A Broad Battle: Public Opinion and the 1945-46 General Motors Strike by Timothy J. Minchin

In 2023, a six-week strike by the United Auto Workers led to major wage and benefit gains for workers at America’s “Big Three” car makers – General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.  The strike received widespread public attention, with a Gallup poll showing that 75 percent of Americans supported the UAW in its fight for higher pay and more job security.[1]  In September, President Biden even walked the UAW’s picket line in Belleville, Michigan, the first sitting U.S. president to join a picket line.  “Unions built the middle-class,” he asserted.  “That’s a fact.”[2]

Biden’s action reminds us that strikes – a unique expression of citizens’ frustration – matter.  In particular, the 2023 walkout showed the ability of big auto strikes to capture broader attention.  BBC News, The Guardian, and Reuters were among those there, seeing the dispute as integral to a broader upsurge in labour activism that was linked to the rising cost of living, a tight labor market, and wage stagnation.  Overall, 2023 would witness a “hot labor summer” of strikes in the U.S., the number of walkouts reaching levels not seen in decades.[3]  In the wake of the pandemic, there were similar trends elsewhere; in 2022, the number of working days lost to strikes in the UK rose to the highest level in over a decade, while the EU Observer reported a “new surge of industrial action” across Europe.[4]

In particular, there are parallels with a huge strike at General Motors (GM) in 1945-46.  Part of my wider research on the U.S. auto industry, this article was completed as the 2023 strike unfolded.  Both were important events that were led by the UAW, an 88-year old organization that was for decades America’s biggest industrial union.[5]

The Battle for Public Support

In November 1945, GM’s workers – some of them grandparents of the 2023 strikers – also struck at a time of labour upsurge.  Involving 320,000 workers, their 113-day walkout was the longest of the 1945-46 strike wave, which saw over 3 million U.S. workers mobilize.  Both disputes focused heavily on GM, America’s biggest car maker, causing heavy losses for the company at times of high profitability.  Both also led to settlements that were favourable to the union.[6]

A key feature of the 1945-46 fight – and one that has been particularly overlooked – is public reaction.[7]  Throughout the dispute, UAW GM director Walter Reuther reached out widely for support.  One of the most influential and media-savvy activists of the era, Reuther – who would go on to lead the UAW from 1946 until his death in a plane crash in 1970 – called for GM to open its books to public access, generating considerable controversy.  He also relied heavily on radio and media appearances.  Furthermore, Reuther’s arguments for mass purchasing power and price restraint – he called for a 30 percent wage increase at GM without a rise in prices – were made for all workers and consumers.  “We…want to make progress with the community and not at the expense of the community,” he explained, adding that the strike was conducted “on behalf of all Americans.”[8]

Pitting a huge union against the biggest industrial corporation in the world, the strike was what the New York Times called a “broad battle.”[9]  Whether in support or opposition, citizens were energized.  The UAW received a huge volume of correspondence about the strike, from the U.S. and beyond.  Largely overlooked, these letters provide a rich original record.  Used alongside other strike records – particularly international executive board minutes and Reuther’s papers – they form the basis of my article.  They helped me to unlock the social history of a strike that is usually viewed with a top-down lens, focused on national bargaining.[10]

Overall, I found that support outweighed criticism.  The union received eight large folders of “negative mail” compared to thirteen of positive correspondence.  Aware that GM had much bigger resources, many citizens mobilized.[11]  “The sympathy of the people regardless of the million dollar a day advertising is for the workers,” summarized one.  Given that critical correspondents knew that they were writing to an unsympathetic audience, however, their voices are also important.[12]

Writing Back to Power

Of course, letters have limitations.  Measuring public opinion is notoriously difficult for scholars, and letter-writers were a self-select group, invested in the outcome.  Nevertheless, given that archival sources tend to give voice to the powerful, the letters provide unique insights into how grassroots Americans viewed the strike.  Letters came into the UAW from coast to coast, from soldiers and citizens, men and women, rural and urban Americans.  They illustrate diverse social reactions that deserve interrogation.[13]

In the letters, the fault lines were clear, passions strong.  “Any sensible man can see that GM hasn’t got a case else it would open its books to the public,” declared Raphael Kazman, a civil engineer from Memphis.  “In a word, if you win, we all win.  If you lose, God help America.”  The GM strikers, added a Los Angeles resident, were “fighting for good of whole country instead of just UAW.”[14]

