The end of World War II ushered in a new era for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), marked by both significant challenges and a deepening engagement in the political landscape. The cessation of the wartime no-strike pledge led to a wave of strikes as workers sought to regain ground lost during the war, particularly concerning wages. This period also saw the CIO formalize its political influence, creating the first-ever political action
committee in the United States, the CIO-PAC, to advance its agenda.
Postwar Labor Unrest and Management Confrontations
Following the war, a surge of strikes swept across industries. The United Auto Workers (UAW) struck against General Motors in November 1945, while the Steelworkers, UE, and Packinghouse Workers followed suit in January 1946. Philip Murray, leading both the CIO and the Steelworkers, initially favored high-level negotiations with employers, hoping for government intervention to balance wage demands with price controls. However, this approach faltered as employers resisted the wartime status quo, demanding broad management rights clauses to reassert their authority in the workplace. The new Truman administration also proved unwilling to consistently side with labor.
The UAW adopted a different strategy, seeking to bargain directly with GM over management issues, including car prices. Their 113-day strike, however, ultimately resulted in the same wage increase as other unions, with GM conceding none of its managerial authority or bargaining over pricing policies. These postwar strikes differed from those of the 1930s; employers generally avoided hiring strikebreakers, and unions maintained order among picketers, even as they shut down major enterprises. Despite these efforts, the CIO's major organizing drive of this era, Operation Dixie, aimed at textile workers in the American South, was a complete failure, partly due to the CIO's reluctance to confront Jim Crow segregation laws. While the Steelworkers' presence in the Southern steel industry remained, the CIO and the broader union movement largely remained marginalized in the Deep South.
Political Action and Legislative Battles
In July 1943, the CIO formed the CIO-PAC, the first political action committee in the United States. This committee was established to support political candidates, notably Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1944 presidential bid, and to advocate for pro-labor legislation. The CIO-PAC played a crucial role in marshaling labor's support for the New Deal coalition of the Democratic Party, with Sidney Hillman, head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, serving as its first chairman.
The political climate shifted significantly in 1946 when the Republican Party gained control of both the House and Senate. This led to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, a piece of legislation that made organizing more difficult for unions. It granted states the authority to enact right-to-work laws and outlawed certain types of strikes and secondary boycotts. Furthermore, the act mandated that all union officers sign an affidavit declaring they were not Communist Party members for their union to bring a case before the National Labor Relations Board. This affidavit requirement, later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, signaled growing challenges for unions, particularly those with members suspected of communist ties, and marked a period of serious trouble for some within the CIO.
