Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy new Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Anniversary of
Speaker 1: the Flint sit down strike is this month. That's marked
Speaker 1: as starting on December six, But that name and they
Speaker 1: don't quite capture the whole of the strike. Flint, Michigan
Speaker 1: was absolutely at the heart of auto manufacturing for General Motors,
Speaker 1: and the strike was largely centered around Flint, but this
Speaker 1: strike also involved workers at GM factories all over the
Speaker 1: United States. And while the major strike activity in Flint
Speaker 1: started on December, it also followed earlier strikes in other
Speaker 1: parts of Michigan and in other states. So this name
Speaker 1: and date, as they're commonly known, it's really a little
Speaker 1: bit broader than that. We have talked about several strikes
Speaker 1: on the show before, including strikes in the United States, Canada, England,
Speaker 1: and Ireland, but this one in particular has been cited
Speaker 1: as one of the most significant and influential strikes in
Speaker 1: United States labor history, and this strike took place while
Speaker 1: the world was still trying to recover from the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: This economic catastrophe had of course been devastating to people
Speaker 1: all over the globe. General Motors in particular, had cut
Speaker 1: nearly half of its staff while also increasing requirements for
Speaker 1: workers productivity and implementing seasonal layoffs. Although the company would
Speaker 1: loan money to laid off workers, they had to pay
Speaker 1: it back out of their wages once they were back
Speaker 1: on the job. But even people who had steady work
Speaker 1: at GM during the Great Depression didn't really have a
Speaker 1: sense of job security. There were so many people who
Speaker 1: were out of work and just desperate for jobs that
Speaker 1: the company knew it could fire anyone for essentially any
Speaker 1: reason and have a replacement waiting immediately. This was especially
Speaker 1: true in places like Flint, where GM was by far
Speaker 1: the biggest employer. The US government took various steps to
Speaker 1: try to bolster the nation's economy during the depression. One
Speaker 1: was the National Industrial Recovery Act of ninety three. This
Speaker 1: was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and
Speaker 1: he signed it into law during his first one hundred
Speaker 1: days in office. This was an act quote to encourage
Speaker 1: national industrial recovery, to foster fair competition, to provide for
Speaker 1: the construction of certain useful public works, and for other purposes.
Speaker 1: The National Industrial Recovery Acts suspended a lot of the
Speaker 1: antitrust legislation that we talked about recently in our episodes
Speaker 1: on Ida Tarbell. Instead, this Act encouraged businesses to form
Speaker 1: alliances and to establish codes of fair competition. These codes
Speaker 1: were meant to apply across whole end streets, setting standards
Speaker 1: for things like consumer protections, fair wages, and prices for goods.
Speaker 1: The idea was that these codes would reduce unfair business
Speaker 1: practices that we're making it harder for struggling businesses to
Speaker 1: stay afloat during the crisis, so things like undercutting competitors
Speaker 1: prices to the point that they just could not go
Speaker 1: that low. Section seven A of the Act read quote,
Speaker 1: Every code of fair competition, agreement, and license, approved, prescribed,
Speaker 1: or issued under this Title shall contain the following conditions.
Speaker 1: One that employees shall have the right to organize and
Speaker 1: bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and shall
Speaker 1: be free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers
Speaker 1: of labor or their agents in the designation of such representatives,
Speaker 1: or in self organization or in other concerted activities for
Speaker 1: the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection. Too,
Speaker 1: That no employee, and no one seeking employe meant, shall
Speaker 1: be required, as a condition of employment, to join any
Speaker 1: company union, or to refrain from joining, organizing, or assisting
Speaker 1: a labor organization of his own choosing. And three that
Speaker 1: employers shall comply with the maximum hours of labor, minimum
Speaker 1: rates of pay, and other conditions of employment approved or
Speaker 1: prescribed by the President. This Act contained lots of provisions
Speaker 1: that we haven't gotten into here, including authorizing the presidents
Speaker 1: to establish a federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. But
Speaker 1: in terms of the Flint sit down strike, Section seven
Speaker 1: A was key. It protected employees right to organize and
Speaker 1: bargain collectively, and this was a huge deal. Although the
Speaker 1: term collective bargaining had been coined by British social reformer
Speaker 1: Beatrice web In, workers have been trying to work together
Speaker 1: to secure better pay and working conditions for centuries, and
Speaker 1: in the US trade unions, other efforts to collectively bargain
Speaker 1: had been illegal. They were treated as criminal conspiracies. The
Speaker 1: National Industrial Recovery Act was the first federal law legalizing
Speaker 1: union membership and collective bargaining, but in general, employers were
Speaker 1: reluctant to comply with various provisions of the Act. There
Speaker 1: were also questions about whether the Supreme Court would find
Speaker 1: it to be unconstitutional. Some employers used this uncertainty to
Speaker 1: justify their non compliance with the law, and they kept
Speaker 1: working directly against their employees legal right to unionize. As
Speaker 1: a result, labor disputes, including strikes, surged as workers and
Speaker 1: their unions fought for the kinds of rights and protections
Speaker 1: they were legally entitled to, and some of these disputes
Speaker 1: led to violence. In August of nineteen thirty three, Roosevelt
Speaker 1: established the National Labor Board, chaired by Senator Robert F.
