User:Rjensen/Strikes

see List of strikes

Overview
Between 1930 and 1941, 27,000 work stoppages led to a loss of 172 million labor days, and about 90 deaths. However, the impact of strikes was not limited to interrupting business operations. As the economy declined workers were angry but management was losing money and could not afford to raise wages, so the strikes usually failed. This caused desperation among workers and union leaders. However as the economy shot up starting in summer 1933, labor knew that management would negotiate rather than lose markets and profits. The New Deal unintentionally fueled labor militancy, giving unions a powerful tool in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the "Wagner Act." It set up the pro-union National Labor Relations Board. Rank-and-file workers, who initiated most stoppages by walking out or sitting down, weighed their lost wages versus the long-term benefits of union membership if they won. The main gains were made by the old established unions belonging to the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and even more dramatically by the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which split from the AFL in 1935. John L. Lewis of the coal miners' union used his organizers to unionize the nation's steel, auto, rubber and electrical plants. Organized labor's unprecedented accomplishments during this era were impossible without the aid of strikes.

Federal role
The involvement of the federal government in labor disputes caused a gradual weakening of employers' power. To address the demands of trade unionists, Congress enacted the Norris-La Guardia Act in 1932, which blocked federal courts from issuing injunctions that helped management. It also stopped federal courts from enforcing yellow-dog contracts in which workers promised not to join a union. The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), specifically Section 7(a), went further: it gave workers the right to join unions of their choice and collectively bargain with management. These new laws had an immediate impact as the number of strikes doubled with triple the number striking.