Opponents were similarly vocal, attacking the union’s demands as excessive and criticizing the attention that Reuther received.  “It seems we can’t pick up a newspaper any day, anywhere,” summarized one critic from Kansas, “but what we are fed a lot of tripe by Walter P. Reuther.”[15]

Despite these criticisms, Reuther used correspondence as a key part of his strike arsenal.  “Most of the letters we have received have heartily endorsed the UAW position that wages can and must be raised without increasing prices if the masses of people are to have enough purchasing power to buy the goods which American factories and farms can turn out at capacity production,” he wrote in March 1946.  Nevertheless, he admitted that there were many “critical letters,” often animated by “dislike” of Reuther or “labor leaders in general.”[16]  In the correspondence, Reuther was attacked as an “agitator, “racketeer,” and “gangster,” amongst other things.  He even received death threats.[17]

Legacies of Mobilised Labour

Many of the key arguments that would be used in later decades to justify attacks on unions – that they only cared about dues, that they caused strikes and violence, that they hurt business competitiveness, and that their leaders were unaccountable “union bosses” – were foregrounded in the letters.[18]  As such, strike correspondence offer a lens into a burgeoning conservative counterattack against labour, one that built on deeper anti-radicalism and would gather strength over the postwar era.  “We the damned public are getting fed up with this type of leadership,” summarized W.C. Wright, a “common layman” from Pennsylvania, seeing the strike as undemocratic.  “If the union cannot get their own house in order then let’s do it for them.”[19]

As the strike unfolded, both sides leveraged the war.  “The interests of the Labor Unions are essentially the interests of the Veterans,” summarized Louisa Pearson, a Texan attorney.[20]  In contrast, opponents referenced the war to restrict labour rights.  For them, it was crucial for veterans to put labour back in its place on the home front.  Describing himself as “no crank,” worker Kendall B. McEwan wrote Reuther from Los Angeles.  “I ENLISTED in the service as a buck private and rose to the rank of 1^st Lieutenant,” he explained.  “I was shot down while a crew member of a B-24 and was interned in a neutral country, and you, sir, and men like you, were NOT what I was fighting for.”[21]

Nationally, the strike added to calls for labour to be contained. In November 1946 Republicans won both the House and Senate for the first time in sixteen years, providing the platform for the passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act.  Pulling back the landmark provisions of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, Taft-Hartley strengthened management prerogatives, limited the right to strike, and required union officers to sign anti-Communist affidavits.  Addressing the executive board, Reuther termed it “anti-labor.”  Taft-Hartley underpinned the postwar labour relations era in the U.S., stymying labour’s hopes of ongoing growth.[22]

The strike, however, also had a progressive legacy.  Reuther took his case to the public, especially in “Purchasing Power for Prosperity,” a 79-page pamphlet that was widely-read.[23]  The union also set up a National Citizens’ Committee to Aid Families of GM Strikers. Chaired by novelist Elizabeth Janeway, it was supported by Eleanor Roosevelt and other prominent citizens.  Overall, public backing was vital.  “Our picket lines remain strong,” wrote Reuther in February, “thanks to the support of the many individual citizens who have come forward to aid us.”[24]

Solidarity led to gains.  In January, Ford and Chrysler settled with the union, giving pay rises of 18 and 18.5 cents an hour respectively.  On March 13, following federal intervention, GM and the UAW agreed a deal based on these terms.[25]  The national settlement included the 18.5 cents pay offer, along with allowances for vacations, overtime, and plant pay differentials. It paved the way for the pattern of postwar labour relations, which saw the UAW leading the way in winning good wages and pathbreaking benefits, including generous pensions and company-paid health insurance.[26]  Helped by another national strike at GM in 1970, by 1975 U.S. auto workers made $249.53 a week, up sharply from $56.51 in 1947 (in stable dollars).  Historian John Barnard called them the “best paid blue-collar workforce in the world.”[27]

The strike also exposed the limits of postwar labour relations.  GM resisted the UAW’s calls to “open its books,” fiercely defending managerial prerogatives.  This left the industry, reliant on making big cars, poorly-placed to meet increasing import competition.  The UAW pushed small car production as early as the 1950s, but the companies again told them again to stay out of managerial decisions.[28]