Speaker 1: Wagner of New York, to try to mediate between the
Speaker 1: growing labor movement and industry leaders. In addition to Wagner,
Speaker 1: the board had six members, three each representing labor and industry.
Speaker 1: But the board really didn't have much enforcement power. Companies
Speaker 1: that were operating under one of the codes that had
Speaker 1: been established under the new law were allowed to display
Speaker 1: an emblem of a blue eagle, and all that the
Speaker 1: NLB could really do when companies stopped following the rules
Speaker 1: was to make them take their eagle down. In May
Speaker 1: of ninety five, the Supreme Court issued its decision in
Speaker 1: Scheckter Poultry Corps versus United States, which did indeed find
Speaker 1: the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional. At the
Speaker 1: same time, though the act's industrial provisions were supposed to
Speaker 1: expire after two years or sooner if the President or
Speaker 1: Congress decided they were no longer needed, this decision came
Speaker 1: just a few weeks before that expiration date. A big
Speaker 1: reason behind that decision was that this Act delegated a
Speaker 1: lot of legis aative power to the president without really
Speaker 1: setting guidelines on how the president could use that power. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was not the whole decision, obviously, but that's sort
Speaker 1: of the crux. People were divided as to whether or
Speaker 1: to what extent this Act had been effective at what
Speaker 1: it set out to do. It was supposed to quote,
Speaker 1: remove obstructions to the free flow of interstate and foreign commerce.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to do that by reducing labor disputes,
Speaker 1: reducing unfair competitive practices, and making sure industries were working
Speaker 1: at full capacity. It had generally improved workers pay and
Speaker 1: working conditions, and it had cut down on some of
Speaker 1: the competitive practices that were undermining the economic recovery, but
Speaker 1: it was also blamed for things like making various goods
Speaker 1: more expensive and slowing the pace of production. The government
Speaker 1: still had a vested interest in this idea of removing
Speaker 1: obstructions to interstate commerce, including obstructions that stemmed from labor disputes,
Speaker 1: and of her activists were advocating for the protections that
Speaker 1: had been part of the National Industrial Recovery Act to
Speaker 1: be restored. This led to the National Labor Relations Act,
Speaker 1: introduced by Senator Wagner and also called the Wagner Act,
Speaker 1: which was signed into law on July six. This was
Speaker 1: an act to quote diminish the causes of labor disputes
Speaker 1: burdening or obstructing interstate and foreign commerce, to create a
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Board, and for other purposes. The Act
Speaker 1: applied to all employers involved in interstate commerce, with the
Speaker 1: exception of airlines, railroads, agriculture, and the government. It framed
Speaker 1: employers refusal to respect their employees right to unionize or
Speaker 1: to accept collective burgaining as the cause of industrial strife
Speaker 1: leading to strikes and other unrest. The Act also noted
Speaker 1: that companies have a lot more of power than their
Speaker 1: employees do especially when those employees aren't protected by a
Speaker 1: fair contra act or allowed to collectively bargain. It once
Speaker 1: again legalized employees right to organize an outlawed employers interference
Speaker 1: with that right, and it also empowered the National Labor
Speaker 1: Relations Board to oversee this whole process and mediate disputes.
Speaker 1: But since the Supreme Court had overturned the National Industrial
Speaker 1: Recovery Act, many employers expected the National Labor Relations Act
Speaker 1: to be struck down as well. Even though the law
Speaker 1: barred employers from interfering with employees right to unionize, many
Speaker 1: employers kept doing exactly that, things like hiring detectives to investigate,
Speaker 1: spy on and harass union organizers and members, establishing company
Speaker 1: unions that really represented the interest of the business rather
Speaker 1: than its employees, and firing or demoting people who were
Speaker 1: suspected of organizing or joining a union. So this brings
Speaker 1: us to the US automotive industry and specifically to Flint, Michigan,
Speaker 1: which we will get to after a spot a break.
