias, the National Guard, and federal troops. Because of economic problems and pressure on wages by the railroads, workers in numerous other cities, in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland, into Illinois and Missouri, also went out on strike. An estimated 100 people were killed in the unrest across the country. In Martinsburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and other cities, workers burned down and destroyed both physical facilities and the rolling stock of the railroads—engines and railroad cars. Some locals feared that workers were rising in revolution such as the Paris Commune of 1871, while others joined their efforts against the railroads.
The Great Steel Strike of 1919 was an attempt by the American Federation of Labor to organize the leading company, United States Steel, in the American steel industry. The AFL formed a coalition of 24 unions, all of which had grown rapidly during World War I. In the lead role would be the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers (AA) with a five-member steering committee. The strike began on September 22, 1919, and finally collapsed on January 8, 1920. The opposition led by Elbert H. Gary, president of U.S. Steel had triumphed.
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Julia Sarsfield O'Connor (1890–1972) was an American labor leader and head of the National Telephone Operators' Department of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). She spent her entire forty-five-year career in the labor movement.
The Coal Wars were a series of armed labor conflicts in the United States, roughly between 1890 and 1930. Although they occurred mainly in the East, particularly in Appalachia, there was a significant amount of violence in Colorado after the turn of the century.
The United States strike wave of 1945–1946 or great strike wave of 1946 was 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. They were the largest strikes in American labor history. Other strikes occurred across the world including in Europe and colonial Africa.
The Oakland general strike took place on December 3, 1946, in Oakland, California. The strike followed an earlier strike by 400 female employees of Hastings and Kahn's, who had walked out in the fall of 1946 because of the resistance Oakland's retail merchants had to unionization.
The 1877 St. Louis general strike was one of the first general strikes in the United States. It grew out of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The strike was largely organized by the Knights of Labor and the Marxist-leaning Workingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era.
Jeremy Brecher is a historian, documentary filmmaker, activist, and author of books on labor and social movements.
The 1985–1987 Watsonville Cannery strike was a labor strike that involved over 1,000 workers at two food processing facilities in Watsonville, California, United States. The facilities were owned by Watsonville Canning and Richard A. Shaw Inc., two of the largest frozen food processors in the United States, while the workers were all union members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 912. The strike began on September 9, 1985, and completely ended about 18 months later, on March 11, 1987.
