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p Monopoly capital’s widespread attack on the working people’s standard of living met with growing resistance on the part of the working class in the 1960s. The working people’s struggle to satisfy their material and social needs increasingly took the form of massive strikes in which the participants displayed great determination, unity and solidarity. The sharp confrontations between labour and capital in recent years have thoroughly refuted the contention of bourgeois ideologists and Rightist union bureaucrats that the class struggle is dead in the United States; they have shown, on the contrary, that class antagonisms continue to develop and deepen.

Events over the past few years have also blasted the spurious theories of certain Left-wing radicals to the effect that the US working class has gone “bourgeois”, has lost its revolutionary potential and has become a "conservative and even counter-revolutionary force”. The groundlessness of such notions put out by theorists (one of whose fashionable representatives is American philosopher Herbert Marcuse  [111•1 ) of "revolution without the working class" is clearly seen in the active struggle of the working class and the upsurge in the strike movement in the main citadel of capitalism. The 112 following table shows how the strike movement has grown in the last decade  [112•1 :

Year Number of strikes Workers involved (in thousands) Man-days idle (in thousands) 1961 3,367 1,450 16,300 1962 3,614 1,230 18,600 1963 3,362 941 16,100 1964 3,655 1,640 22,900 1965 3.9S3 1,550 23,300 1966 4,405 1,960 25,400 1967 4,595 2,870 42,100 1968 5,045 2,649 49,018 1969 5,700 2,481 42,869 1970 5,600 3,300 62,000

p As we can see from the above, the strike movement showed a marked upward trend beginning with 1964, both in the number of strikes and the number of workers involved. According to Department of Labour statistics, not since 1953 had the country witnessed such an upsurge in the strike movement as it did in 1970. Nearly 163 million man-days were “lost” as a result of labour conflicts between 1964 and 1968, as compared with 139 million between 1959 and 1963, and 124 million between 1954 and 1958.  [112•2 

p Protracted and unyielding strikes have become characteristic in recent years, with an unprecedented average duration of no less than 22 days.  [112•3  An important indicator of the growing scope of the struggle being waged by the American working class is the increase in the number of strikes in which 1,000 or more workers are involved. In 1966, there were 321 big strikes of this kind, involving two-thirds of all striking workers that year and also accounting for approximately two-thirds of the man-days lost.  [112•4  In 1970 the trend toward mass strikes was even stronger.

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p The growth of the strike movement in the 1960s is especially significant. It took place under conditions that were extremely unfavourable for the working class as the patently strikebreaking role of the government increased, as both the Democratic and Republican administrations actively intervened in the economic struggle, as the anti-strike provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act were invoked with increasing frequency and as the danger of new anti-labour legislation mounted. Workers were under the constant threat of losing their jobs for taking part in labour conflicts.

p Yet, despite all these negative factors, and despite the policy of class co-operation pursued by reactionary labour leaders, the working class of the United States demonstrated that the role of strikes as a major weapon in the economic struggle was not diminishing in the least. This could be seen above all in the increasingly wider range of demands made and the deepening social substance of strikes.

p The major strike demands in the period under consideration were: higher wages and fringe benefits; expansion of the retirement system and a lower retirement age; reduction of the workweek; preservation and extension of the rights of union organisations at enterprises; improvements in labour protection and safety engineering; recognition of labour unions and maintenance of normal conditions for their functioning. Whereas in the second half of the 1950s the union demands were for employment and job security to protect workers against the threats posed by automation and introduction of new technology, the strike movement in recent years, while still involving these demands, has concentrated more and more on wage demands. The reason for this has been the rapidly mounting cost of living and the growing tax burden resulting from the escalation of the Vietnam war.

p Following is a review of some of the most significant actions taken by the American working class, in which the characteristics of the strike movement were most clearly in evidence.

