1952 Steel Strike - Outcome

Outcome

The strike was settled on essentially the same terms offered to the employers at the start of the strike. Workers received a 16-cents-an-hour wage increase, and a 6-cents-an-hour increase in fringe benefits. The wage and benefit package was a penny lower than the WSB had recommended, but markedly higher than anything the employers had publicly offered. The workers also won a version of the union shop: New employees were required to join the union, but could resign between the 15th and 30th day of employment (which few were expected to do).

The strike led to significant economic costs. The loss of economic output was estimated at $4 billion ($31.45 billion in 2007 dollars), 1.5 million people were pushed into unemployment before full steel production resumed, and the Federal Reserve estimated that industrial output dropped to 1949 levels. More than 19 million tons of steel were lost, roughly 90 percent of all steel production for a two-month period. Nearly four-fifths of the nation's small defense contractors were forced to close, and officials observed that several thousand small- and medium-sized businesses would close or run on a part-time basis until steel production resumed (it would take three weeks before furnaces could be cleaned, relit and brought into production and four weeks for steel to reach manufacturers).

The strike led Congress to strip the Wage Stabilization Board of its labor dispute resolution powers. President Truman struggled to reconstitute the Board in his remaining five months in office. The Board never resumed full operation, and was abolished by President Eisenhower in March 1953.

Murray and the leaders of the union considered the strike a significant win. The union had avoided the imposition of a Taft-Hartley injunction, Truman had gone to significant lengths to protect the union, and the union shop was won for the first time in the steel industry.