# 1946 Oakland general strike

vteLabor disputes by sector :
vteAgricultural strikes
1800s
Thibodaux sugar 1887
Cotton pickers 1891
1900s–1920s
Oxnard 1903
Seattle fishermen 1912
Grabow lumber 1912
Wheatland hops 1913
northern Minnesota lumber 1916–1917
Hanapepe sugar 1924
Imperial cantaloupe 1928
1930s
Imperial lettuce 1930
Santa Clara cannery 1931
Vacaville tree pruners 1932
Wisconsin milk 1933
Yakima hops 1933
California agricultural (Santa Clara cherry, El Monte berry) 1933
Great lumber 1935
Stockton cannery 1937
1940s–present
Hawaiian sugar 1946
Puget Sound fishermen 1949
Delano grape (1965–1970)
Salad Bowl 1970
Watsonville Cannery (1985–1987)
Frito-Lay 2021
vteCoal Wars
1870s – 1900s
Mahoning Valley strike 1873
Morewood massacre 1891
Coal Creek War
Bituminous coal strike 1894
Lattimer massacre 1897
Illinois coal wars 1898–1900 (Battle of Virden, Pana riot, Carterville Mine Riot)
Anthracite coal strike 1902
Carbon county strike 1903–04
1910s
Westmoreland strike 1910–11
Paint Creek mine war 1912
Colorado Coalfield War 1913–14 (Ludlow Massacre, The 10-Day War)
Hartford coal mine riot 1914
1920s – 1930s
West Virginia coal wars 1912–21 (Battle of Matewan, Battle of Blair Mountain)
Alabama miners' strike 1920
UMW General Coal Strike 1922 (Herrin massacre)
Indiana bituminous strike 1927
Colorado Coal Strike 1927–28 (Columbine Mine massacre)
Harlan County War 1931–1939 (Battle of Evarts)
vteGeneral strikes
1800s
Philadelphia 1835
Catalan 1855
St. Louis
Scranton 1877
First May Day (Haymarket Affair) 1886
New Orleans 1892
1900s
Sweden 1909
Philadelphia 1910
Vancouver 1918
Seattle
Winnipeg 1919
Germany 1920
San Francisco
Minneapolis 1934
Oakland 1946
Austria 1950
Ghana 1950
Finland 1956
Paraguay 1958
Namibia 1971
Uruguay 1973
Spain 1988
Nepal 1992
2000s
Guinea 2007
Egypt 2008
French Caribbean 2009
Spain 2010
European 2012
India 2016
Brazil
Catalan 2017
Catalan 2019
vteUS manufacturing strikes
1800s–1920s
Cigars 1877
El Paso smelters 1913
Studebaker 1913
Standard Oil 1915
Boston cigars 1919
1930s–1970s
Tampa cigars 1931
Auto-Lite 1934
Kohler 1934
Flint sit-down 1936
Akron rubber 1936
Remington 1936
Ford 1937
Chrysler Auto 1939
General Motors 1939
General Motors 1945
Boeing 1948
Kohler 1954
International Harvester 1979
1980s–2000s
Todd Shipyards 1983
International Paper 1987-1988
John Deere 1986–1987
General Motors 2007
Boeing 2008
2010s–2020s
Oil refineries 2015
Kohler 2015
Jim Beam 2016
Bath shipbuilders 2020
St. Paul Park refinery 2021
Volvo Trucks 2021
Frito-Lay 2021
Nabisco 2021
Heaven Hill 2021
Kellogg's 2021
John Deere 2021
United Auto Workers 2023
vteMetal mining strikes
1800s
Upper Peninsula 1865
Coeur d'Alene 1892
Cripple Creek 1894
Leadville 1896–97
Coeur d'Alene 1899
1900s–1920s
Colorado Labor Wars (Idaho Springs) 1903–04
Cananea 1906
Goldfield 1906–07
Copper Country 1913–14
Bisbee 1917
Anaconda Road 1920
1930s–1970s
Empire Zinc 1950
Murdochville 1957
Inco 1978–79
1980s–present
Vale Inco 2009–10
vteTransport strikes
1800s
Great Railroad Strike 1877
Camp Dump 1882
Great Southwest 1886
Burlington 1888
Buffalo switchmen 1892
New Orleans waterfront 1892
Pullman Strike 1894
1900s–1920s
Chicago teamsters 1905
New Orleans Levee 1907
Illinois Central shopmen 1911
West Coast waterfront 1916
NYC Harbor Strike 1919
Seattle waterfront 1919
