War Labor Board
The National War Labor Board was created Jan. 12, 1942, similar to the NWLB created by Woodrow Wilson in WWI to mediate labor disputes. The strikes of 1941 had disrupted key industries. In the strike at North American Aviation at Inglewood CA in 1941, the plant was seized by 2500 soldiers June 9 and deferments cancelled. John L. Lewis called a UMW strike 1941 against captive mines owned by steel companies, returned to work Dec. 7. In 1942, the WLB followed the Little Steel formula of 15% wage increase per year, and Leon Henderson's General Maximum Price Regulation, called "General Max" that put a cap on prices. The WLB in June 1942 issued the "maintenance-of-membership" rule that all new employees would be covered by any existing union contract, and therefore sanctioned the closed shop. When Montgomery Ward refused the rule, Attorney General Francis Biddle sent in soldiers and Sewell Avery was photographed being carried out of the building. Lewis defied the Little Steel formula, demanded $2-a-day wage increase in 1943, ordered strike that continued even when troops occupied the mines. Lewis finally won his wage increase and the strike ended in 1944. In June 1943, Congress passed the Smith-Connally War Labor Disputes Act to curb defense industry strikes. 10m new workers were added in the war. Shipyard worker wages went from 40 cents per hour to $2.75 per hour. Farmer income rose 250% during the war. The inflation rate was a modest 28%, and real wages increased 27% in war, and corporate profits doubled.
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 poster from NA |
 cartoon from Newsweek Feb. 1943 |
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Resources:
- Perrett, Geoffrey. Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph. The American People 1939-1945. Penguin, 1973.
- Guide to the United States. National War Labor Board files, 1913-1946 at Cornell
- Mobilization from the Center for Military History