Labor unrest is inevitable in a free economy; it is part of the struggle for adjustment to shifting economic conditions. The labor unrest that developed during the closing months of the war and mushroomed into violence during the early period of my administration presented one of the most difficult and persistent of all the domestic problems I faced as President of the United States.

My attitude toward labor had consistently been one of sympathy and support. This is evident in my voting record in the Senate over a period of ten years. And later, as Vice President and then as Chief Executive, I was deeply aware of the serious problems that were certain to confront labor when the war came to an end and during the period of industrial reconversion that followed.

With the return of millions of servicemen to the ranks of labor, the workers in industry and business were faced with redeployment of manpower, with reductions in overtime pay, curtailment of wartime production, and the consequent threat of competition for jobs. Questions of seniority rights came to be involved with the rights of veterans returning to their jobs. And under these new conditions many disputes arose - many of them legitimate - regarding wage increases commensurate with increased profits and with rising costs of living in the postwar period.

These were real problems, affecting one of the largest segments of our population. I always favored pay increases and other benefits where they could be effected without raising prices and encouraging inflation. I worked to restore to labor the free collective bargaining process of which it had been deprived during the war years. But it was also my responsibility as Chief Executive to see that the public was not injured by private fights between labor and management or among the unions themselves. I intervened in these disputes only when it became apparent that the economic welfare or security of the nation as a whole was jeopardized.

Such action on my part was first made necessary just eighteen days after I took the oath of office as President, when on April 30, 1945, John L. Lewis ordered 72,000 anthracite coal miners out on strike after efforts to obtain a satisfactory contract with the mine operators had failed. As Commander in Chief, I viewed any stoppages in any of the basic industries as direct threats to the war effort and the national security. On May 3, I issued an Executive Order placing the affected mines under the temporary possession and control of the Department of the Interior.

The coal strike in May of 1945 was only the beginning. Even though Lewis accepted a compromise agreement from the operators for a daily wage increase of $1,37½ for the anthracite miners, work stoppages persisted in the form of absenteeism and repeated wildcat strikes. By the middle of summer, we lost more than 12 million tons of coal.

I was gravely concerned about the coal situation in Europe, and in June, I sent a message to Prime Minister Churchill:

“The coal famine which threatens Europe this coming winter has impressed me with the great urgency of directing our military authorities in Germany to exert every effort to increase German coal production and to furnish for export the whole quantity over and above minimum German needs.

“From all the reports which reach me, I believe that without immediate concentration on the production of German coal we will have turmoil and unrest in the very areas of western Europe on which the whole stability Of the continent depends.

“Similar representation should be made to France and Belgium to take drastic steps to increase their production within their own boundaries.

“I, therefore, propose to send the following directive to General Eisenhower. Before dispatching it I should like to have your agreement that a similar directive will be sent by you to General Montgomery.

“I am sending a similar communication to the Provisional French Government to cover the production in the Saar region. . . .

“QUOTE: Directive to the American Commander in Chief in Europe.

“Unless large quantities of coal are made available to liberated Europe in forthcoming months, there is grave danger of such political and economic chaos as to prejudice the redeployment of Allied troops and to jeopardize the achievement of the restoration of economic stability which is the necessary basis for a firm and just peace. Coal for western Europe in adequate quantities cannot, as a practical matter, be obtained from any source other than Germany. It is a matter of great urgency that Germany be made to produce for export to other European nations the coal which they must have to support economic life on at least a minimum basis.

“You are therefore directed, in your capacity of Commanding General of United States Forces in Germany and as United States member of the Allied Control Council, to take all steps necessary to achieve the following objectives:

“To make available for export from Germany out of the production of the coal mines in western Germany, a minimum of 10 million tons of coal during 1945, and a further 15 million tons by the end of April 1946 . . . subordinate only to requirements necessary to ensure the safety, security, health, maintenance and operation of the occupying forces and the speedy redeployment of the Allied Forces from Germany. . . .

“It is recognized that the carrying out of the above policies with respect to German coal may cause unemployment, unrest and dissatisfaction among Germans of a magnitude which may necessitate firm and rigorous action. Any action required to control the situation will be fully supported. UNQUOTE.”

