1936 | Commerce
Commerce
Canadian gold mining pioneer Noah A. Timmins drops dead of a heart attack in Florida January 22 at age 69, having headed Hollinger Gold Mines Inc. since 1910.
United Rubber Workers of America employees receive pink layoff slips at 3 o'clock in the morning of February 14 and refuse to leave Goodyear Tire and Rubber Plant No. 2, pioneering the sit-down strike.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5 to 4 June 1 that a New York minimum wage law for women passed in 1933 is unconstitutional (Morehead v. New York ex. rel. Tipaldo). Justice Pierce Butler writes the majority opinion; Chief Justice Hughes dissents in an opinion joined by Justices Brandeis, Cardozo, and Stone (see Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938).
The Steel Workers' Organizing Committee holds its first meeting June 17 at Pittsburgh's Commonwealth Building and names United Mine Workers international vice-president Philip Murray of the CIO to chair an organizing campaign (see 1933; 1937).
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) suspends CIO unions (see 1935; 1955).
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by John Maynard Keynes advances the idea that laissez-faire capitalism does not always work, but massive economic depressions like the one now engulfing the world can be avoided by fairly simple governmental action such as investing in public works, encouraging capital goods production, and stimulating consumption by printing money to help restore the economic equilibrium (see British general strike, 1926). Once this is achieved, the capitalist system will resume its normal long-term growth rate, with the Gross National Product increasing by 2.5 percent each year to double national income every 30 years or so, a growth that is much faster than can be achieved under any other economic system. Depressions are unhealthy and unnecessary, says Keynes. "Unemployment develops . . . because people want the moon; men cannot be employed when the object of desire (i.e. money) is something which cannot be produced and the demand for which cannot readily be choked off. There is no remedy but to persuade the public that green cheese is practically the same thing and to have a green cheese factory (i.e. central bank) under public control" (see Hayek, 1944).
The Bank of China is founded by financier T. V. Soong, now 42, who has westernized Chinese finances and standardized the currency.
French sit-down strikes involving 300,000 workers lead to social reforms: a 40-hour week June 12, reorganization of the Banque de France June 30, nationalization of the munitions industry July 17, compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, paid vacations, etc. But prices skyrocket as labor reforms increase production costs and international tensions drive the government to increase spending on rearmament.
The United States agrees September 25 to fix exchange rates between the dollar, pound, and franc. France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands abandon the gold standard September 27. The French franc is devalued October 2, the Italian lira October 4.
Germany embarks on a Four-Year Plan October 19. Hermann Goering will succeed financier Hjalmar Schacht as economic minister beginning next year.
Sit-down strikers occupy the General Motors Chevrolet body plant at Flint, Mich., with CIO backing December 31 after five members of the 1-year-old United Automobile Workers Union have been laid off at GM's Fisher Body plant in Atlanta for wearing union buttons (see 1937). Former Baptist minister Homer Martin, 35, heads the union.
Thirty-eight percent of U.S. families (11.7 million families) have incomes of less than $1,000 per year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics places the "poverty line" at $1,330.
Wall Street's Dow Jones Industrial Average closes December 31 at 179.90, up from 144.13 at the end of 1935.