Speaker 1: The American Federation of Labor was established in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth century to bring craft and trade unions together under
Speaker 1: one umbrella. It's first member unions represented people like tailor's,
Speaker 1: iron molders and carpenters, and in its early years, the
Speaker 1: a f L did not work with industrial unions at all.
Speaker 1: Craft unions representing people like carpenters were considered to represent
Speaker 1: skilled workers, while industrial workers, so people who worked on
Speaker 1: factory assembly lines were thought of as unskilled. But around
Speaker 1: the time the Wagner Act was passed, the a f
Speaker 1: L established a Committee for Industrial Organization. This committee soon
Speaker 1: split off from the a f L and it re
Speaker 1: established itself as its own organization was the Congress of
Speaker 1: Industrial Organizations. United Auto Workers was established in Detroit, Michigan
Speaker 1: in ninety five, and at first it became part of
Speaker 1: the a f L, and like the a f L,
Speaker 1: its initial focus was mainly on the automotive industry skilled workers,
Speaker 1: not the people who worked on assembly lines in factories.
Speaker 1: But when the CIO split off from the a f L,
Speaker 1: the United Auto Workers went to Soon the u a
Speaker 1: W was trying to organize factory workers, especially at the
Speaker 1: Big three automakers GM, Ford, and Chrysler. GM was the
Speaker 1: largest auto manufacturer in the world at the time, with
Speaker 1: sixty nine plants in thirty five cities, many in the Midwest. Initially,
Speaker 1: the U a W focused more on GM and Chrysler.
Speaker 1: Because Henry Ford was vehemently anti union, GM actively worked
Speaker 1: against these unionization efforts. According to information unearthed and Senate
Speaker 1: committee hearings, between nineteen thirty four and nine six, GM
Speaker 1: spent more than eight hundred thirty nine thousand dollars on
Speaker 1: labor detective services, more than half of it paid to
Speaker 1: the Pinkerton's. This detective work involved everything from investigating union
Speaker 1: organizers to planting spies within the union, to harassing and
Speaker 1: threatening workers. This Congressional committee described GM's spy work as
Speaker 1: quote a monument to the most colossal supersystem of spies
Speaker 1: yet devised in any American corporation. There are also reports
Speaker 1: that GM conscripted an organization known as the Black Legion
Speaker 1: to intimidate and threaten its employees. The Black Legion was
Speaker 1: compared to the KKK and was aggressively anti union, and
Speaker 1: this went beyond targeting the union itself and the workers
Speaker 1: at the factories. Part of GM's union busting effort involved
Speaker 1: telling mail workers wives that their husband's union activities, we're
Speaker 1: going to get them fired, as well as convincing women
Speaker 1: that their husbands were up to no good, suggesting that
Speaker 1: they were out late partying or soliciting sex workers, or
Speaker 1: that they were lying about the union and that they
Speaker 1: were really spending their after work time having extramarital affairs.
Speaker 1: As u AW organizers tried to unionize GMS factories, they
Speaker 1: were working against all of this, and they were finding
Speaker 1: common themes among the workers grievances from plants a plant.
Speaker 1: A lot of it was in line with what we
Speaker 1: already discussed, like firings that seemed arbitrary or retaliatory. The
Speaker 1: factories were also poorly ventilated, and during periods of hot weather,
Speaker 1: workers passed out or even died from overheating, with their
Speaker 1: coworkers expected to keep working until someone came to remove
Speaker 1: the body. Many of the jobs were dangerous, including working
Speaker 1: around dangerous substances with no ventilation or protective equipment. There
Speaker 1: was also an immense focus on speed, to the point
Speaker 1: that workers on the assembly line did not have time
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom. There was also nobody who
Speaker 1: could cover for a person who became ill or injured
Speaker 1: on the job. Workers talked about people who got sick
Speaker 1: during the day and kept working on the assembly line
Speaker 1: even though they were vomiting. There was also speed up
Speaker 1: during peak production times, with workers expected to complete their
Speaker 1: tasks on the assembly line at seemingly superhuman speeds. If
Speaker 1: a factory was in danger of missing its daily quota,
Speaker 1: speed up would start near the end of people's shifts,
Speaker 1: when they were already exhausted. For many workers, take home
Speaker 1: pay was not the biggest issue, but the way wages
Speaker 1: were calculated was a problem. Many workers on the line
Speaker 1: weren't paid an hourly or a daily rate. They were
Speaker 1: paid by the piece, and the rate for each piece
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily stay the same. It was often set at
Speaker 1: a higher amount at the start of a pay period
Speaker 1: to encourage the workers to go as quickly as possible,
Speaker 1: but then it would drop as pay day approached. People
Speaker 1: wound up making less than they expected. In this whole
Speaker 1: shifting pay rate felt like a bait and switch. Women
Speaker 1: working at the GM factories faced an additional layer of hostility.