p A sharp conflict arose in June 1961 between the owners of 850 American merchant ships and five unions representing over 80,000 seamen. After more than one month of 114 fruitless negotiation, the seamen declared a strike that tied up 300 Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf ports. The conflict arose when the shipowners refused to meet union demands that collective bargaining conditions be extended to cover seamen sailing on ships owned by US companies, but flying foreign flags (Liberia, Honduras, Panama). This system of using "false flags" hits American seamen hard, for wages on such ships are some 25-30 per cent of those on regular ships, while working conditions are substantially harder. The government came to the aid of the shipowners by promptly declaring the strike to be a threat to the national welfare and security and, on the basis of the Taft-Hartley Act, prohibited it.

p This move, made with the silent consent of the union’s bureaucracy, showed the real class essence of the government’s "new labour policy”. It was a direct warning to the US working class that the Kennedy Administration, despite its promises to look “favourably” on labour’s just demands, was prepared to take extreme action whenever the interests of the monopolies were threatened.

p In February 1961, 74,000 pilots of the six leading airlines went on strike in 44 states for higher wages and to secure union rights. In September, there was a strike involving 239,000 workers in 92 General Motors plants, and in October, a strike by 116,000 Ford Motor Company workers in 26 states. The auto workers’ union demanded better working conditions and an increase in wages and fringe benefits.

p In February and March 1962, 11,000 auto workers in six states staged a strike that lasted for 26 days. The conflict arose when the employers decided to delay putting a wage increase agreement into effect. In May and June 1962, 95,000 workers in the building trades in Northern California, Detroit, and Spokane (Washington) struck for 57 days for higher wages. A strike by 16,000 workers in the aluminium industry demanding increases in vacation pay, pensions and unemployment insurance benefits, embraced 22 plants of the Aluminium Company of America and Reynolds Metals.

p Distinguished by its militancy was a strike by 75,000 longshoremen and warehousemen in the East Coast and Gulf ports. The strike was scheduled to begin on October 3 1962, 115 but was stopped for cSO days by a court injunction (on the basis of the Taft-Hartley Act). On December 23, when the 80-day period was up, the workers renewed the strike, paralysing all ports from Maine to Texas. After 35 days of stubborn struggle and despite the fierce resistance of the employers, worker demands for a wage increase and employer contributions to an employee medical care programme were partially met.

p The end of 1962 and the beginning of 1963 were marked by a 114-day strike of about 20,000 typographical workers which brought publication of New York’s leading newspapers to a standstill. The strike, called against the Publishers Association of New York City (for the first time in its 65 years of existence), brought into sharp focus certain features characteristic of the strike movement under present circumstances. It was an example of how, with the advent of automation and the technological improvements which lead to mass layoffs, this form of struggle was beginning to be utilised by certain segments of the working class that had rarely resorted to it before.

p This strike, which had wide repercussions throughout the country, was precipitated by the publishers’ attempts to introduce certain technical improvements and new working conditions that would have entailed a substantial cutback in employment. The New York Printers Union refused to sign the contract, insisting in turn that it include such points as a substantial pay hike, a 15-minute reduction in worktime for every shift (which would give the workers a 35-hour workweek), increases in employer contributions to workers’ social and pension funds, layoff compensation benefits and an increase in the number of days of paid sick leave. The employers decided to fight the workers in concert: as soon as the strike hit The New York Times, The Daily News, The Journal American and The World Telegram & Sun, the publishers of five other newspapers—The New York Herald Tribune, The New York Mirror, The New York Post, The Long Island Press and The Long Island Star Journal—declared a lockout. Long before the strike, members of the New York Publishers Association had set up a mutual assistance fund to be used in breaking down worker resistance in the event of a strike. The lockout was an effort to split the ranks of 116 the workers by setting ofl those who were thus forced ofl the job against those who were striking. As noted in the Record, a newspaper with a circulation of 1,000,000 copies put out by the strikers, the publishers’ tactics was aimed at bleeding the union financially by prolonging the strike and forcing the workers to return to work without having their demands met.

p But the typographical workers opposed the employers’ united front with a powerful weapon—the class solidarity of working people. Nine other unions, who were at the time negotiating with the American Publishers Association, supported the printers. Backing the strikers was the International Typographical Union, at whose initiative a decision was taken to assess all 115,000 members of that union in an amount equal to 3 per cent of their wages to augment the New York printers’ strike fund.

