Great Railroad Strike of 1922 (1 juill. 1922 – 1 sept. 1922)

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The Great Railroad Strike of 1922, or the Railway Shopmen's Strike, was a nationwide strike of railroad workers in the United States. It started on July 1, 1922 by seven of the sixteen extant railroad labor organizations and Judge James Herbert Wilkerson ended the strike on September 1, 1922. During World War I, the American railroad system was nationalized by an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson. This marked the establishment of the 8-hour day across the railroad industry. However, this was soon overturned following the return of control of the rail system to private hands by the Transportation Act of 1920. The war years had been a period of dramatic inflation. In response to the changing economic conditions, railway companies obtained approval from the Railroad Labor Board in 1921 for deep reductions in wage rates for workers across the industry. In 1922 the Railroad Labor Board approved another cut of 7 cents an hour for all railway repair and maintenance workers, making them lose an average of 12%. Seven unions representing the railroad shopmen and maintenance went on strike on July 1, 1922 titled a work stoppage. On that day some 400,000 railway workers walked off the job, including nearly 100,000 in the Chicago metropolitan area alone. In some towns, local merchants and authorities gave moral and actual help to the strikers, including refusal to sell groceries to strikebreakers and other commercial boycotts and the extension of free goods and discounts to strikers. Picnics were held in support of strikers and in some places, railway guards were disarmed.On July 11, 1922, President Harding issued a proclamation that attempted to split the difference between the two sides in the conflict, promising not to destroy organized labor but also recognizing the decision of the Railroad Labor Board that strikebreakers were to be regarded as permanent employees, with "the same indisputable right to work as others have to decline work." Harding proposed a settlement on July 28 that would have granted little to the labor unions, but the railroad companies still rejected the compromise. On September 1, Judge James Herbert Wilkerson issued a sweeping injunction against striking, assembling, picketing, and a variety of other union activities; it was colloquially known as the "Daugherty Injunction": "One of the most extreme pronouncements in American history violating any number of constitutional guarantees of free speech and free assembly. (But) it effectively broke the strike".

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