284 ChaPter^5
military industries. The Little Steel strikes of 1937 were still going on, but,
with the prospect of war profits, the steel companies, and Meatpackers, final-
ly accepted unions in their workplaces. Ford recognized the UAW [the first
auto maker to do so], the federal government made companies in the airplane
production and shipbuilding fields, and those in other military-related work,
give better wages, respect seniority [the idea that those workers with the most
time spent at a plant would get more pay and be laid off last], accept more
union rights on the shop floor [where work took place], and provide more
security to union workers. Even then, Lewis had the miners on strike in
October 1941 [prior to Pearl Harbor] over wage rates and the union shop,
mandatory union membership in order to get a job. But FDR was not sup-
portive: “I tell you frankly that the Government of the United States will not
order, nor will Congress pass legislation ordering a so-called closed shop.”
In order to maintain production without workers slowing industrial output,
FDR in January 1942 established a National War Labor Board [WLB] to nego-
tiate labor disputes during the war. The Board had representatives from busi-
ness, labor, and the government on it, and its goal was to maintain workplace
stability and keep production going strong. Some on the WLB wanted to
create new industrial relations, believing that unions made Capitalism and
democracy work better by making society more equal with higher wages for
workers, thus avoiding an economic disaster like the Depression. Without
industrial democracy, workers would not have a voice in business decisions
and political democracy would remain limited as well. But corporations con-
tinued to have the upper hand in wartime economic decisions. In September
1942, FDR created an “economic stabilization” agency, and it froze wages so
workers, as with the no-strike pledge, again had to make sacrifices for the war
effort. This created a problem for labor. In order to attract new members,
unions had to offer the promise of better wages. By agreeing to not strike,
however, the one bit of power they had to get higher wages, and thus more
members, was missing. So unions had to find a way to get new members, and
thus expand their own assets through monthly dues.
Labor was expected and agreed to be “responsible,” to maintain production
and not cause work stoppages, but many workers had their pay frozen while
their ability to do something about it, strike, was gone. This created not only
worker resentment at the bosses and government for keeping their wages flat,
but also frustration at their own union leaders for preventing them from doing