p The government, siding with the employers, did everything it could to stop the printers’ strike. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the Department of Labour headed by Labour Secretary Willard Wirtz, endeavoured to impose unfavourable agreement terms on the striking workers and put pressure on the union officials, accusing them of bringing the negotiations to a dead end. Even President Kennedy joined the anti-union campaign. At a Washington press conference on February 21, he strongly criticised the position taken by the head of the New York printers, Bertram Powers, calling his demands “extortionate”. "It is clear,” Kennedy said, "in the case of the New York newspaper strike that the local of the International Typographical Union and its president, Bertram Powers, insofar as anyone can understand his position, are attempting to impose a settlement which could shut down several newspapers in New York."  [116•1  Kennedy proposed turning the dispute over to an “ impartial” court of arbitration or, in other words, to resolve the conflict by compulsory arbitration. Replying to the President on behalf of the striking workers, Bertram Powers stated that his union would oppose compulsory arbitration in whatever form it might be proffered.

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p The workers’ firm resolve to fight to win, the powerful support coming from many other unions and the militant strike leadership finally broke the united front of the publishers. On March 31, on the 114th day of New York’s longest ever printers’ strike, the employers agreed to accept the workers’ basic demands. The new contract gave the printers wage and fringe benefit increases over the next two years amounting to $12.63 a week, as well as a 35-hour workweek.

p Among the other big strikes of 1963 we should mention the 71-day strike in the lumber and woodworking industry, involving about 29,000 workers; the strike by 20,000 construction workers in the St. Louis area; the strike in the meatpacking industry at enterprises of the big Swift and Armour companies; the 82-day steel strike at Dow Chemical plants in Illinois; and the 129-day strike by 2,500 printers in Cleveland. The main issue in all these actions was higher wages.

p The strike movement grew markedly in 1964, with 19 strikes as compared with only seven in 1963, involving 10,000 or more workers. The largest and of most far-reaching importance was the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors, which closed down 89 of that company’s 130 plants and involved 260,000 of the 350,000 workers employed by this giant US corporation.  [117•1 

p “The nearly six-week shutdown ... of General Motors must be described as the most prolonged and biggest ’ wildcat’ strike against American industry since the sit-downs of the turbulent thirties,” wrote B. J. Widick in The Nation. "Neither the auto industry, nor Walter Reuther nor the Johnson Administration wanted or expected the walkout.”  [117•2  This statement reflected the true state of affairs, because the biggest strike in the auto industry was called at the insistence of the union rank-and-file and lesser union officials. On September 25, the union locals at the various General Motors plants voted overwhelmingly to reject a proposed collective agreement submitted to them for approval. It was significant that in this case the union leadership showed greater 118 understanding than in previous years of the sentiments of the bulk of the union members and let the locals make their own demands to management at the local level. This shift in the positions of the central leadership, which in a similar situation in 1961 had ordered its locals to call off a strike, was a direct result of the changes that had taken place in the US labour movement over the preceding three years.

p The demands presented to management by the locals included giving workers a bigger role in setting production quotas, improving working conditions, distribution of overtime work, on-the-job discipline and in hiring and firing procedure. The nearly 18,000 grievances presented by the union organisations to the company’s representatives concerned local issues at the company’s various plants. The Worker noted at the time that the main objective in the strike was not connected with wages; it was a strike against inhuman treatment of people, a strike to win respect for people’s labour. The newspaper said it was the culminating point in a revolt against the oppressive prison atmosphere prevailing at most General Motors plants.

