Population of Bridgeport: 147,121

Bryant Electric employees 1,200.

December 17, 1940. U.S. War Department gives $3 million for Bullard to build a new factory equal in size to the present plant.

December 5, 1940. City firms get defense contracts for $4,281,626 between November 1 and 15.

1940-1941: Bridgeport Brass receives orders for cartridge cases, artillery ammunition components, cartridge cups, and other items from the U.S. War Department; orders total more than three million dollars in cost.

1941-1945:  U.S. in World War II. War orders pour into Bridgeport companies.

August 13, 1941. Singer, which already holds several million dollars worth of contract for Army ordnance work, has started plant expansion and retooling operations for the direct manufacture of air-raid precaution equipment.

November 13, 1941. GE gets government orders for one million for giant molded rubber cords for emergency lighting purposes in conjunction with the national defense program.

Remington opens plant in Denver.

Bridgeport Post takes over Bridgeport Times-Star, buying it for $200,000. Times-Star employees were given only 30 minutes to vacate the building, and the Post sent a special wrecking crew to demolish the Times-Star presses. Ends competition among daily newspapers in Bridgeport.

June. Germany invades the Soviet Union. December. Japan attacks U.S. forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, U.S. enters World War II.


March on Washington movement against racial discrimination in jobs. Fair Employment Practices Commission is established.

1941-1945:  United States in World War II. No-strike pledge by unions. Major role of federal agencies in shaping union practices.

More than 110,000 Japanese Americans are interned in U.S. concentration camps.

1941
Bridgeport Building Trades Council, AFL, announces raises signed with contractors, in climate of greatly increased volume of building. Bricklayers, masons and plasters, electricians, and latherers get increases from $1.37 and ½ to $1.50 per day. Laborers scale goes from 85 to 95 cents per day.

650 steel workers at Stanley plant strike for two days for wage increases and recognition of Local 2215 of the CIO-Steel Workers Organizing Committee as bargaining agent for its 800 members among the 1100 employees, and a 10 percent increase in pay.

Spurning organizers of both the CIO and AFL, 200 employees of the American Chain and Cable strike for two days and win pay increases of 10 cents per hour for 850 employees.

May 22, 1941. Strike at Warner Corset Company.

Logan Brothers Stores and the AFL-Retail Sales People's union sign a contract, providing for wage increases and reduced hours.

Bridgeport Times Star reports on September 4, 1941 that AFL longshoremen (Longshoremen International) continued striking at Cilco Terminal and the yard of the City Lumber Company. Union demands a closed shop and a contract covering both the yard and the terminal.

UE CIO wins an NLRB election at Remtico plant of Remington-Rand. 150 voted.

Producto Machine Company and UE CIO sign a contract covering more than 250 employees.

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers CIO wins bargaining election at the east plant of the Bassick Company. Earlier, UE won an election at the west plant of the Bassick Company. The contract, the first ever to be negotiated with an affiliate of the Stewart-Warner Corporation covers 850 workers.

Negro Musicians Local No. 549 forms.

Workers at Vought - Sikorsky choose United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers Union of America, CIO, as their bargaining agent in NLRB election and achieve a contract three months later.

War industries in Bridgeport hire more women workers.        

Blast at Remington Arms Factory injures 80 and kills seven people.

Employees of the Stanley Works plants on Howard and Seaview Avenues choose the United Steel Workers of America (USWA), CIO as their collective bargaining agent in an NLRB election.

Painters Union 190 gains increase of $1 per day to $11 for an eight-hour day (resulting rate is $1.37 per hour).

August 21. Workers of Bridgeport will purchase a Vought - Sikorsky Corsair fighting plane and present it to the US Navy on Labor Day.

Sikorsky helicopter becomes first production helicopter in American history when Army orders 15 helicopters. To build them, United Aircraft leases a vacant plant in Bridgeport. United Aircraft also separates Chance -Vought and Sikorsky as of January 1, 1943.

New rolling mill which the Bridgeport Brass Company has built and equipped for the Defense Plant Corp at Indianapolis, Indiana in April.