It proved a fateful move.  From the 1970s, the industry was hit hard by international competition, forcing the union onto the defensive.  Although autoworkers remained well-paid, several decades of wage and benefit concessions followed.  Between 1970 and 1998, employment at GM more than halved, from over 400,000 to around 200,000.[29]  In 2007, to save jobs, the union agreed to two-tier contracts, with new workers paid less and having fewer benefits.  By 2017, workers hired after 2007 made up to 45 percent less than the $31 an hour that veteran workers earned.  Ending this system was a central demand in the 2023 strike (successfully achieved).[30]

It is partly because of decades of bargaining givebacks that American workers are organizing, winning gains across the economy.[31]  In 2023, UAW members – under the fresh leadership of reformer Shawn Fain – mobilized, striking all of the Big Three at once for the first time.  As Fain used Social Media to recruit public support, observers drew comparisons with Reuther, the UAW’s “legendary leader.”[32]  In 2023, Fain was proud of an “historic agreement” that reflected what the Washington Post called the “resurgent enthusiasm for unions.”  As we live through a time of remarkable labour upsurge, history helps us understand why workers – in the U.S. and beyond – are fighting back.[33]

Timothy J. Minchin is professor of History at La Trobe University. His research interests encompass twentieth-century U.S. history, particularly civil rights and labour history. His article ‘A broad battle: public opinion and the 1945–1946General Motors strike’ is available to read online in Social History 49,3.

 

References

[1] See, for example, Dan Kaufman, “On the Line: Has the Autoworkers’ Strike Revived U.S. Labor?” The New Yorker, November 6, 2023, p. 44.

[2] Katie Rogers and Erica L. Green, “Biden Joins Autoworkers on Picket Line in Michigan,” New York Times, September 26, 2023.

[3] See, for example, “Putting UAW Strike Into Historical Perspective,” BBC News, September 16, 2023; Lois Beckett, “Hollywood Writers’ Strike: WGA Reaches ‘Tentative’ Deal to End 146-Day Strike,” The Guardian, September 25, 2023 (quotation); David Shepardson and Joseph White, “UAW Expands Auto Strike to Ford’s Biggest Plant in Surprise Move,” Reuters, October 13, 2023.

[4] Richard Partington, “UK Strike Levels Soar as Public Sector Workers Face Worst Pay Squeeze,” The Guardian, November 15, 2023; Paula Soler, “The EU Labour Strike Map: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Action,” EU Observer, April 11, 2023.

[5] John Barnard, American Vanguard: The United Auto Workers During the Reuther Years, 1935-1970 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), esp. pp. v, 1-3.

[6] “UAW vs. GM: A Broad Battle Opens,” New York Times, November 25, 1945, p. 69; “180,000 Quit Jobs: Men Orderly as UAW Resumes Strategy of ‘Divide and Conquer,’” New York Times, November 22, 1945, p. 26; Nelson Lichtenstein, Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), pp. 232, 234.

[7] [1] As explained more fully in the article, the strike has been covered in broader, national works on the UAW and Walter Reuther, such as those by John Barnard (American Vanguard) and Nelson Lichtenstein (Walter Reuther).  Public reaction, however, is not the focus of any of these accounts, and is not explored in detail.

[8] Barnard, American Vanguard, p. 213 (first quotation); Walter P. Reuther to R.R. Reese, February 21, 1946, folder 17, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers (second quotation), held at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit.

[9] “UAW vs. GM: A Broad Battle Opens,” New York Times, November 25, 1945, p. 69.  For examples of international reaction, see Richard Strout, “America Facing New Strike Threats: Unions’ Big Wage Demands,” Sunday Times, December 15, 1946, p. 6; Dennis W. Brogan, “American Labour Comes of Age,” The Times, June 11, 1950, p. 6.

[10] The UAW Papers are vast, and the GM Department Papers are an important component of the collection.  For this article, I mined the GM Department Papers extensively.  For an overview of the strike records and correspondence in the GM Department Papers, see “The UAW-GM Collection,” finding aid (LR000113), available from the Reuther Library at https://archives.wayne.edu/repositories/2/resources/1841 (accessed March 8, 2023).  I also used the International Executive Board minutes, cited further below and in the article.

[11] “UAW-GM Collection” finding aid, p. 34; Walter P. Reuther to Dr. Mary Alice Sarvis, January 11, 1946, December 16, 1945, folder 1, box 83, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[12] “A UEW Member” to Mr. Reuther, December 20, 1946, folder 20, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[13] For the deeper roots of letter-writing and a wider discussion of these issues, see particularly Rebecca Earle, Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600-1945 (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999); Caroline Bland and Maire Cross, eds., Gender and Politics in the Age of Letter Writing, 1750-2000 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003).

