Having three months, the "Master Builders" or "Employers Building Trades Council" announced on January 15, 1921, that after Thursday, January 20, 1921, all trade wages would be cut to .90 cents from one dollar per hour, and that overtime would be paid of 1 1/2 instead of double time, and other changes for the employers benefit. All building trades voted to go on strike on January 20, 1921.

After three weeks, Boston Mayor Peters, calls all parties to City Hall to mediate a settlement. The employers refuse to budge. Labor offers to go back to the old agreement until May 1st and continue talks. A meeting is called on April 10th and the employers remain defiant. On the big jobs, the employers have not tried to hire strikebreakers but some electrical contractors do, in an attempt to finish up work already started. The strike committee succeeds in signing five electrical contractors to do work under the old agreement until the strike is broken. The IBEW is paying strike benefits right on time. The strike drags on until April 1, 1921.

The electrical employers are not in such a defiant mood, but are tied in with the Employers Building Trades Council. The strike committee maintains picket lines 2 hours each day, but time drags each day and some of the members take up side lines.

May 1, 1921 - The employers have opened up a few jobs with strikebreakers, but they are mostly laborers, not skilled craftsmen. More electrical contractors sign agreements with Local 103 at wages of the old agreement. Rumor has it that 15 or 20 fair sized employers are considering breaking away from the association and negotiating seperately with the individual trades. Local 103 confirms at several union meetings never to sign a trade-wide agreement again with the "Master Builders".

International President, James P. Noonan, comes to Boston for a week and meets with members of the electrical contractors association to submit to arbitration at the new Council on Industrial Relations. The union and employer agree. The employer must get the sanction of the Employes Building Trades Association (B.T.E.A.). They turn down the proposal flatly. "No craft association can negotiate with its employees, only through the B.T.E.A." The strike goes on. The IBEW continues to send strike benefits and those members working for contractors under the interim agreement pay 20% to the strike fund. The employers go open shop and hire more strikebreakers.