The Flint sit-down strike 1936-1937

Disclaimer: These words are the author’s personal views and do not reflect the Labor Guild’s opinion.

Not many people have heard of Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915). He was a mechanical engineer credited with the term “Taylorism” because of his theories of “Scientific Management. He began his experiments by setting up a cadence for one man to load pig iron into a freight car; at certain points, a signal would stop the worker to take a quick break for just so long and another to return to work. All of this was carefully recorded with a stopwatch to determine which cadence delivered the most production; that theory of Scientific Management is alive and well today. From measuring production on an assembly line to typing pools, call centers, postal workers’ mail routes, global positioning satellites, and computer monitoring of workers. Detailed time study and breakdown of every aspect of the production line, designed to get the most from each worker. 

Such was the case with the autoworkers; they were unhappy with the union under the AFL and decided to organize the United Auto Workers. They chose Homer Martin as President and two of the three Reuther brothers as fellow officers. The three Reuther brothers, Walter, Victor, and Roy, were born in West Virginia to German immigrants who were both trade unionists and Socialists. Walter worked as an apprentice tool and die maker, then moved to the Forman’s position. He then moved to Detroit when he was 19 and went to work in the auto industry as a tool and die maker. After high school and three years of college, he and his brother Victor traveled the world for three years and even spent two years working in a Soviet car factory. Although the brothers understood the economics of Socialism, they disagreed with the political mechanism that Marx thought should be used to implement it, which was Communism. The brothers fought fervently to keep it out of the UAW and the CIO.

Walter and Victor were elected to Union office, and Roy became a force within the organization. Walter grew into one of, if not the most notable, unionists of the 20th century, being dubbed “the crown prince of labor.” His enemies called him “the most dangerous man in Detroit.” Eventually, Walter became President of the CIO and, along with George Meaney, was influential in the merger of the AFL in 1955.

Taylorism was used in full force as workers toiled on the production line at General Motors. One woman interviewed, reported her husband would come home after a shift and crawl into bed. Summer plant temperatures could rise over 100 degrees, causing employees to turn a “jaundiced color.” Production line speed was at the fastest pace, and those who could not maintain the pace were replaced by another low-wage, unskilled worker, as GM made $175 Million in profits from 1927 to 1937. 

The plants were heavily infiltrated by company spies. Weak Company unions were organized to try to attain legitimacy but consistently failed. Goon squads of Company men and Pinkerton’s regularly handed out beatings to union organizers and sympathizers. Efforts to organize a concerted action resembled a cloak-and-dagger novel. Coded messages were secretly delivered to the union leaders, and decoy messages and misinformation leaked to the Company. Phony strike information was leaked to identify spies and to pull enemy resources away from the real targets of workplace activity. The union decided to use the sit-down as a tool to create changes in the workplace. Europeans adopted the sit-down method, which proved to be a useful weapon. With this model, capital was not only denied to the employees but also its ability to produce. This was the best of both worlds for the Union. Not only did the union deprive the employer of the workers, but they also took control over the means of production so that replacement workers could not be used against them. Thus, 1,000 workers sat in the plants, holding out the other 7,000.

In a coordinated effort, the UAW struck a Fisher Body plant in Atlanta. The UAW was seeking recognition and a collective bargaining agreement from GM and to force GM to stop giving work to nonunion plants. Then, on Dec. 16, 1936, they struck two GM plants in Kansas City and again on Dec. 18, the Fisher Body plant #1. In two weeks, 135,000 workers in 14 states were out.

The sit-down, which lasted 44 days, started on December 30, 1936, in a plant where the night shift was loading dyes to be shipped to a plant with a weaker union. At that point, the workers sat down. The part of this strike I find particularly interesting is the tool and dye makers inside with the tools and the skills to design and create their own weapons. They practiced catapulting 2-pound door hinges at beaver board targets (an early name for plywood). They developed a way to obtain food, social networks, theatrical skits, and concerts, made beds from car seats, and kept the production line and living quarters spotless. Strikers barricaded doors with car bodies and even welded steel plates around windows.

GM was most concerned with their means of production. If police attacked, the assembly line could be damaged beyond repair. They were certainly not concerned about the workers. When those attacks eventually came, buckets of water stood by as workers used heat-resistant gloves to extinguish the incoming tear gas. On January 11, 1937, police stopped a food delivery and initiated a riot, which resulted in injury to 16 strikers and 11 officers. When the Union called for support, 150,000 people showed up in Cadillac Square to encourage the strikers. 

This started the “Battle of Bulls Run,” attacking police who were met with incoming auto parts like 2-pound door hinges. Fire hoses turned on the police from inside the plant at the highest pressures they could deliver as air hoses were used to push tear gas away from the strikers. As the battle proceeded, the wind shifted toward the police, which sent them running backward.

As in most company towns, the news was biased, and nothing negative was reported about GM. Despite that, a friend of Labor, Governor Frank Murphy, who got elected on a promise not to use National Guard forces on strikers, lived up to his word. He did bring in troops, but they were there only to enforce the peace, which meant keeping police attacks on the plant at bay. The troops turned their back on the striking workers as they faced the Company’s police and protected the workers. You see, it does matter who you vote for and put in office. 

President Roosevelt asked GM President Alan Sloan to sit with the UAW, and in the end, the UAW was recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative. Together, they abolished piecework in favor of hourly pay, a 30-hour work week, time and a half, a minimum wage rate, seniority based on years of service, and reinstatement of all employees. They also reached mutual agreements on the speed of production.

So, let’s look at our activity that was now protected by Law:

• The Strike
• The Sit-Down Strike
• Boycotts
• Secondary Boycotts (pressure second- and third-party boycotts)
• Concerted activity
• Hot Cargo

The law, which was favorable toward unions, changed in 1947. The muscles and organs of labor law began to go against labor with amendments to the Wagner Act, renamed the Labor Management Relations Act. Also known as Taft-Hartley, it passed despite President Truman’s veto of the bill. 

Since Taft-Hartley, we lost: The Sit-Down Strike, Handling of Hot Cargo (workers not handling freight that was considered banned by the Unions) Freight would be left at depots and docks and sat there. Secondary Boycotts (pressure second- and third-party boycotts. Over time, the “legitimacy of the Law” has stripped us of our most powerful weapons. It also made sure that in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist purge, that Communism was eradicated from the labor movement. 

 So too, is it true with so many other social laws that rely on the governmental-built playing field. Even though its intent was altruistic, the manipulation of our opponents through the Court, especially in recent times, has been geared not only to neutralize our effort but to have the law exist only as a façade, as window dressing that it is disguised as just. It was not always like this. When we have friendly Supreme Court Justices, we have made great gains. It matters who appoints these people. Are they friends of our cause or our opponents?

It is important to note the strong Communist support the Unions received: During the 1930’s, the Communist influence was to take on the class struggle between the owners and the workers in this country, and they were very successful in their efforts. 

That ideology changed once WWII began. A change in ideology for the protection of the workers changed to a more determined strategy to cause chaos so that nothing gets accomplished to the point where people get frustrated and want to disband the organization, leaving a vacuum ripe for an overthrow of the government. Sound familiar? Maybe it is or isn’t the Russians or alternative news networks behind it, but it is hard to deny that there is an organized and concerted effort to divide the people in this country and to lose faith in the concept of Democracy. This is precisely what is happening in America today, which the Reuther brothers recognized and fought off. However, if it had not been for radical movements such as the Anarchists and Communists, there would have been no labor movement in this country.