American Decades

Important Events in Business and the Economy, 1940–1949

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions cannot be appealed and that only the NLRB, not labor unions, can enforce NLRB rulings.
On October 24, the forty-hour workweek in industry begins as a result of the Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938.
On November 21, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers (UMW) resigns as head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in protest over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's election to a third term. Philip Murray succeeds him as president of the CIO.

On January 3, in anticipation of war the federal government calls for the construction of two hundred merchant vessels.
On January 7, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Production Management to supervise defense production.
On January 22, strikes at the Allied Chalmers plant initiate a series of...

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