Speaker 1: Some reported being sexually harassed and even assaulted by their supervisors,
Speaker 1: who would then use the assault as leverage to try
Speaker 1: to guarantee the woman's compliance at work. All of these
Speaker 1: factors fed into the sit down strike. Most of the
Speaker 1: strikes that had taken place in the United States before
Speaker 1: this point had involved workers leaving their job sites and
Speaker 1: organizing things like picket lines, demonstrations, protests, pamphleteering, and speeches.
Speaker 1: While the strike at GM and nine six and thirty
Speaker 1: seven still involved things like picket lines and other activities
Speaker 1: outside the building, those were primarily the work of the
Speaker 1: striking workers supporters, because in a sit down strike, employees
Speaker 1: stayed inside the factory, physically occupying it. This strategy had
Speaker 1: some advantages for the striking workers. A typical strike could
Speaker 1: only be effective if the vast majority of the workers participated.
Speaker 1: If only a few people walked out, the company could
Speaker 1: just redistribute their work among their coworkers or higher replacements
Speaker 1: without too much trouble. But a sit down strike allowed
Speaker 1: a smaller number of people to take control of the
Speaker 1: whole workplace. Employers also couldn't simply hire replacement workers to
Speaker 1: take over, since the striking workers had control of the building.
Speaker 1: Remaining inside the workplace also gave the workers more protection
Speaker 1: from violence. Employers were reluctant to remove workers by force
Speaker 1: due to the risk of damaging expensive machinery and equipment,
Speaker 1: but there were also some downsides. Striking workers had to
Speaker 1: be separated from their families than their friends who didn't
Speaker 1: work with them, depending on where the strike was taking place.
Speaker 1: Striking workers didn't have access to things like bathing facilities
Speaker 1: or adequate sleeping spaces, although some of the GM strikers
Speaker 1: were able to make reasonably comfortable beds with the padding
Speaker 1: that was used to make car seats. Sit down strikes
Speaker 1: were also questionably legal at best, since strikers were essentially trespassing.
Speaker 1: The idea that a few workers could decide to go
Speaker 1: on strike and take over the whole building also ran
Speaker 1: against the spirit of the National Labor Relations Act, which
Speaker 1: was really focused on the idea of a majority of
Speaker 1: employees forming a union and bargaining, not on a smaller
Speaker 1: number of employees forcing the issue by occupying the building.
Speaker 1: In the US, the first sit down strike is generally
Speaker 1: noted as having happened in nineteen o six, when members
Speaker 1: of the Industrial Workers of the World stopped working but
Speaker 1: stayed at their stations at a General Electric factory and
Speaker 1: Schenecta in New York. Workers in Europe started occupying their
Speaker 1: workplaces after World War One, including roughly half of the
Speaker 1: metal workers in Paris in the spring of nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: and that led to sweeping labor reforms in France. In
Speaker 1: the US, workers at a rubber plant in Akron, Ohio
Speaker 1: sat down in early ninety six as well. Fisher Body
Speaker 1: was a division of GM, and Fisher Body workers in
Speaker 1: Atlanta sat down at two different points in October and
Speaker 1: November of ninety six, with the November strikes spreading to
Speaker 1: other plants in the Atlanta area as well. Workers at
Speaker 1: Bendix Products in South Bend, Indiana sat down in mid
Speaker 1: November and mid December, workers sat down at two GM
Speaker 1: plants in Kansas City, Missouri, and then at a body
Speaker 1: stamping plant in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as the Kelsey
Speaker 1: Hayes wheel plant in Detroit, Michigan. All of these were
Speaker 1: either divisions of our suppliers of GM. On December sixty six,
Speaker 1: the u A W ast for a meeting with GM
Speaker 1: upper management, but GM refused, maintaining that any collective bargaining
Speaker 1: would have to happen at the local level, from plant
Speaker 1: to plant. But the u A W argued that the
Speaker 1: issues that it wanted to discuss, things like recognizing the
Speaker 1: union for collective bargaining a seniority system for workers and
Speaker 1: the tremendous speeds expected of workers on the line, where
Speaker 1: things that applied for every GM factory in the nation.
