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

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

by the

National Federation of Telephone Workers 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 lo ...

(NFTW) and other smaller unions that started on April 7, 1947. The workers, mostly switchboard operators, were protesting long hours and low pay by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

, the Bell Telephone Company, the

New York Telephone Company The New York Telephone Company (NYTel) was organized in 1896, taking over the New York City operations of the American Bell Telephone Company. Predecessor companies The Telephone Company of New York was formed under franchise in 1876. The princi ...

, 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 o ...

strikers. The mass of the strike was calculated to be equivalent to 10,100,000 man-days. 23 days into the strike in New York, 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 (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, 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 and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. 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 l ...

union.

References

See also