p The militant strike of the auto workers, lasting from September 25 to October 26, ended in victory, forcing the company to meet the basic demands of the workers. The union won an additional one week’s paid vacation, two additional paid holidays, a 12-minute work break increase for production line workers, retirement at the age of 50 for workers with 30 years seniority, larger pensions and other fringe benefits.  [118•1  A union statement, issued after the strike, read in part: "UAW are proud of the progress made in the 1964 negotiations. The economic gains were greater than those ever made by an industrial union in the United States in a single set of negotiations. Equally important, however, is the deep and lasting impression that will be left upon the industry by the fact that, in the face of those large economic gains, UAW members struck and the UAW spent millions of dollars to 119 win improved working conditions and an increased measure of dignity on the job.”  [119•1 

p In November, UAW locals called a strike at many Ford Motor Company plants to force the company to meet demands having to do primarily with day-to-day production line problems. This strike, which lasted 17 days and involved about 80,000 (of the 135,000) Ford Motor workers, also ended in a significant union victory, when the auto workers concluded an agreement with the Ford Motor Company similar to the one concluded with General Motors. It should be noted that the strikes against General Motors and Ford accounted for nearly one-third of all the man-days “lost” due to strikes in 1964.

p Stubborn battles were fought on other fronts in 1964, such as those involving 8,000 coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, 10,000 public schoolteachers in Utah, and 10,000 Illinois Central railway employees, to name a few.

p The year 1965 was also marked by a number of significant actions taken by the American working people. In January and February, New York City’s Welfare Department employees struck for 28 days in what was the country’s first major strike by municipal employees. An important feature of this strike was that it involved public employees, who in 25 states are prohibited by law from striking. Under the Condon-Wadlin Law in the state of New York, any municipal employee taking part in a strike is subject to dismissal and a fine equal to two days’ wages for every day on strike, and also loses his right to pay increments for the following three years.

p Although the strike was declared illegal, 6,000 Welfare Department employees were determined to fight for higher pay and better working conditions. Neither the arrest of 19 union officials, nor the malicious anti-union propaganda campaign in the newspapers could crush the strikers’ resistance. Moreover, they were supported by many other unions, with sizeable sums coming into the strike fund from New York’s electricians’, teachers’, seamen’s, retail clerks’ and other unions.

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p The strikers’ courage and steadfastness paid off. New York’s Welfare Department employees received a pay hike and, the Condon-Wadlin Law notwithstanding, no one was fired.

p Another important event in 1965 was the 55-day strike by 60,000 longshoremen in Atlantic and Gulf Coast ports. Over the preceding 11 years, the East Coast longshoremen had gone on strike five times in an effort to prevent layoffs due to automation. When in October 1964, contract negotiations between the Shipowners Association and the International Longshoremen’s Association came to an impasse, the longshoremen again had to call a strike. But on Johnson’s insistence, it was immediately called off for 80 days as provided for by the Taft-Hartley Act.

p In early January 1965, when the cooling off period expired, the government and the shipowners applied strong pressure on the union’s officials to prevent a renewal of the strike. The latter signed an agreement containing a big concession to the employers: in exchange for certain wage and vacation gains, the shipowners would have the right to reduce the size of work crews from 20 to 17 men. The union’s president, Thomas Gleason, and his closest assistants tried to persuade the workers to accept the new contract, calling it "the best in the history of the union".  [120•1  However, the longshoremen thought otherwise; they voted overwhelmingly to reject the contract. The ensuing strike, which shut down all the ports from Maine to Texas, was another indication of the deepening rift between the conciliatory union leadership and the rank-and-file. The striking longshoremen had to repulse not only the onslaught of the shipowners, who with the government’s help were trying to break the strike which was costing them $ 67 million a day, but also pressure coming from their own union officials. With the aim of splitting the ranks of the workers and intimidating their families, tens of thousands of letters, signed by Gleason and eight other top union officials, were mailed to the strikers’ homes, urging them to accept the contract and return to work.  [120•2  However, all such efforts were unsuccessful.

