September 22 in business history: a twelve-hour day, a communiqué, and the auction that priced Sky
Three September 22 decisions — a 1919 steel strike over the twelve-hour day, the Plaza Accord of 1985, and the 2018 auction that priced Sky — each turned on a term that had been written down before anyone bargained.
Three September 22s, spread across 99 years, in which the decisive term was already down in writing before anyone sat down to argue about it. In 1919 it was a mill schedule and a company's refusal to bargain with the men who worked it. In 1985 it was a communiqué signed by five governments in a New York hotel. In 2018 it was a takeover rulebook that fixed a share price before the last round was opened.
The company that would not put it in writing
On September 22, 1919, steelworkers across the United States walked out. Half the steel industry ground to a halt, workers in six states left their jobs, and as many as 350,000 were idle 1. At the top of the list of demands was an eight-hour day. Steelworkers at the time routinely worked twelve hours a day or more, often with no days off, and one Pennsylvania worker, Mike Connolly, described what the alternative would buy him: eight hours would leave time for "a garden, a couple of hundred chickens and know my family" 1.
The terms had been written the other way during the war. When the United States entered it, unions, employers and the government formed the War Labor Board, which brokered a trade: employers would improve conditions and recognise unions if labour gave up the right to strike for the duration 1. Union membership rose. After the armistice in November 1918 the same employers moved back to the old terms, and U.S. Steel, the largest employer in the country, refused to recognise unions at all 1. In Pittsburgh, meeting halls used by the American Federation of Labor were shut down for "health violations" and organisers ran into Pinkerton guards hired by the company 1.
What decided the strike was the absence of the document that had made the wartime bargain stick. In peacetime there was no War Labor Board, and the federal government stayed out of it; President Wilson had a stroke in September 1919, and his advisers held back 1. The companies took the argument to the press, casting the walkout as a Bolshevik conspiracy and playing on the thirty-odd nationalities working in the mills 1. A mill superintendent told a Senate committee that the strike "is entirely the Bolshevik spirit" and "is not a question of wages" 1. Strikebreakers were brought in, state troopers and company-hired men attacked pickets, and a race riot in Gary, Indiana ended only when state troopers put the town under martial law 1.
The two unions that had called the strike could not hold it together. Workers began crossing their own picket lines, the Amalgamated Association withdrew, and on January 8, 1920 the strike gave in 1. Membership at both unions fell sharply, and employers made clear that they would not accept unionisation or strikes in the future 1.
Decision mirror: The same argument ended with a number in writing 107 years later. On April 16, 2026, Kaiser Permanente announced the ratification of 52 collective bargaining agreements covering more than 61,000 employees, closing nearly eleven months of negotiation that had included two work stoppages and a five-week strike in California and Hawaii 2. The wage term was 21.5 percent over the life of the contracts, an offer the company had first put on the table in October 2025, and step increases took average wage growth to 30 percent 2. The 1919 strike ended without a contract. The 2026 round ended with a percentage and a set of signing dates.
The dollar that five governments said was too high
On September 22, 1985, the finance ministers and central bank governors of France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met at the Plaza Hotel in New York and published a statement 3. One sentence carried the decision: "some further orderly appreciation of the main non-dollar currencies against the dollar is desirable," and the five stood "ready to cooperate more closely to encourage this when to do so would be helpful" 3.
The paragraph in front of it explained why the sentence had to be written. From 1980 to 1985 the dollar had risen by about 50 percent against the yen, the deutsche mark, the French franc and the pound, and the American current-account deficit had reached 3.5 percent of GDP 4. The statement itself warned that the deficit was feeding protectionist pressure, and that protectionism left to run could produce "mutually destructive retaliation with serious damage to the world economy", shrinking world trade and raising unemployment 3.
The market moved as soon as the document was public. The statement was issued on a Sunday; when trading opened the next day the dollar fell 4 percent against the other currencies 4. Over the two years to 1987 the dollar came back down by about 40 percent 5. Measured in yen, the rate moved from roughly 240 to the dollar towards 120 within two years 6.