Speaker 1: Late December also wasn't ideal for the u a W
Speaker 1: to be planning a huge strike. Most of GM's workers
Speaker 1: celebrated Christmas, so this was just not a great time
Speaker 1: for people to lose their wages or to be separated
Speaker 1: from their families. Since many of GM's factories were clustered
Speaker 1: together in the Midwest, the weather at the end of
Speaker 1: the year would probably not be all that conducive to
Speaker 1: things like the pickets and the protests that were needed
Speaker 1: to support the strike. And Michigan had elected a new governor,
Speaker 1: Frank Murphy, who was expected to be far more sympathetic
Speaker 1: to organize labor than his predecessor had been, but he
Speaker 1: was not going to take office until January one. However,
Speaker 1: workers themselves took this decision out of the u a
Speaker 1: w's hands, and we're gonna get to that after we
Speaker 1: pause for a sponsor break. As the u a W
Speaker 1: tried to organize GM workers in Flint, Michigan, GM tried
Speaker 1: to reduce its risk in the event of a strike.
Speaker 1: On December six, the company transferred union members out of
Speaker 1: its Chevrolet body stamping plant in Flint that was known
Speaker 1: as Fisher Body number two. Then on December, the company
Speaker 1: started removing the dies that were used to stamp out
Speaker 1: body parts from another Flint plant, which was Fisher Body
Speaker 1: number one. This was one of only two sets of
Speaker 1: dies that GM was using to stamp out auto bodies,
Speaker 1: and their removal from the plant represented not only a
Speaker 1: loss of jobs because the people who did that work
Speaker 1: would not have work to do anymore, but also a
Speaker 1: loss of leverage. If the workers took over the plant
Speaker 1: with the dies still in it, that would stop production
Speaker 1: on multiple models of GM cars. So when the workers
Speaker 1: at Fisher one realized what was happening with the dies,
Speaker 1: they immediately started a strike, taking over the building, and
Speaker 1: workers at Fisher two started striking on the same day.
Speaker 1: There are also oral history testimony suggesting that another factor
Speaker 1: might have been at work here as well. Flat glass
Speaker 1: workers had also gone on strike, and that was leading
Speaker 1: to a potential glass shortage for car manufacturing. If the
Speaker 1: factories in Flint ran out of glass, production would shut
Speaker 1: down anyway, so workers decided to strike before that could happen.
Speaker 1: The strikes. Organizers decided that only men could occupy the
Speaker 1: plants during the strike, so while there were women working
Speaker 1: at GM, they could not be part of the sit down.
Speaker 1: But women's participation in other aspects of the strike was
Speaker 1: absolutely critic goal. The Women's Auxiliary, which was organized by
Speaker 1: twenty three year old Genera Johnson, who was later Genera
Speaker 1: Johnson Dollinger, set up a strike kitchen to feed the
Speaker 1: striking workers and their families. They delivered food directly to
Speaker 1: the factories. The Women's Auxiliary also did the striker's laundry,
Speaker 1: and about three weeks into the strike, they started a
Speaker 1: daycare for the striking workers children. They also brought children
Speaker 1: to the factories to visit their family members, and they
Speaker 1: picketed and did other work in support of the strike.
Speaker 1: It took some time for some of these efforts to
Speaker 1: get off the ground, in part because the company had
Speaker 1: put so much effort into swing distrust of the union
Speaker 1: among the workers wives who support the Women's Auxiliary needed.
Speaker 1: In oral histories recorded in the nineteen eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: women described going to the factories after the strike started
Speaker 1: expecting to drag their husbands out of some kind of
Speaker 1: debauchery or a radical communist frenzy, but then staying to
Speaker 1: help make food once they realized what was a ttually
Speaker 1: going on. Whether they worked at GM or not, the
Speaker 1: women involved in the auxiliary faced hostility from company supporters
Speaker 1: and the strikes critics, including people questioning their morality and
Speaker 1: implying that they were sex workers. We should note that
Speaker 1: while there was not like a stereotypical screaming radical uh
Speaker 1: conspiracy of communism happening in the strike, there were definitely
Speaker 1: communists and socialists among the strikers and within the labor
Speaker 1: movement in general. Both communism and socialism had and have
Speaker 1: a focus on fair treatment of workers, so this is
Speaker 1: not really that surprising. Genera Johnson Dollinger, for example, had
Speaker 1: become a socialist at the age of sixteen. She was
Speaker 1: one of the more radical people involved with the strike,
Speaker 1: though many others had a general interest and communist or
Speaker 1: socialist ideals while not formally being a member of either party.
Speaker 1: And we should also take a moment to note that,
Speaker 1: at least as far as we know, all the women
Speaker 1: in the auxiliary in Flint were white. Although GM did
Speaker 1: employ black people in its factories, they were only hired
Speaker 1: in janitorial rules or to work in the foundry. Only
Speaker 1: one black employee, Roscoe van Zant, is known to have
Speaker 1: sat down in flint, during this strike. During the sit
Speaker 1: down strike, workers inside the plants established rules for behavior,
Speaker 1: including maintaining order, keeping things clean and organized, and mediating disputes.