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p Seeing that the strikers were adamant, President Johnson intervened, calling the strike “unjustified” and bemoaning the "injury to the economy" resulting from the shutdown. He set up a committee comprised of the Secretary of Labour, the Secretary of Trade and Senator Morse, which was given 24 hours to work out the terms of an agreement. Under great pressure from the White House and the threat of adverse court rulings, the strikers, after almost two months of struggle, were forced to return to work having won only certain guarantees against layoffs.

p A 64-day strike in the summer of 1965 by East Coast merchant seamen was also an attempt to prevent job reduction. Despite government intervention aimed at stopping that “costly” strike, the seamen returned to work only after the shipowners agreed to a number of their major demands, including a substantial pay rise. Although the question of the makeup of ships’ crews was turned over to a government committee for consideration, the union reserved the right to call a strike if the committee’s decision did not meet with the workers’ satisfaction.

p Among the major labour actions in 1965 were a 36-day strike at the Aerojet-General Corporation in Southern California, a strike by 10,000 West Coast dock workers, a newspaper strike in New York and a big strike against the Boeing Aircraft Company.

p The strike movement continued to grow in 1966. That was the year of the biggest strike in the history of US civil aviation. Involving 35,400 airplane mechanics in five leading airlines, the strike lasted 43 days and paralysed 60 per cent of the country’s domestic airline service. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which led the strike, listed among the workers’ demands wage increases, paid vacations and improvements in retirement and medical insurance programmes. The strike ended in a notable victory for the workers.

p A strike by members of the American Newspaper Guild and nine other unions, which began on April 24 and lasted for 140 days, was the biggest and longest strike in the history of the US publishing industry. It broke out when over 2,000 of the 57,000 employees of three New York newspapers—The New York Journal American, ’The New York World 122 Telegram and Sun and The New York Herald Tribune—were laid off after these newspapers merged to form a single newspaper, The World Journal Tribune. The strike was staged to prevent arbitrary dismissals that did not take into account seniority, and to win higher severance pay. Through hard struggle the unions won partial satisfaction of their demands.

p More pronounced in 1966 than in previous years was the growing tendency for public employees to strike. The most significant among strikes of this order was the 12-day walkout in January of 33,000 New York City transit workers, which brought bus and subway service to a standstill. Since the strikers were municipal employees, the authorities invoked the provisions of the Condon-Wadlin Law against them. Michael Quill, president of the Transport Workers Union of America, and five other union officials were arrested for refusing to comply with a court order banning the strike. "It’s about time some one, somewhere along the road in labour ceased to be respectable,” Quill said. "Many generations of good Americans before us took this road. If they didn’t take this road, half of us would be home on relief.”  [122•1  Quill’s resolute stand was an inspiration to the strikers. Repressions against the workers and reprisals taken against their militant leaders roused the indignation of New York’s labour union community. The workers stiffened their resistance even more, forcing the municipal authorities to retreat. The transit workers won a substantial pay raise, and the Condon-Wadlin Law received a fatal blow. Under the terms of the strike settlement, the municipal authorities gave up attempts to fine the union $ 322,000 for every day of the strike, and none of those participating in the strike were subjected to any kind of punishment.

p The New York transit workers’ militant strike became the forerunner of a series of strikes by municipal employees in other cities. In the summer of 1966, Kansas City firemen staged a four-day strike for a shorter workweek. A similar strike took place in Atlanta, where 500 of the city’s 726 firemen quit the union when union officials began pressuring the strikers to return to work. The firemen even ignored a court order to that effect. In Ohio, there was a sanitation workers’ 123 strike; in New York, a nurses’ strike at city hospitals; and in Indiana, a strike of Welfare Department employees. An indication of the increased frequency of strikes by the huge contingent of working people in the services field is the fact that in Michigan there were more strikes by municipal employees in 1966 than in the preceding 17 years.

p The strike movement, on the upswing in 1966, assumed even greater proportions in 1967, when labour contracts involving over 3,000,000 workers were due to expire in many key industries, including the auto, aircraft, rubber, textile and building industries. The extent to which the class struggle had mounted could be seen in the first months. "It hasn’t taken long for 1967 to live up to its billing as a year of labour turmoil,” wrote US News & World Report.  [123•1 