Decision mirror: On July 31, 2026, Japan's Ministry of Finance and the US Treasury announced a joint yen-buying intervention, the first joint currency action by the two countries since 2011 7. Central bank data indicated Japan may have spent as much as $36.58 billion buying yen that Friday, a day after a solo Japanese intervention worth up to $58.97 billion, and the US Treasury sold euros to buy yen 7. The yen had reached a 40-year low near 164 to the dollar in the preceding weeks and jumped to 155.20 on the announcement 7. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the authorities would not hesitate to conduct further coordinated intervention, and Mark Sobel, a former US Treasury official who is now US chair of the OMFIF financial think tank, said that if Japan wanted a higher yen "it needs to address the monetary and fiscal policy concerns" 7. Forty-one years after five governments wrote a direction for the dollar, two of them wrote the same sentence pointing the other way, and the fundamentals the statement could not reach were still the ones setting the level.
A takeover decided in one day, in three rounds
On September 22, 2018, the Takeover Panel ran an auction to decide who would own Sky. The rules had been agreed by Sky, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox, and the two bidders spent that one day submitting sealed offers in three rounds 8. Comcast's final offer was £17.28 a share in cash and Fox's was £15.67, and the winning price valued Sky's fully diluted share capital at about £30.6 billion 8. The gap between the two final bids was put at $3.6 billion 9.
The rules decided what the price meant as well as what it was. Under the auction procedure both offers became final, and Comcast and Fox were barred from revising them again unless a third party announced a firm intention to bid 8. Sky's independent committee priced the result against two reference points it had chosen itself: the winning £17.28 was a 125 percent premium to Sky's close of £7.69 on December 6, 2016, the last business day before Fox's first approach, and 15.5 times Sky's adjusted EBITDA of £2,349 million for the year to June 30, 2018 8. Before the auction, Comcast's highest published offer had been £14.75 and Fox's £14.00 9.
What the winner was left holding was a different set of numbers. In the third quarter of 2022 Comcast recorded a non-cash impairment of $8.583 billion against Sky's goodwill and intangible assets 10.
Decision mirror: On June 1, 2026, RTL Group completed its acquisition of Sky Deutschland, the German, Austrian and Swiss business, from Comcast 11. The upfront cash paid at closing was €68 million, against the €150 million previously communicated, with a variable component of up to €377 million tied to RTL's share price and triggerable by Comcast within five years 11. The combined business has about 12.3 million paying subscribers and is expected to produce €250 million of annual synergies within three years 11. The 2018 auction put a value of about £30.6 billion on the whole of Sky. Eight years later the German part of it changed hands for €68 million in upfront cash.
The diligence test
Four questions to run against the equivalent decision on your own desk.
- Which term is written down, and who has to agree to change it? U.S. Steel's mills ran on a twelve-hour schedule in 1919 and the company would not recognise the unions that wanted it changed. The 1919 walkout ended on January 8, 1920 without a contract; the 2026 health-care contracts it echoes ended with 21.5 percent written across 52 agreements.
- What does the sentence you signed commit you to, and what does it leave open? The Plaza statement said further appreciation of the non-dollar currencies was "desirable" and that the five stood ready to cooperate. The dollar fell 4 percent the next trading day and about 40 percent over two years.
- When the price comes out of a procedure, who wrote the procedure? Sky, Comcast, Disney and Fox agreed the auction rules themselves, and those rules made both final offers final. The number that came out was £17.28 a share, 15.5 times Sky's adjusted EBITDA.
- What is the asset worth to the next buyer? The 2018 auction valued Sky at about £30.6 billion. Comcast impaired it by $8.583 billion in the third quarter of 2022 and sold the German business in 2026 with €68 million of upfront cash.
References
- 1
- 2Kaiser Permanente: Alliance unions ratify new contracts
about.kaiserpermanente.org
- 3
- 4Wikipedia: Plaza Accord
en.wikipedia.org
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- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11Bertelsmann: RTL Group Closes Acquisition of Sky Deutschland
bertelsmann.com
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