1943 Akron rubber strike

1943 Akron rubber strike
DateMay 21, 1943 (1943-05-21) - May 26, 1943 (1943-05-26)
Location
Akron, Ohio
Number
49,300 workers

The 1943 rubber strike was a five-day strike from May 21–26 of nearly 50,000 rubber workers affiliated with the United Rubber Workers of America in U.S. state of Ohio.[1] Centered on the city of Akron, 49,300 workers at the Firestone, General, Goodrich, and Goodyear companies went on strike.[2] The strike contravened the "no-strike pledge" given by leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations to the government at the outbreak of World War II in support of the war effort. On May 26, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent union leaders a telegram describing the strike as "a defiance of the War Labor Board, a challenge to Government by law, and a blow against the effective prosecution of the war."[3] Strikers returned to work the following day.[4][5]

  1. ^ "Firestone Rubber Strike Ends". The New York Times. 2 February 1943.
  2. ^ Perkins, Frances. Strikes in 1943 (PDF). UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. p. 13.
  3. ^ Franklin D. Roosevelt, Telegram to Union Leaders on the Rubber Strike in Akron. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210087
  4. ^ "AKRON STRIKE ENDS AS MEN HEED ORDER; Rubber Workers Virtually All Back at Work by Time Set in Roosevelt Ultimatum". The New York Times. Associated Press. 28 May 1943.
  5. ^ Monthly Labor Review. 1944.