The 1947 Telephone strike was a five-week long, nation-wide labor stoppage in the United States by the National Federation of Telephone Workers (NFTW) and other smaller unions that started on April 7, 1947. The workers, mostly switchboard operators, were protesting long hours and low pay by AT&T, the Bell Telephone Company, the New York Telephone Company, and others. There were demonstrations throughout the United States with several instances of police arresting passive strikers. The mass of the strike was calculated to be equivalent to 10,100,000 man-days.