Portland waterfront 1922
Railway shopmen 1922
1930s–1970s
West Coast waterfront 1934
Minneapolis teamsters 1934
NYC teamsters truckers 1938
Vancouver waterfront 1935
Gulf Coast maritime 1936
NYC tugboat 1946
USPS 1970
Longshoremen 1971
1980s–2000s
Patco (air traffic controllers) 1981
SEPTA Regional Rail 1983
Pan Am 1985
UPS 1997
Montreal longshoremen 2020
vteSanitation strikes
Memphis 1968
St. Petersburg 1968
Charleston 1969
Atlanta 1977
Atlanta 2018
vteService strikes in the United States
1800s–1920s
Newsboys 1899
NYC waiters 1912
Actors 1919
Boston police 1919
1930s–1970s
Seattle Post 1936
Fleischer Studios 1937
NYC retail 1937
Disney animators 1941
Musicians 1942
Hollywood 1945
Writers Guild 1960
Cleveland convention 1963
St. John's 1966
Memphis sanitation 1968
St. Petersburg sanitation 1968
NYC teachers 1968
Baltimore municipal (police) 1974
Atlanta sanitation 1977
1980s–2000s
Writers Guild 1981
Writers Guild 1988
SF newspaper 1994
Detroit newspaper 1995
Verizon 2000
Broadway musicians 2003
CA supermarkets 2003
UM Janitors 2006
Umpires 2006
Writers Guild 2007
Stagehands 2007
CBS News 2007
2010s
Government (Wisconsin) 2011
Fight for $15 2012–2019
Tacoma nurses 2014
Verizon 2016
Video games 2016
Teachers (AZ, CO, Los Angeles, NC, OK, WV) 2018–2019
Hotels 2018
Stop & Shop 2019
2020s
UC Santa Cruz 2020
University of California 2022
Medieval Times 2023
Writers Guild 2023
SAG-AFTRA 2023
Video games 2024
vteSteel strikes in the US
1800s–1920s
Homestead 1892
U.S. Steel recognition 1901
Pressed Steel Car 1909
Great Steel 1919
1930s–1970s
Little Steel (Memorial Day massacre) 1937
Nationwide 1946
Nationwide 1952
Nationwide 1959
1980s–2020s
USX 1986
Allegheny Technologies 2021
vteNorth American transit strikesStreetcar strikes
St. Louis 1900
Indianapolis 1892
Los Angeles 1903
San Francisco 1907
Pensacola 1908
Columbus 1910
Philadelphia 1910
Indianapolis 1913
St. John 1914
Atlanta 1916
Portland, ME 1916
Bloomington, IL 1917
Twin Cities 1917
Los Angeles 1919
New Orleans 1920
Denver 1920
New Orleans 1929
1930s–1970s
Century Airlines 1932
Philadelphia 1944
New York City 1949
Atlanta 1950
New York City 1966
1980s–2020s
Greyhound 1983
New York City 2005
Toronto 2006
Toronto 2008
Lyft and Uber 2019
vteTextile strikes in United States
1800s
Mill Women 1834
Paterson 1835
Mill Women 1836
New England shoe 1860
North Adams shoe 1870
1900s–1920s
Skowhegan 1907
New York shirtwaist 1909
Chicago garment 1910
Lawrence 1912
Little Falls 1912–1913
Hopedale 1913
Paterson silk 1913
Ipswich Mills 1913
Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills 1914–1915
New England 1922
Passaic 1926
New Bedford 1928
Loray Mill 1929
1930s–1970s
Los Angeles garment 1933
National 1934
Lewiston-Auburn shoe 1937
Montreal Cotton 1946
1980s–2000s
NYC Chinatown 1982 :
The 1946 Oakland general strike was a general strike involving 50,000 workers over two days in Oakland, California, United States. Beginning at 5:00am on December 3, it ended two days later on December 5 at 11:00am. The strike followed a previous, smaller scale strike action by 400 female employees of Hastings and Kahn's, who had walked out in the fall of 1946 because of the resistance Oakland's retail merchants had to unionization. It was part of a strike wave which began the year prior following the end of the World War II.

