January 15 - We Want to Live, Not Just Exist

On this day in labor history, the year was 1946.

That was the day the United Electrical Workers joined the national post-war strike wave. 

200,000 UE members walked off the job at General Electric, Westinghouse, and General Motors’ Electrical Division. 

Across the country, reduction of hours and phony job reclassifications led to a 30% wage cut, while years of wartime grievances piled up. 

All this led to the demand for $2 a day pay raises. 

Many of these workers were young women on strike for the first time. 

They had spent much of the war fighting piecework and gender based divisions of labor. 

Reports from the picket lines showed overwhelming support among the strikers and from the general public. 

Older male coworkers who built the UE joined young women strikers on the line. 

At the GE Mazda Lamp Works in Youngstown, Ohio, steelworkers joined women strikers to bolster picket lines. 

In Lynn, MA, signs of women picketers read, “We Want to Live, Not Just Exist,” and “Let the Pipes Freeze-They Don’t Care If We Freeze,” in response to maintenance crews allowed to pass. 

In Bloomfield, N.J., six restaurants turned their establishments over to the strikers. 

GE president Charles Wilson complained bitterly of the 12,000 or so picketers that blocked the gates of the GE Schenectady Plant. 

Strikers across the country faced violent confrontations and beatings as police on horseback waded through crowds.

Philadelphia strikers retaliated by pouring marbles onto the street.

Workers at GE and Westinghouse would eventually settle for 18 cents an hour, less than what they had hoped but more than either company had been willing to give. 

Management would remain in shock for years at the level of solidarity among strikers and the community.