p Workers at an auto body building plant in Mansfield, Ohio, struck twice since the beginning of the year, paralysing car assembly operations at 86 General Motors plants. Among the major labour actions that year was the teamsters’ strike in eight cities that took place in April. After bringing negotiations to a dead end, the employers resorted to a lockout affecting 250,000 drivers. Three days later, however, when the lockout precipitated a general strike of 550,000 truck drivers, the owners were forced to give way. The union (International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America) won a more than 6 per cent increase in wages and fringe benefits. On April 21, 50,000 workers in three (of the country’s five) biggest rubber companies—- Goodrich, Firestone and Uniroyal—went on strike, to be joined later by 26,000 workers in the other two companies, General Tire and Goodyear. The United Rubber Workers of America, citing the huge profits the companies had made in 1966, demanded wage increases and other benefits. The strike which lasted for more than three months—the biggest strike in the history of the rubber industry—ended in a victory for the workers. The first half of 1967 also saw strikes by construction workers in Wisconsin, railway workers on the Butte Anaconda and Pacific Railway; 7,500 employees of New York’s welfare administration; and by many other segments of the US working class.

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p Highly notable was the fact that 18,000 members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, demanding pay increases and payment for overtime, carried out the first strike in the 30-year history of that union. Walking out in sympathy with the strikers were television technicians, cameramen and producers, radio broadcasting engineers and technicians and other groups connected with television. The strike, which lasted from March 23 to April 10, ended in a union victory.

p Teachers’ strikes in New York City and Detroit, and in the states of New Jersey, Florida, Kentucky and Illinois, had wide repercussions. In September, 49,000 (out of a total of 58,000) New York City public schoolteachers were out on strike for 14 days. Repressive actions were taken against them on the basis of the Taylor Anti-Trust Act. The president of the New York local of the American Federation of Teachers was jailed, and the union was fined $ 150.000.  [124•1  But even these extreme measures did not break the strike. The city officials were ultimately compelled to at least partially satisfy the teachers’ demands for pay increases and certain improvements in the educational system. A ten-day strike by 11,000 schoolteachers in Detroit was also successful, resulting in a 10 per cent pay raise, increased classroom space in 50 schools in the city’s predominantly black districts, etc.  [124•2 

p The militant strikes by members of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and public schoolteachers in many states, as well as other strikes by engineers and technicians and federal and municipal employees, illustrated the growing trend toward active struggle by white-collar workers.  [124•3  In his report of June 10, 1967 to the National Committee of the Communist Party of the USA, Gus Hall said: "Wartime prices, rents and taxes have forced new sectors of the population to take the working-class path of joining unions and to use working-class weapons of struggle. More and more teachers, nurses, hospital workers, social workers, civil servants and lower-paid white-collar 125 workers have hit the bricks.”  [125•1  The active involvement in the strike movement of these large categories of working people corroborates the conclusion drawn in the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that "large sections of the office workers and a considerable section of the intelligentsia, whom capitalism reduces to the status of proletarians and who realise the need of changes in the social sphere, become allies of the working class.”  [125•2 

p In the spring and summer of 1967, the attention of the entire country was centred on a dispute between 137,000 railway workers (the mechanics’, boilermakers’, electricians’ and three other unions) involved in locomotive and rail-car repairs and servicing, on the one hand, and the owners of 132 railroads, on the other. The railway workers were demanding wage increases to offset the sharp rise in the cost of living over the previous two years.

p When in April negotiations broke down completely because of the owners’ inflexible stand, the workers set a strike deadline. A strike threatening to paralyse 95 per cent of the country’s railroad operations alarmed the government. President Johnson promptly proposed legislation forcing an extension of the strike deadline. The bill passed both the House and Senate on April 11. On three occasions in the following three months, Congress, acting on Johnson’s proposals, adopted special resolutions aimed at delaying the strike.

p The State Department and the Pentagon actively joined the anti-labour campaign. In June, Secretary of State Rusk and Secretary of Defence McNamara sent memoranda to the President expressing "deep concern" regarding the impending railroad strike. In his memorandum, Rusk noted that the movement of supplies and equipment to US troops in Vietnam depended in large measure on the functioning of domestic rail transportation, and that, therefore, it was absolutely necessary that the domestic rail transportation system operated at full capacity in what he described as the present critical period in US foreign relations. McNamara, for his 126 part, citing the opinion of Pentagon experts, wrote the President that in view of the Vietnam war and the Middle East crisis, a rail strike would be a real evasion of responsibility to the country.