Speaker 1: As people were cooped up together for weeks, workers held
Speaker 1: lectures and classes for one another. They read and played games,
Speaker 1: and sang songs in order to keep their spirits up.
Speaker 1: Songs included a union anthem called Solidarity Forever that was
Speaker 1: sung to the theme of the Battle Hymn of the Republic,
Speaker 1: and at first GM's response was mostly not to engage.
Speaker 1: GM president Alfred P. Sloan stated quote, we will not
Speaker 1: negotiate with a union while it's agents forcibly hold possession
Speaker 1: of our property. An executive vice president, William S. Knudsen,
Speaker 1: called the striking workers trespassers and violators of the law
Speaker 1: of the land. GM also argued that the union's bargaining
Speaker 1: efforts were not legal under the National Labor Relations Act
Speaker 1: since fewer than half of the employees had joined the union.
Speaker 1: The U a W countered that GM had illegally interfered
Speaker 1: with its effort to get workers to join, preventing it
Speaker 1: from getting a larger membership. On January second, GM got
Speaker 1: a court order to have the striking workers removed from
Speaker 1: the factories, but the workers refused to go. Then it
Speaker 1: became public knowledge that the judge who issued this injunction,
Speaker 1: which was Edward D. Black, owned a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: stock in GM. This was a clear conflict of interest.
Speaker 1: People pretty much dropped the subject of trying to get
Speaker 1: this um injunction enforced. On January fourth, the u a
Speaker 1: W submitted a list of demands, including that the u
Speaker 1: a W be given exclusive recognition as the bargaining agency
Speaker 1: for workers at GM, abolishing the piece work system, a
Speaker 1: thirty hour work week with time and a half for overtime,
Speaker 1: minimum pay rates, the reinstatement of people who had been
Speaker 1: fired unfairly, a seniority system, and a speed of production
Speaker 1: that was mutually agreed upon by managers and a committee
Speaker 1: from the union. But GM continued to refuse to negotiate.
Speaker 1: On January eleven, ninety seven, GM turned off the heat
Speaker 1: and electricity at Fisher two, even though the temperature that
Speaker 1: day was only sixteen degrees fahrenheit or almost negative nine celsius.
Speaker 1: They also locked the factory gate to stop the women's
Speaker 1: auxiliary from delivering food. Workers and their supporters broke the
Speaker 1: gate open, and that escalated into a fight between law
Speaker 1: enforcement and the workers and their supporters. The police used
Speaker 1: tear gas and they fired upon the workers. The workers
Speaker 1: defended themselves with things like fire hoses and thrown door hinges.
Speaker 1: Women who were outside the plan were also part of
Speaker 1: this fighting. They were armed with things like homemade blackjacks
Speaker 1: and bars of soaps stuffed down in the toes of socks.
Speaker 1: At least sixteen workers and eleven police were injured, with
Speaker 1: most of the worker injuries coming from gunshot wounds. In
Speaker 1: a later oral history interview, Genora Johnson Dollinger said of
Speaker 1: this moment, quote, I was frightened, and you first lose
Speaker 1: all your power of thinking for just a matter of moments,
Speaker 1: and then you become terribly, terribly angry that armed policemen
Speaker 1: are shooting into unarmed men. She used the U. A
Speaker 1: W's loudspeaker car to call for women to come to
Speaker 1: the factory and stand with the men, banking on the
Speaker 1: idea that police would be reluctant to shoot at a
Speaker 1: group of unarmed women. The striking workers nicknamed this incident
Speaker 1: the Battle of the Running Bulls or the Battle of
Speaker 1: Bulls run with bulls being a slang term for police
Speaker 1: and some of the more radical women in the Women's Auxiliary,
Speaker 1: including Genera Johnson Dollinger, decided to form a new organization afterward,
Speaker 1: that being the Emergency Brigade. Their job was to handle
Speaker 1: any emergency that arose during the strike. This included using
Speaker 1: their own bodies to shield the striking workers from the police,
Speaker 1: as they had done on January eleventh, but it included
Speaker 1: other things too for the remainder of the strike, including
Speaker 1: at one point helping a striking worker's wife give birth
Speaker 1: to a baby. The Emergency Brigade were red berets and
Speaker 1: arm bands with the letters EB, and some members kept