April 1943: Bullard plant employees (6,500 total employees) go on 60 and ½ hour week, 2 shifts.

As part of war production drive, labor-management committees organized at plants, including Remington, Bridgeport Brass, and Bridgeport Gas Light.

GE white collar group joins CIO; majority of the tool designers, tool developers, and draughtsmen employed at the Bridgeport Works of the GE, about 120 in all, vote to be represented by UE Local 203 CIO.

September: Bridgeport Brass announces $5-6 million reconversion program to peacetime.

Germany surrenders. United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrenders. World War II ends.

National strike wave. United Electrical (UE) strikes success at shutting down every General Electric and Westinghouse plant in the United States and Canada convinces companies to change their attitudes towards unions. Boulwarism.

National strike wave as post-war reconversion begins. (Only the 1919 strike wave had a higher percentage of workers striking.)

January 15, 1946. Bridgeport UE workers at General Electric (6,600 workers) and Bryant Hemco (1,600) strike, demanding $2.00 a day increase. 

Jobs that were assigned to women during the war are again being assigned to men.

GE Local 203

Josephine Willard - Letter from Lloyd Willard - Mob Incident Josephine Willard - Union Steward at G.E. - 1940's Local 203 UE-CIO at GE drops 26 members for being alleged communists, and requires that all stewards sign an affidavit that they are not Communists.

2,350 to 2,500 building trades workers in Bridgeport area strike for increased wages.

At Bridgeport Brass, some workers secede from the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (MMSW) and form the Progressive Metalworkers' Council (PMC), which then affiliates with the Industrial Marine and Shipbuilders of America. Both unions are CIO affiliates. This is part of Connecticut CIO official John J. Driscoll's revolt against the top leadership of MMSW, which the PMC charges is "communist infiltrated." In a May 22 NLRB-supervised election, workers at Bridgeport Brass vote by 55% to retain MMSW as their bargaining agent. (Note that PMC defeats MMSW in several Waterbury brass mills.) A month later, MMSW Local 320 officers are seeking a court injunction to force PMC members to turn the union office and records back to the certified MMSW officers.

1947-1949:  Taft Hartley Act.

June:  House Committee on Un-American Activities calls 4 UE leaders to testify about Communist influence in UE (three months before hearings on Communism in Hollywood).

Truman Doctrine.

Federal Loyalty Oath.

1947-1949:  Rival unions raid more than 500 UE locals.

First group of U.S. Communist leaders arrested under Smith Act on charges of organizing a conspiracy to teach and advocate the forcible overthrow of the government.

Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.

Soviet Union begins blockade of Berlin.

Congress approves Marshall Plan.

Truman orders an end to segregation in the armed forces.

CIO expels United Electrical; Mine Mill and Smelters; longshoremen; and 8 smaller communist-led unions on charges of "communist domination."

CIO and AFL create ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Union).

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established.

Communist victory in China.

Soviet Union detonates atomic bomb.

March 10. Production workers at Remington start 4 day week, and 6 weeks later, 550 lose jobs with Remington Arms cut in orders.

December. 15,900 unemployed in Bridgeport.

Chance Vought division of United Aircraft had shifted operations to Grand Prairie, Texas.

First Barnum Festival led by H. Steinkraus

Local 203 UE-CIO at GE drops 26 members for being alleged communists, and requires that all stewards sign an affidavit that they are not Communists.

2,350 to 2,500 building trades workers in Bridgeport area strike for increased wages.

At Bridgeport Brass, some workers secede from the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (MMSW) and form the Progressive Metalworkers' Council (PMC), which then affiliates with the Industrial Marine and Shipbuilders of America. Both unions are CIO affiliates. This is part of Connecticut CIO official John J. Driscoll's revolt against the top leadership of MMSW, which the PMC charges is "communist infiltrated." In a May 22 NLRB-supervised election, workers at Bridgeport Brass vote by 55% to retain MMSW as their bargaining agent. (Note that PMC defeats MMSW in several Waterbury brass mills.) A month later, MMSW Local 320 officers are seeking a court injunction to force PMC members to turn the union office and records back to the certified MMSW officers.