From 1950-1953, the United States was involved in the Korean War. To fund the war, Truman originally wanted to increase taxes and implement credit controls to limit inflation. Many Americans were opposed to this due to the previous two decades of shortages from the Great Depression and World War II rationing, so the government was forced to get creative in thinking of other ways to fund and mobilize for war. TheOffice of Price Stabilization (OPS)enacted price controls on various wartime industries, including steel tonnage pricing, while theWage Stabilization Board (WSB)worked to limit wage increases for workers to what they felt was a reasonable amount. With these two major agencies, the US was able to keep producing war materials without interruption from labor and industry disputes over prices and wages.
As time went on, slight changes had to be made to the wartime economy. Taxes ultimately had to be increased over time, but wages were increasing too slowly to please many of the labor groups in the US. This situation especially upset the steel unions. The steel industry was vital to the war effort, and the steel unions were strong. They wanted to capitalize on their importance to the defense efforts by granting wage increases to steel workers. By late 1951 the unions were asking for wage increases above the 10% maximum set by the Wage Stabilization Board. The companies told the unions that they would not allow these wage increases unless they could guarantee a higher sale price for the steel they were producing. After several round of negotiations, the Office of Price Stabilization still did not agree to the tonnage hike the steel companies wanted, so the companies denied the wage increases demanded by the unions. The unions threatened to strike, and a domestic crisis began. Truman immediately threw his support behind the union workers, as they were some of his biggest political supporters. However, he found himself in a precarious political situation.
The threat of a strike continued throughout early 1952. In March, the WSB recommended the steelworkers be granted a wage increase. Worrying that their profit margins would drop if they paid their workers more money, the steel companies asked the OPS for an increase in steel tonnage pricing. The OPS refused the proposed price increase and made a lower counteroffer, angering the steel companies. In the midst of these arguments, the workers decided to strike. With important supplies for the war effort hanging in the balance, Truman had to determine what to do.
It is within the president's power to put people back to work through strikes, but there are different ways to go about it. For instance, in 1917 President Wilsonnationalizedthe railroad industry to keep workers from striking during WWI. Truman could do something similar viaExecutive Order, but he had other options as well. In 1947 Congress passed theTaft-Hartley Act, which banned strategies to help workers organize unions and limited the president's power to seize industries during times of labor unrest. Instead, it offered the president the power to force workers back to work for 80 days while negotiations continued between labor and management. This option would keep wartime industries running uninterrupted. In 1948, an amendment was added to theSelective Service Act, allowing the president toseizeindustry facilities that were unable to fill their government orders for wartime products. The steel industry was not defaulting on its order obligations; however, as commander-in-chief, the president can make all military decisions for the United States, including mobilization efforts.
In the end, Truman issued Executive Order 10340 to seize control of the steel industries on April 8, 1952. The companies sued, resulting in a Supreme Court case to determine whether or not Truman overstepped his Constitutional powers in the steel seizures.
The 1952 steel strike was a strike by the United Steelworkers of America
United Steelworkers of America
The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › United_Steelworkers
United States Steel Corporation, more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an American integrated steel producer headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with production operations primarily in the United States of America and in Central Europe.
(USS) and nine other steelmakers. The strike was scheduled to begin on April 9, 1952, but US President Harry Truman nationalized the American steel industry hours before the workers walked out.
Truman seized control of the railroads and threatened to operate them using the army as strikebreakers. When the railroad unions continued to defy Truman's order to return to work, Truman went to Congress seeking the power to draft strikers into the armed forces.
In April of 1952, during the Korean War, President Truman issued an executive order directing Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer to seize and operate most of the nation's steel mills. This was done in order to avert the expected effects of a strike by the United Steelworkers of America.
Nationally, as well as locally, the strike officially ended on 8 Jan. 1920 with no concessions from U.S. Steel—and public suspicion, if not animosity, toward the union movement. It would be more than a decade before unions made major inroads into unionizing Cleveland's, and the nation's, steel plants.
As the strike began, they published information exposing National Committee co-chairman William Z. Foster's past as a Wobbly and syndicalist, and claimed this was evidence that the steelworker strike was being masterminded by communists and revolutionaries.
In the end, Truman issued Executive Order 10340 to seize control of the steel industries on April 8, 1952. The companies sued, resulting in a Supreme Court case to determine whether or not Truman overstepped his Constitutional powers in the steel seizures.
It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.
The 1952 steel strike was a strike by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) against U.S. Steel (USS) and nine other steelmakers. The strike was scheduled to begin on April 9, 1952, but US President Harry Truman nationalized the American steel industry hours before the workers walked out.
The Truman Administration abandoned plans to reunite North and South Korea and instead decided to pursue limited goals in order to avoid the possible escalation of the conflict into a third world war involving China and the Soviet Union.
v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), also commonly referred to as the Steel Seizure Case or the Youngstown Steel case, was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property.
Roosevelt attempted to persuade the union to end the strike with a promise that he would create a commission to study the causes of the strike and propose a solution, which Roosevelt promised to support with all of the authority of his office.
With some miners still working and police protecting coal deliveries, the union's position was weakened. When the NUM held a special conference on 3 March 1985, coalfield delegates narrowly voted to end the strike. Miners returned to work on 5 March.
On Friday, October 3, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt called a precedent-shattering meeting at the temporary White House at 22 Lafayette Place, Washington, D.C. A great strike in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania threatened a coal famine.
Truman argued that the United States could no longer stand by and allow the forcible expansion of Soviet totalitarianism into free, independent nations, because American national security now depended upon more than just the physical security of American territory.
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