p Despite the tremendous pressure applied by the owners, the administration and Congress, the railway workers went on strike on July 16. But the strike—the largest rail strike in the last 20 years—did not last long. The President and Congress pushed through a new law interdicting the strike and turning the dispute over to compulsory arbitration. Under this law passed on July 18, the railroad magnates were in effect granted the right to dictate the terms of an agreement. "It is a sad day for American workers when Congress becomes the nation’s No. 1 strikebreaking agency,” said vice-president Joseph Ramsay of the International Association of Machinists.  [126•1 

p September and October were marked by arduous class battles in the auto industry. On September 7, the UAW called a strike against the Ford Motor Company when the company refused to meet the union’s demands (wage increases proportional to company profits, improvements in working conditions, increased unemployment insurance benefits and equal pay for US and Canadian workers) during negotiations on the next three-year contract.

p This was the tenth nationwide strike in the auto industry in the last three decades. The 49-day strike, involving 160,000 workers at 94 plants of the Ford empire in 26 states, was, on the whole, successful. Ford Motor was forced to sign a three-year contract granting annual wage increases of from 6 to 7 per cent, larger pensions, increased benefits to workers laid off by the company, longer rest periods during the workday and other gains. At the same time, some union demands, such as expanding the rights of shop stewards and for certain improvements in working conditions, remained unmet. Even after the collective agreement as a whole was ratified, however, the struggle did not end; workers at many plants continued the strike, demanding settlement of local issues.

p Displaying unparalleled resolve and tenacity, 60,000 127 workers in the copper industry conducted a nine-month strike (from July 1967 to April 1968) in 22 states. The big Kennecott Copper, Anaconda, Phelps Dodge and American Smelting and Refining companies had refused to meet demands made by 26 unions on behalf of their members for higher wages and improved retirement and other benefits. The strike (the longest strike embracing an entire industry in US history) shut down 90 per cent of the country’s copper mines and nearly all of the smelting and refining plants. The companies, relying on their large reserves of copper, tried to break the strike through economic pressure, reckoning that they could starve the workers into submission. But their hopes were not realised. By the end of March 1968, members of other unions had contributed over $ 1,000,000 to the strike fund and were giving the strikers all-round assistance and support. The exceptional steadfastness of the strikers and the solidarity with their courageous fight shown by the entire organised labour movement forced the companies to negotiate contracts granting many of the unions’ demands.

p Special mention should also be made of the strike by nearly 250,000 American Telephone & Telegraph workers, the 10-week teachers’ strike in New York City and strikes by city employees in New York and Memphis.

p Labour union activity continued to intensify in 1969. A vivid example of the sharp confrontation between labour and capital was the 101-day East Coast and Gulf coast longshoremen’s strike, involving 75,000 workers. The strikers sought an agreement that would preclude any substantial reduction in the number of longshoremen working in the ports, despite wide-scale mechanisation of loading and unloading operations. In the oil refining industry 60,000 workers in 25 states of the country struck for higher wages and improved social security benefits and better working conditions. The strike shut down scores of refineries which produce more than two-thirds of the gasoline and other liquid fuels in the United States. An exceptionally militant strike took place against the General Electric Co., involving 150,000 workers and paralysing 280 enterprises in 130 cities. Among the other groups striking that year were 40,000 miners in West Virginia, American Airlines mechanics, teachers in New Jersey 128 and Los Angeles, city employees in New Orleans, Scranton and Evansville, and hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina.

p Throughout 1969, the new Republican Administration actively intervened in labour-management relations and applied various repressions against the unions. For example, in early October, a strike by 120,000 railway workers was terminated on orders from President Nixon, who turned the dispute over to a special board of arbitration.

p In 1970, the strike movement in the United States reached a record level, comparable only to the two previous high peaks in 1919 and 1945-1946. Outstanding among the strikes that year were the strike by 350,000 auto workers in 31 states against the General Motors Company, the strike by 300,000 railway workers, and the hard-fought strike by postal workers.

