The 1947 Telephone strike was a five-week long, nation-wide labor stoppage in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

by the National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) and other smaller unions that started on April 7, 1947. The workers, mostly

switchboard operators The term switchboard, when used by itself, may refer to: * Telephone switchboard * Electrical controls: ** Electric switchboard in industrial applications like electricity generation ** Distribution board in residential and commercial applications ...

, were protesting long hours and low pay by

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

, the

Bell Telephone Company The Bell Telephone Company was the initial corporate entity from which the Bell System originated to build a continental conglomerate and monopoly in telecommunication services in the United States and Canada. The company was organized in Bost ...

, the

New York Telephone Company Verizon New York, Inc., formerly The New York Telephone Company (NYTel), was organized in 1896, taking over the New York City operations of the Bell Telephone Company, American Bell Telephone Company. Predecessor companies The Telephone Company ...

, and others. There were demonstrations throughout the United States with several instances of police arresting

passive Passive may refer to: * Passive voice, a grammatical voice common in many languages, see also Pseudopassive * Passive language, a language from which an interpreter works * Passivity (behavior), the condition of submitting to the influence of ...

strikers. The mass of the strike was calculated to be equivalent to 10,100,000 man-days. In total around 370,000 workers struck. 23 days into the strike in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, non-NFTW union officials and the New York Telephone Company settled their demands, and 40,000 workers began working again the next day. At the same time, the Bell Telephone Company reached an agreement with non-NFTW union officials in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, and 6,000 maintenance workers resumed their jobs the next day as well. These Pennsylvanian workers received a $4 per week wage increase rather than the $12 per week they had originally demanded. The workers in the NFTW were able to strike for five weeks without having to break and return to work because of the financial support totaling $128,000 given to them by both the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...

and the

Congress of Industrial Organizations The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was a federation of Labor unions in the United States, unions that organized workers in industrial unionism, industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. Originally created in ...

. The strike eventually caused the dissolution of the NFTW, which inspired the creation of the

Communications Workers of America The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is the largest communications and media labor union in the United States, representing about 700,000 members in both the private and public sectors (also in Canada and Puerto Rico). The union has 27 loc ...

union.

References

See also