Strike
The Supreme Court's ruling came at noon, and the government returned the mills to their owners that afternoon. The Steelworkers went on strike at few hours later. The companies struck included Armco Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Great Lakes Steel Corporation, Inland Steel, Jones and Laughlin Steel, Republic Steel, Sharon Steel, U.S. Steel, Wheeling Steel and Youngstown Sheet and Tube, as well as numerous small manufacturers.
The evening of June 2, Truman called a meeting of his top advisors to discuss what to do. Attending the meeting were Attorney-General James P. McGranery, who had been confirmed by the Senate on May 20; Solicitor General Philip Perlman; Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett; White House Counsel Charles S. Murphy; Press Secretary Joseph Short; Steelman and Sawyer. The group discussed invoking Taft-Hartley, but felt that the union would resent it and that the law would do little to end the strike.
Truman convened a second meeting the next morning. Several other advisors were also present, in addition to the initial group: Former White House Counsels and close Truman confidantes Sam Rosenman and Clark Clifford; Secretary of Labor Maurice J. Tobin; and National Production Authority director Henry H. Fowler. The group considered but rejected use of Taft-Hartley and asking Congress for legislation to end the strike, but both courses of action were rejected. Instead, the group decided to sponsor additional talks.
New collective bargaining talks opened in Pittsburgh on June 5. The talks were productive, but foundered on the issue of the union shop.
The economic impact of the strike began to be felt immediately. Layoffs in a number of steel-dependent industries occurred just two days after the strike began. National defense mobilization authorities began denying manufacturers of consumer goods steel four days after the strike started, and banned the export of steel on June 10. By June 17, defense plants producing the M47 Patton tank, the M41 Walker Bulldog tank, trucks, bazooka rockets and mortar shells had all shut down or were running half- or quarter-shifts. By June 21, consumer inventories of steel were almost gone, forcing manufacturing shut-downs in the auto industry. As the Independence Day holiday neared, most inventories of steel were gone even from defense stockpiles.
Read more about this topic: 1952 Steel Strike
Famous quotes containing the word strike:
“We don’t arrive at it by standing on one leg or on the first day of our setting out—but though we may jostle one another on the way that is no reason why we should strike or trample—elbowing’s enough.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once,—for the root is faith,—I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)