p The railway dispute continued throughout the year. Twice —in February and in September—the government, with the help of court injunctions, succeeded in preventing a strike that threatened the country’s economy. At the end of the year, their demands for higher wages and other benefits still unmet, the railway workers struck. But this powerful strike on 150 railroads did not last long. On President Nixon’s insistence, Congress quickly passed a bill ordering postponement of the strike. A federal court pronounced a fine of $ 200,000 for every day the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks continued the strike beyond the cutoff date. It is noteworthy, that Congress and the federal court both justified their strikebreaking decisions on the grounds that the strike created an "emergency situation" and was detrimental to the country’s "war effort”, thereby confirming the direct link between the government’s reactionary socioeconomic policies and its aggressive foreign policy.

p In the spring of 1970, for the first time in the 196-year history of the US postal service, a postal workers’ strike broke out. Involving 160,000 post office employees in 200 cities, this strike, which erupted against the wishes of the union officials, was in direct violation of laws denying federal employees the right to strike. The government declared a national state of emergency (for the first time since the Second World War), and US Army and National Guard troops were 129 brought in to carry out the functions of the postal workers. However, neither the extreme measures taken by the government nor the appeals by the union leaders to terminate the strike had any effect. The postal workers agreed to return to work only after they were granted a substantial increase in wages and the government pledged that no action would be taken against the participants in that “illegal” strike.

p The marked upsurge in the strike movement since 1966 was the consequence of heightened activity by rank-and-file union members in opposition to the new attack on the vital interests of working people by the monopolies and the government.

p The upswing in the struggle of the US working class was particularly significant in that it took place against the background of the continuing war in Vietnam and rampant chauvinism, under conditions when "the resistance of the monopoly forces to economic demands is now a resistance marked by a wartime arrogance”,  [129•1  when the government, to please big business, stepped in with increasing frequency to break strikes and took every possible action to curtail the fundamental rights of labour unions.

p The strike movement and its growing intensity are an indication of the growth of the working peoples’ class- consciousness and their resolve to defend their fundamental rights and interests. Today, as in the past, most of the conflicts between labour and capital are economic in nature. This form of class struggle has always predominated in the United States. It has been a powerful force opposing heightened exploitation and reduction in the living standard of working people and has played a tremendous role in the workers’ attainment of tangible socio-economic gains. ".. . Social reforms,” Marx wrote, "never come about as a result of weakness in the strong, but always as a result of strength in the weak.”  [129•2  Economic strikes are still of prime importance in the fierce day-to-day struggle waged by workers against monopoly rule.

p However, the intensive development of state-monopoly forms of capitalist oppression makes it increasingly clear to 130 working people that economic strikes, however important and valuable they may be, are no longer enough, that the monopolies today enjoy to a greater extent than ever before the full and open support of the government. The progressive strata of the working class are becoming increasingly convinced that it is impossible to countervail this united front of monopoly capital and government and to win the satisfaction of their vitally important demands without combining economic struggle with political struggle, and without fighting for democratic rights and actively opposing the government’s reactionary domestic and aggressive foreign policy. In his time, Lenin pointed out that the labour movement "can be strong only by defending the interests of the working class completely and in every way, by engaging in economic struggle against capital, a struggle inseparably bound up with a political struggle against the servants of capital".  [130•1 

The trend toward interlacing economic and political struggle increased markedly in the 1960s. Many strike actions taken by the American working class were aimed not only against the policy of specific monopolies, but also, in essence, against the government as an aggregate capitalist reflecting the overall will of the monopoly oligarchy. Among such strikes were labour actions against the government’s policy with respect to a shorter workweek, against wage freezing through the imposition of guidelines, against curtailment of the right to strike, against introduction of compulsory arbitration, and against certain pressures exerted on unions and strikers. This observable and growing trend toward the politicalisation of the US working class’s economic struggle will unquestionably lead to more frequent and sharper confrontations between the labour movement and the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism and will raise the struggle of the working people to a higher political level.