On July 27, I sent the following letter to Marshal Stalin, enclosing the same directive, seeking a common policy with respect to the coal crisis:

“An acute coal famine threatens Europe this winter unless German coal in substantial quantities can be made available for export. Despite our own shortage of coal, internal transportation and ocean shipping, we are now shipping coal to Europe as an emergency measure in order to provide some relief in the present crisis. It is obvious, however, that with our large commitment of industrial and military resources in the war against Japan, the quantities of coal which we can make available to Europe will be inadequate to cover pressing European needs. To meet these needs all possible measures should immediately be taken to increase coal production in Germany and to make the maximum quantities available for export.

“In order to avoid delay, I have directed the United States Commander in Chief to take the necessary measures in his zone of occupation. I understand that the British and French Governments have issued similar directives to their respective commanders in Germany. A copy of the directive to General Eisenhower is attached.

“I am most anxious that a common policy in respect to coal should be followed by the four occupying powers, and I have therefore instructed General Eisenhower to discuss the policy set forth in the above directive at the Allied Control Council at the earliest possible date. I trust that the Soviet Government will see their way to joining with us in this policy. It is my hope that they will be prepared to instruct their commander in chief to take similar action in the portions of Germany occupied by the Soviet forces, and to proceed with the formulation in the Control Council of a coal production and export program for Germany as a whole.”

Stalin’s reply came two days later:

“I have received your memorandum of July 27 concerning German coal and a copy of your directive to General Eisenhower.

“The important question set forth in your memorandum concerning the use of German coal to satisfy European needs will be subject to appropriate study. The Government of the United States will be informed of the point of view of the Soviet Government on this question.

“I must however state that we should avoid a situation arising whereby the taking of measures on the export of German coal would lead to any disturbances in Germany, concerning which mention is made in your directive to General Eisenhower - and this seems to me fully possible and necessary from the point of view of the interests of the Allied Governments.”

By the autumn of 1945, the labor situation in the United States was assuming serious proportions. Strikes were spreading once more through the coal mines, until 28,000 miners were idle. The issue this time involved union demands for recognition as collective bargaining agents for supervisory employees. Walkouts in the oil and lumber industries were crippling the reconversion program. In the Detroit area, labor disturbances were halting automobile production in one plant after another, culminating in the United Automobile Workers’ strike against General Motors. This was the first strike of such magnitude following the war and involved 175,000 workers and plants in nineteen states. Strikes were also threatening the steel industry and the railroads. In scores of smaller industries in various parts of the country, strikes were widespread and occasionally violent during the latter half of 1945.

While I realized that these turbulent conditions were largely a manifestation of labor’s readjustment from wartime to peacetime economy, it was also clear to me that the time had come for action on the part of the government. I had decided long before becoming President that the country needed a national wage policy, effective mediation machinery, and other remedial legislation which would protect the rightful interests of labor, of management, and of the public.

Under the Smith-Connally Act of 1943, I had the authority as President to seize for government operation essential strike-bound industries, and I invoked the law in a number of cases. But it was not adequate legislation, because it provided no means to prevent strikes and had the undesirable effect in some instances of dramatizing strike threats. Even the co-author of the bill, Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia, proposed repeal of the act in October of 1945.

The increasing labor difficulties of the postwar period were the subject of many discussions with the Cabinet in meetings during October and November 1945. I decided to invite the leaders of labor and management to meet in Washington to work out a new approach toward solving the industrial crisis.

I sent letters to William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor; Ira Mosher, president of the National Association of Manufacturers; Philip Murray, president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations; and Eric Johnston, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Thirty-six delegates were appointed to represent the interests of both labor and management, and a conference got under way in the Labor Department auditorium on November 5.

I opened the conference with an appeal to the delegates to set up among themselves a definite policy in the field of labor relations. I recommended that such a policy be based on four fundamentals: (1) genuine collective bargaining; (2) use of impartial machinery for reaching decisions where bargaining fails; (3) peaceful negotiation of contracts and methods of peaceful adjustment of disputes arising under these agreements; and (4) a substitute for inter-union jurisdictional strikes.

Emphasizing that this was not a government conference but a conference of representatives of labor and management chosen by their own leaders, I warned that failure to produce any workable recommendations on how to avoid work stoppages would mean legislation by the Congress.

