Two major voluntaristic efforts were made in 1945 to reach a labor and management agreement for the postwar years, one of which, the president's Labor-Management Conference held in November and December, has received significant notice. The present study will revisit and reinterpret that important event. To understand labor and management attitudes when that conference was convened, the generally neglected Management-Labor Charter, initiated by the CIO six months earlier, is highly relevant for a grasp of the “labor problem” circa 1945–50.

Labor unrest, endemic in all modern industrial societies, was a great public concern in the United States in the final months of the Second World War. All three major labor centers – the AFL, the CIO, and the railroad brotherhoods – participated in a record-breaking wave of strikes. There was special public anxiety, however, about the spreading CIO-led strikes in the basic industries. By their very nature, these stoppages involved masses of workers and more deeply affected the general public than the typical craft-based stoppages of the traditional AFL unions. In addition, the newly created industrial union movement still contained many figures on the left. All – left, center, and right – were now marching behind Philip Murray, the ex-miner who had succeeded John L. Lewis and carried the banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The policies of the politically moderate Murray were ambiguous. His devotion to the institution was unequivocal.