Speaker 1: working with the Women's Auxiliary while also working with the
Speaker 1: Emergency Brigade. After the violence on January eleven, the U
Speaker 1: a W and GM reached a tentative agreement the striking
Speaker 1: workers would leave the plants and GM would start good
Speaker 1: faith negotiations with the union, not restarting production until those
Speaker 1: negotiations were complete. Workers who had been striking in other cities,
Speaker 1: including Cleveland and Detroit, left their plans, but in Flint,
Speaker 1: the union heard that GM had also agreed to meet
Speaker 1: with another organization called the Flint Alliance, which the c
Speaker 1: i O and the U a W viewed as a
Speaker 1: company union. So workers in Flint refused to leave the factories,
Speaker 1: and GM asked Governor Frank Murphy to call out the
Speaker 1: National Guard. Yeah, there's also some suggestion that GM. It
Speaker 1: looks like GM wasn't going to abide by the promise
Speaker 1: to not restart production until the negotiations were done, So
Speaker 1: after they contacted the governor, Murphy didn't did not act
Speaker 1: the way that many people would expect the governor to
Speaker 1: act during such an incident. He actually supported the workers
Speaker 1: legal right to unionize them to strike, and he was
Speaker 1: really afraid that using National Guard troops to physically remove
Speaker 1: them would just lead to people getting killed. So while
Speaker 1: Murphy did call out the National Guard, their task was
Speaker 1: to keep a buffer between the workers on one side
Speaker 1: and GM GM security guards and police on the other.
Speaker 1: About twelve undred National guardsmen arrived in Flint on January twelve.
Speaker 1: On February one, U a W striker strategically took control
Speaker 1: of the Chevrolet Engine number four factory. To do this,
Speaker 1: they staged a diversion, telling a company stool pigeon that
Speaker 1: a strike was being planned at another factory, Chevy nine.
Speaker 1: Police and security guards from other plants, including Chevy four,
Speaker 1: converged on Chevy nine after hearing this rumor. Police through
Speaker 1: tear gas grenades into the plant, and women outside broke
Speaker 1: the windows to try to clear the air. Meanwhile, workers
Speaker 1: took over the real target of Chevy Flour, and another
Speaker 1: group from the Emergency Brigade locked arms across the gate
Speaker 1: and stood guard. The governor called in an additional National
Speaker 1: Guard troops, which surrounded Chevy four and nearby Chevy to
Speaker 1: once again establishing a barrier around the striking workers and
Speaker 1: separating them from a force that now included police, private
Speaker 1: security guards, sheriff's deputies, and some billions who had been
Speaker 1: deputized for this purpose. Chevy four built the engines for
Speaker 1: all Chevrolet vehicles, so this effectively stopped Chevrolet production throughout
Speaker 1: the company. At this point, the strike was seriously affecting
Speaker 1: GM's production. In December of nineteen thirty six, the company
Speaker 1: had built about fifty thousand cars. In February of ninety seven,
Speaker 1: that number was only one d twenty five. The strike
Speaker 1: grew to involving about one hundred thirty five thousand workers
Speaker 1: in plants from thirty five cities in fourteen states. President
Speaker 1: Franklin D. Roosevelt urged GM to start seriously negotiating. On
Speaker 1: February two, another judge, Paul Godola, who did not have
Speaker 1: a bunch of stock in GM, issued another injunction, this
Speaker 1: one to take effect in twenty four hours, again ordering
Speaker 1: the striking workers to leave the factories. He also find
Speaker 1: the union fifteen million dollars. Thousands of supporters started gathering
Speaker 1: outside the occupied factories out of fear that this injunction
Speaker 1: would inspire vigilantes or hired security to try to remove
Speaker 1: the striking workers by force. There's a random side note.
Speaker 1: The governor actually did own stock in GM as all
Speaker 1: this was happening, although that was not known at the time,
Speaker 1: and since he was generally on the strikers side, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had the same connotations as Judge black stock ownership.
Speaker 1: Even if it had been known. This new injunction put
Speaker 1: the governor in a pretty precarious position. He was required
Speaker 1: by law to honor it, but he still really feared
Speaker 1: that doing so would lead to a loss of life.