## Attempts to Organize Kahn's and Hastings

Attempts to organize the Oakland department stores Kahn's and Hastings began in the summer of 1946 by Al Kidder, a war veteran who had recently returned home. Kahn’s and Hastings were the city’s landmark downtown department stores and the largest employers of nonunion workers in the central business district. Kidder was working in the shoe department at Kahn's in 1946. His mother had been working in the Kahn's "ready room" in the basement where workers would wait to be called to the main retail floor.
They were compensated only for the time spent on the main floor. Kidder earned $28 per week as a shoe salesman at Kahn's, but learned that salespeople working at other specialty stores in town were making $10 more per week than he was. These practices prompted Al Kidder to approach the unions to ask why they didn't organize the stores. A strike was initiated on October 23, 1946, at the Oakland department stores of Kahn's and Hastings when a female employee at Kahn's was fired after joining a union. Kidder served as a picket captain during the strikes at the department stores and played a role in the general strike that was to follow.

## The Strike

This strike was a powerful landmark event in the labor history of Northern California. However, it was one that was misperceived in comparison to the many other strikes that occurred during the 1945-1946 strike wave. The strike strengthened in early December, when with the support of the city government and business leaders, management called upon the police to remove the picketers.
During the 1946 general strike, working men and women gathered in the streets of downtown Oakland to support striking department store employees. Oaklanders were part of a nationwide strike wave in 1946 that represented organized labor’s efforts to ensure that postwar demobilization did not erode workers’ standard of living. Oakland’s strike was also unique because behind it lay a drive to organize new workers: female department store clerks. With the intensity continuing, the AFL (American Federation of Labor) in Alameda County decided to join forces with the clerks. A "Work Holiday" was declared by 142 AFL unions, leading 100,000 workers to walk off their jobs. By the first night of the strike, all strikers commanded all the stores to shut down, except pharmacies, food markets, and bars. Veterans of World War II that were engaging in the strike marched around the Tribune Tower, performing close-order drills, demanding that the mayor along with the city council step down from office. The first 24 hours of the strike was full of excitement, jukeboxes being played on the sidewalk, while couples danced in the street.
By the second day, however, almost half of the strikers dissipated. Harry Lundeberg, SUP's Secretary-Treasurer, was one of the many major leaders in the San Francisco General Strike. He was called upon from a pay telephone on the streets of Oakland to come out and support. Lundeberg spoke to an overflowing crowd of picketers, displaying his rage: "These flinky gazoonies who call themselves city fathers have been taking lessons from Hitler and Stalin. They don't believe in the Unions that are free to strike." The focus of his verbal attack was intended for the city council.
On December 5 the AFL Central Labor Council declared an end to the strike and sent a sound truck to relay their decision. Still, some workers and truckers stayed picketing with the women clerks. All except the clerks were ordered back to work, having to face disciplinary action if they were to continue picketing.

## Outcome

The result of the strike left every official in the Oakland Teamsters Local 70 out of office. Also, the United AFL–CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations) was created to aid candidates in running for office. Five seats were open out of the nine total City Council seats; four labor-sponsored candidates were elected to the city council.