13 MAR--This Day in US Military History

2015-03-13T10:24:59-04:00

1946 – The end of World War II, and America’s concurrent shift to a peacetime economy, stirred the ever-simmering tension between labor and management.

After tightening their belts, and forgoing the right to strike during the war, workers sought higher wages and a better standard of living when the war was won. Business leaders responded by looking to roll back the government and union's respective efforts to shape post-war wages and prices. These competing desires were on full display in the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike against General Motors (GM) that stretched from November 1945 until March of 1946.
The walkout was engineered by UAW chief Walter Reuther, who was not only agitating for higher pay for GM’s 320,000 employees, but also looked to consolidate his power in the stratified world of the auto union. With his eyes on both these prizes, Reuther took a hard line stance at the negotiating table: he demanded that GM open its ledgers to the union, which, theoretically, would reveal that the company had prospered during the war and could easily afford a boost in wages. Leaders for the auto giant flatly refused to “open the books” and mounted a propaganda campaign aimed at branding the request as another example of labor’s ever-intrusive tendencies.
Finally, on March 13, 1946, the two sides quit their bickering and the 175,00 strikers agreed to head back to work. Although GM caved in and handed out a wage hike, the coming months hardly made the strike seem like a victory: business leaders in various industries proved successful in their drive for price increases, which opened the floodgates of inflation and in turn wiped out the workers’ wage gains.

https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/march-13/

March 13

13 March 1660 - A statute was passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia. 1677 - Massachusetts gained title to Maine for $6,000. 1777 - Congress ordered its European envoys to app...

Response by SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA made Mar 13 at 2015 2:24 PM

2015-03-13T14:24:51-04:00

Fascinating stuff, MSG Private RallyPoint Member. I love hearing "this day in history" stuff. Especially the MoH citations at the end of the link; those are nearly always fascinating.