[14] Raphael J. Kazman (?) to Walter Reuther, December 4, 1945, folder 16, box 82; and Unsigned letter from Los Angeles to Walter Reuther, November 19, 1945, folder 22, box 82, both in part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[15] J.E. Lewis (?) to Walter P. Reuther, November 14, 1945, folder 21, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[16] Walter P. Reuther to F.W. Wade, March 12, 1946, folder 21, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[17] For examples, see Claretta M. Oldham to Mr. Reuther, January 18, 1946, folder 19, box 82 (“agitators”); Benton Trinken to Walter P. Reuther, December 4, 1945, folder 22, box 82 (“racketeers”); Acher J. Mahood to Walter P. Reuther, November 20, 1945, folder 21, box 82 (“gangsterish”); AN Other to Mr. Reuther, nd (ca. December 1945), folder 21, box 82, all in part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[18] For an overview of these points in an important recent work, especially as used by America’s huge union avoidance industry, see Stephen J. Silvia, The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants (Ithaca and London: ILR Press, 2023), pp. 2-3.

[19] W.C. Wright to Gentlemen, December 24, 1945, folder 12, box 83, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[20] Louisa Pearson to Walter P. Reuther, February 7, 1946, folder 23, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers

[21] Kendall B. McEwan to Walter Reuther, January 18, 1946, folder 19, box 82, part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[22] UAW International Executive Board Minutes, June 9-13, 1947, p. 9, box 4, International Executive Board Minutes-UAW Papers (Reuther quotation).  For an overview of Taft-Hartley, see Robert H. Zieger and Gilbert J. Gall, American Workers, American Unions, Third Edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 152-154.

[23] “Purchasing Power for Prosperity: The Case of the General Motors Workers for Maintaining Take-Home Pay,” (Brief by Walter P. Reuther), October 26, 1945, folder 8, box 23, Reuther Papers.

[24] Walter P. Reuther to Rev. William K. Russell, February 5, 1946, folder 2, box 83, both part 2, GM Department-UAW Papers.

[25] “Strike Settlement Agreement,” March 13, 1946, folder 10, box 23, Reuther Papers.

[26] Walter W. Ruch, “Union Conference Approves GM Pact: UAW Council Advises Locals to Ratify It but Empowers Them to Stay Out for Grievances,” New York Times, March 16, 1946, p. 14.

[27] Barnard, American Vanguard, p. 474.

[28] See, for example, Irv Bluestone to John Driscoll, January 31, 1967, folder 8, box 222; “Proposal to Reduce Balance of Payments Deficit and to Provide Employment for Displaced Studebaker Workers by Production of an All-American Small Car,” January 4, 1964, folder 9, box 368, both in Reuther Papers.

[29] Fara Warner, Rebecca Blumenstein, and Gregory L. White, “GM, UAW Reach Tentative Accord to Settle Strikes,” Wall Street Journal, July 29, 1998, p. A2.

[30] Noam Scheiber, “Workers Chase Spoils of Boom On Picket Lines,” New York Times, October 20, 2019, p. A1.

[31] Angela B. Cornell, “Labor’s Obstacles and Democracy’s Demise,” in Angela B. Cornell and Mark Barenberg, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 49-65, esp. 49-50.  For an overview of the fightback, see also Timothy J. Minchin, “A New Labor Movement?  Assessing the Worker Upsurge in the Contemporary U.S.,” Labor History (March 2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2024.2327487

[32] Quotation in Jeanne Whalen and Lauren Kaori Gurley, “UAW and Ford Reach Tentative Deal to End Strike,” Washington Post, October 25, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/25/uaw-strike-ford-updates/ (accessed January 3, 2024); “UAW President Fain Compared to Reuther,” Detroit Free Press, September 25, 2023.

[33] Fain quoted in “Ford Tentative Agreement Announcement,” available from the UAW webpage at: https://uaw.org/uaw-reaches-tentative-agreement-record-contract-ford-motor-company/ (accessed October 27, 2023); Jeanne Whalen and Lauren Kaori Gurley, “UAW and Ford Reach Tentative Deal to End Strike,” Washington Post, October 25, 2023 (closing quotation).