After three weeks of deliberations, the conference adjourned without making any recommendations, and I went before the Congress on December 3 with a request for immediate legislation. The plan I recommended called for the establishment of fact-finding boards which would be directed to make a thorough investigation of all the facts involved in each dispute. They would be empowered to subpoena all records which the boards should deem relevant to the case. A cooling-off period of thirty days, during which strikes would be outlawed, would be required while the fact-finding boards were being named, and the investigations made.

In order to avoid delay in the settlement of the automobile, oil, and meat-packing strikes, and to cope with the threatened steel strike before the Congress would have a chance to pass such legislation, I set up such fact-finding boards by Executive Order. While these did not have the statutory power I hoped the Congress would soon authorize, I felt that the American people would expect the employer and the employees in each case to cooperate with the boards as fully as if appropriate legislation had already been passed.

The unions - particularly the United Mine Workers - reacted violently to the plan as a restriction of the right to strike and as compulsory arbitration. It was, of course, neither of these. It was simply an attempt at peaceful mediation of labor-management disputes by eliminating the harmful effects on the public and on the national economy of prolonged work stoppages. With 265,000 workers idle in the United States at the time I made the proposal, the need for such action was obvious. Furthermore, the value of the fact-finding boards in bringing the truth before the public was proved many times. In the steel strike of January and February 1946, the findings of the board were instrumental in bringing about a settlement, even though the board’s recommendations were not adhered to. Following the steel agreement, the 113-day-old United Automobile Workers’ strike against General Motors was concluded without the need for a meeting at the White House.

It was evident, however, that statutory authority was needed to enforce the recommendations of fact-finding boards and to forbid striking during the mediation period. In repeated messages to the Congress I asked for the quick passage of such legislation. Instead, the trend in the House was toward harsh, restrictive anti-labor measures that would do more harm than good.

In the spring of 1946, two crises in labor developed which eclipsed all preceding ones in their direct effect on the public. One of these involved the railroad industry and the other the coal industry. On May 23, 1946, the railroad unions called out on strike 300,000 members from most of the major lines across the country. I had been conferring with the twenty unions involved as far back as February, in order that every effort be made to avert a rail strike, and when it became evident that the railroad operators and the union representatives were unable to agree, I submitted a compromise proposition to the parties concerned.

Eighteen of the unions in the dispute accepted my proposed settlement, as did the operators. It was an offer of an increase of eighteen and a half cents per hour in wages, plus certain changes in rules by the arbitration and emergency boards. Two men, however - Alvanley Johnston, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and A. F. Whitney, president of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen - rejected my compromise offer and refused to arbitrate the matter for their unions.

After three conferences in the White House with these men, who would not meet with the operators in the presence of the representatives of the other eighteen unions, I saw that this was no contest between labor and management, but one between a small group of men and their government. Johnston and Whitney said, despite my appeals to them, that they were determined to strike.

“You are not going to tie up the country,” I told them. “If this is the way you want it, we’ll stop you.”

On May 24, the day following the start of the strike, I went before the American people in a nationwide radio broadcast and related the facts. I announced that unless operation of the railroads was resumed at once, I would call upon the Army to assist the Office of Defense Transportation in operating the trains, and I added that I would appear before the Congress on the next day with a message on the subject.

In a joint session of the Congress on May 25, I requested strong emergency legislation that would authorize the institution of injunctive or mandatory proceedings against any union leader, forbidding him from encouraging or inciting members to leave their work or to refuse to return to work, that would deprive workers of their seniority rights who without good cause persisted in striking against the government, that would provide criminal penalties against employers and union leaders who violated the provisions of the act, and that would authorize the President to draft into the armed forces all workers who were on strike against their government.

These were drastic measures. They were against the principles I believed in, and I proposed them only as a desperate resort in an extreme emergency where leaders defiantly called the workers out in a strike against the government.

Halfway through my message to the Congress I was interrupted by Leslie Biffle, Secretary of the Senate, who handed me a note announcing that the railroad strike had been settled on the terms of the compromise proposal previously accepted by all except these two unions.

