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In the U.S. last year, the number of working days spent on strike dropped to the lowest level since World War II. This year, however, labor's demands and the strike rate have risen sharply, along with production and profits. Last week strikers were hitting the bricks--and sometimes throwing them--from Maine to Florida. Some major strikes:

P: On Long Island, N.Y., 9,000 C.I.O. Electrical Workers overruled their own leadership and voted to strike against the Sperry Gyroscope Co. for an 18-c--an-hour wage raise (present average: $2 an hour). Pickets smashed windows and slashed tires on cars driven by nonstrikers, forced Sperry to close down last week three electronics factories (including the Lake Success plant which once temporarily housed the United Nations). At one point Sperry's management called (in vain) for U.S. marines to protect its plants, which work largely on Government defense orders.

P: In New England, 23,000 C.I.O. Textile Workers walked out on 23 cotton and rayon plants in protest against a proposed 10-c--an-hour pay cut. The millworkers took a 6% pay cut in 1952 to help meet low-wage Southern competition, now average less than $1.40 an hour.

P: In Miami Beach, Fla., 1,400 maids and other hotel workers struck nine luxury hotels (including the Sans Souci, which worried as much as the others) as part of an A.F.L. organizing drive against the resort's 376 hotels.

P: In nine Southeast states, some 35,000 members of the C.I.O.'s Communications Workers kept up for the sixth week their walkout against Southern Bell Telephone Co., the nation's biggest current strike. Violence has spurted sporadically. Bullets and brawls closed three small exchanges in Tennessee, but automatic dial service handles most Southern Bell calls. Recently, 20,000 Alabama steelworkers staged a brief strike of sympathy with the telephone workers. Union leaders in Birmingham and Atlanta even discussed the possibility of calling general strikes in those cities.

P: In 14 Southern states, some 25,000 striking railwaymen stopped passenger traffic on the 4,737-mile Louisville & Nashville system, slowed some operations on three other lines. Chief demands: a compulsory health and welfare program, paid holidays and other benefits. During the strike's six weeks, lack of freight service has forced some coal mines to close; the Dixie Flyer was derailed, and the usual Kentucky Derby specials have been canceled. At week's end six working railwaymen were injured when a 95-car L. & N. freight train was wrecked near Barbourville, Ky. The railroad blamed sabotage.

With labor contracts expiring and trouble threatening in aviation, automobiles, shipbuilding, copper and other industries, officials of the U.S. Labor Department fear that the strike figure is in for a further boost.

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