I was relieved, and I was glad that a quick end was thus brought to the railroad strike. But even more satisfying was the fact that the settlement was in conformity with the National Railway Labor Act. Under this act, the recommendations of the emergency board are enforceable, and it was upon these recommendations that I had based my compromise proposal to both sides.

I knew from the beginning of the difficulty with the railroad unions that an attempt was being made by some of the unions to circumvent the Railway Labor Act. That is another reason why I felt justified in asking for the emergency strike legislation. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon declared at the time that I had fixed the whole thing in advance, and he accused me from the floor of the Senate of putting on a “ham act.” Later, however, when he learned the facts, he apologized for his statement and requested that his apology be printed in the Congressional Record. I have always held Wayne Morse in high regard, and this forthright act made me respect him all the more.

Meanwhile, on the coal scene, John L. Lewis was negotiating once more for a new contract - this time for the bituminous coal miners. As early as March 1946, the parleys between Lewis and the operators showed that no agreement was in prospect. Lewis was demanding a welfare fund, to come from a royalty on coal, of which he was to have exclusive control. It was a new grab for more power on the part of the miners’ boss; the miners at this time were not asking for wage increases. When negotiations bogged down, Lewis ordered 400,000 coal miners to walk out of the bituminous fields on April 1. The country was once more faced with an emergency situation.

I called Lewis to the White House six times from March to May, along with Charles O’Neill, spokesman for the coal operators, in an effort to bring the two factions together. At the May 10 Cabinet meeting, I stated that Lewis had promised that the strike would not last more than a few days. But Lewis failed to keep his word. I told the Cabinet that it was ironical that Lewis was now making safety and welfare the primary issues of the coal strike, when for ten years he had opposed the inclusion of safety features in the union contracts.

The coal strike showed once more the desperate need for legislation to safeguard the nation against precipitous strikes. But I also feared the danger that in such legislation there would be ill-considered punitive measures against labor. Six months earlier I had, for that reason, recommended fact-finding boards as a legal instrument. The Congress had not acted on my proposal. What Congress did pass was the Case Bill, which was placed on my desk for approval on June 11. I studied the bill carefully and concluded that it would not help to stop strikes. I therefore vetoed it. My principal objections were: (1) it would encourage quick strikes; (2) it superimposed a five-man board over the Conciliation Service, which had been so effective since 1913 in settling strikes. It had settled ten strikes a day during the reconversion period; (3) the bill provided a clause for mediation which I felt was too punitive to encourage mediation; (4) its new provision for a cooling-off period was one of the main points of my proposed legislation still before the Congress; and (5) the bill took away from the Secretary of Labor all responsibility for the operation of the mediation board, leaving only the appointment of members by the President.

In my veto message, I said the proposals that I had made to the Congress would be a more effective way to deal with strikes, and my veto was sustained by the House.

During this soft-coal strike of 1946, the mines had been shut down for forty-five days at a cost of 90 million tons of coal. At this point, the government stepped in to take over operations in May. However, we continued negotiating with Lewis until we reached an agreement on joint control of the welfare fund and other issues in dispute.

Five months passed without serious incident, when Lewis began to find fault with his contract. He demanded that the agreement be reopened, implying that the miners would go on strike again if negotiations were refused.

On November 14, the government delivered to Lewis a written proposal containing the details of a plan under which the operators and miners could negotiate their differences, without interrupting the operation of the mines. I did not feel that the federal government could replace private management as a bargaining agent without interfering with true collective bargaining between labor and management.

The government had taken over the bituminous mines in May, only after it became clearly evident that this was the only available means of averting an economic disaster to the country. I was eager that the mines be returned as early as possible to private operation, and the owners stated that they, too, were eager to regain control of their properties. Lewis, however, held out for a new contract and encouraged his miners to lay down their tools. On November 20, the country was once again plunged into a genera] coal strike - this time against the government of the United States.

I had instructed the Justice Department to seek a temporary injunction restraining Lewis’s action in calling the strike. Federal Judge T. Alan Goldsborough issued the injunction against the United Mine Workers’ chief, ordering him to cancel notice of the termination of the contract. When Lewis refused to comply with the injunction, he was summoned before Judge Goldsborough to show cause for his failure to obey the court injunction. On December 4, Lewis was found guilty of civil and criminal contempt of court. His personal fine was fixed at $10,000, and the United Mine Workers Union was fined a total of $3.5 million. Seventeen days after he had called the costliest strike in his career, Lewis ordered the miners to return to work.

Tempers were running high, especially within the ranks of labor. This is one of the many telegrams that came to the White House. It was sent by one of the railroad brotherhoods on December 8, 1946.

Whatever temporary sense of exaltation may prevail among government officials today upon the return of American citizens to their jobs in the mine pits must be obliterated when calm regard and due weight are given to the fact that the result has been achieved by governmental utilization of the malevolent and illegal process of injunction in a labor dispute. Working men throughout the country feel nothing but revulsion toward the invasions upon their fundamental freedoms recently sponsored by the government and approved by the Federal Court in the United Mine Workers’ case.

The employment of the anti-labor injunction by the oligarchy of the Federal Courts as a weapon of oppression on labor was rebuked and invalidated by Congress more than fourteen years ago. And until the recent resort to the procedure of injunction the spirit and intent of the law have been in most part respected. Not only does recourse to injunction in labor controversies flaunt Congressional mandate; it is a despoliation of the constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly and a violation of the constitutional prohibition against involuntary servitude. But what is more insidious, the efforts led by the government to enforce economic servitude on the miners, so loudly applauded by press and radio, give impetus and momentum to the program now being spawned by reactionary capitalism to deprive labor of gains hard won over the years and to impose savage and drastic restraints upon our people.

We, the Associations of General Grievance Committees of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen in the United States, in meeting at Cleveland, Ohio, on behalf of our members, unanimously condemn recourse to injunction by the government and employers in labor disputes as being un-American and unlawful; and we denounce any program, whether pursued in the courts or in the legislatures, designed to inhibit American working men in the free exercise of constitutional privileges.

D. B. Robertson, President

This was my reply on December 11:

My dear Mr. Robertson:

There is no exaltation in the office of the President of the United States - sorrow is the proper word. There should be, however, a sense of shame in all the hearts of all the leaders of labor for the manner in which Mr. Lewis attempted to defy the Government. His action is in line with the action of Whitney and Johnston last fall and does labor no credit.

Lewis had the best contract he ever had in his life. I myself forced him to take the safety measures in that contract for which he had never fought before. He knew, and his men know, that the contract with the Solid Fuels Administrator was for the duration of Government operation. He attempted to pull a dirty political trick, and it backfired; but he succeeded in giving labor generally a black eye, which will do labor no good in the new Republican Congress.

We used the weapons that we had at hand in order to fight a rebellion against the Government, and I am here to tell you that I expect to use whatever powers the President and the Government have, when the law and the Government are defied by an arbitrary dictator, such as Lewis.

Eighteen of the Railroad Brotherhoods have always been my friends, and I have always been theirs, as I have been a friend to labor in my whole political career; but there are certain segments of labor who have been anything but friends and cooperators with me in this terrible reconversion period through which we have been passing.

I think you are taking an absolutely wrong viewpoint on the court procedure, which was necessary to take against Mr. Lewis, and I am sorry to see you do it.

I am going to need all the help and cooperation I can possibly get to keep labor from getting its throat cut in this Congress. When Murray and Green and able leaders, like yourself, condone the action of Lewis you are not helping yourselves either with me or with the Congress.

Sincerely yours,

Harry S. Truman

Lewis had failed in an attempt to bluff the government. It was, as I saw it, a challenge by the head of the United Mine Workers against the authority of the United States. As a political maneuver, the strategy employed by Lewis was successful to a degree. By calling for a strike just five days before the congressional elections of 1946, he may have contributed to the turnover in the Congress which he was anxious to bring about. But instead of helping to elect a sympathetic Congress, Lewis soon learned that he was faced with a reactionary-controlled group in the Eightieth Congress, which soon was to produce the Taft-Hartley Act, to which the mine leader was bitterly opposed. His political victory in 1946 proved to be a Pyrrhic one.

While there were some continuing disturbances between labor and management following the railroad and coal strikes of 1946 - most notable of which were the maritime union and telephone strikes - there was a general slackening of major disputes during the closing months of 1946 and the first half of 1947.