Speaker 1: This was not an unreasonable fear, similarly to how businesses
Speaker 1: had thought the Supreme Court might overturn the National Labor
Speaker 1: Relations Act. He also noted that the Court had not
Speaker 1: weighed in on the legality of sit down strikes, so
Speaker 1: he tried to delay. He made some public statements calling
Speaker 1: the strike an unlawful seizure of property, but he still
Speaker 1: didn't take steps to actually clear the factories. Insteady contacted
Speaker 1: the President, again, encouraging Roosevelt to order GM to the
Speaker 1: bargaining table. Alfred P. Sloan delegated GMS, negotiating to executive
Speaker 1: vice president William Knudsen, along with representatives from the company's
Speaker 1: finance and legal departments. On the workers side was CIO
Speaker 1: President John L. Lewis, previously of United Mine Workers, and
Speaker 1: U a W Vice President Windham Mortimer. The negotiations were
Speaker 1: held in the office and jury room of Judge George Murphy,
Speaker 1: brother of Governor Murphy, and Governor Murphy acted as a mediator.
Speaker 1: Murphy kept both President Roosevelt and Secretary of Labor Francis
Speaker 1: Perkins updated on their progress. Although Murphy tried to get
Speaker 1: Judge Godola to delay the removal of the workers. On
Speaker 1: February five, the judge issued a writ of attachment which
Speaker 1: ordered the sheriff to arrest all the workers that were
Speaker 1: occupying GM buildings and to bring them in to court
Speaker 1: to face charges of contempt. But like the governor, Sheriff
Speaker 1: Thomas Walcott had some serious reservations about doing this and
Speaker 1: he would only agree to do it if he were
Speaker 1: explicitly ordered to do so by the governor. He asked
Speaker 1: Murphy for National Guard support. Murphy, of course, was not
Speaker 1: going to directly order him to do this. He thought
Speaker 1: it was going to get people killed. So Murphy informed
Speaker 1: the judge that he thought they were really close to
Speaker 1: an agreement. This was on a Friday, and the governor
Speaker 1: tried to get everybody to just hold tight till after
Speaker 1: the weekend, but by Monday, February eight, GM and the
Speaker 1: U a W still had not reached an agreement. Murphy
Speaker 1: kept trying to reassure everyone that one was imminent, and
Speaker 1: he was later quoted as saying, if I sent those
Speaker 1: soldiers right in on the men, there'd be no telling
Speaker 1: how many would be killed. It would be inconsistent with
Speaker 1: everything I have ever stood for in my whole political life.
Speaker 1: An agreement between GM and the U a W finally
Speaker 1: came on February eleventh, nineteen thirty seven, forty four days
Speaker 1: after the start of the strike and after zero people
Speaker 1: getting killed. Under the terms of this deal, the strike
Speaker 1: would end and the striking workers would stop occupying the plants.
Speaker 1: Those plants would resume operation. GM agreed not to discriminate
Speaker 1: or retaliate against the employees for joining a union or
Speaker 1: for having participated in the strike. GM also agreed to
Speaker 1: start collective bargaining on February, and that bargaining was meant
Speaker 1: to address the grievances that the union had presented to
Speaker 1: the company back in January. The union agreed not to
Speaker 1: implement any more strikes or work stoppages while that negotiation
Speaker 1: was taking place, although it was not officially part of
Speaker 1: the agreement. GM also announced a pay increase of five
Speaker 1: cents an hour, and in a separate letter, Nudsen informed
Speaker 1: Murphy that for a period of six months, GM would
Speaker 1: negotiate only with U a W, not with any other
Speaker 1: union strikers, and chev lay Plant number four voted to
Speaker 1: have Roscoe van zandt lead them out of the building.
Speaker 1: Trying to track down whether that five cents an hour
Speaker 1: pay increase affected people who were being paid by the
Speaker 1: piece and I don't know, but there were people that
Speaker 1: were not paid by the piece UH a lot of
Speaker 1: times and not working directly on the assembly line. So
Speaker 1: this first agreement between GM and the u a W
Speaker 1: was not one that addressed all those demands that the
Speaker 1: u a W had submitted back in January. Some of
Speaker 1: those demands later became part of federal law, including the
Speaker 1: Fair Labor Standards Act that was first passed. Others were
Speaker 1: demands that the UAW kept working towards at GM and
Speaker 1: at other auto manufacturers for years. They weren't things that
Speaker 1: were just quickly wrapped up in a round of collective
Speaker 1: bargaining that started on February six after the strike was over. Instead,
Speaker 1: disagreement's major accomplishment was GM's recognition of the union and
Speaker 1: its promise to participate in collective bargaining, and in that
Speaker 1: it was enormously influential. It established the u a W
Speaker 1: as a legitimate union in the auto industry, and its
Speaker 1: membership grew from about ninety eight thousand to nearly four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand in ninety seven alone. U a W started
Speaker 1: bargaining for workers for many other US auto manufacturers, including Studebaker, Hudson, Packard,
Speaker 1: and Chrysler, and four years after the Flint strike at Ford.
Speaker 1: The success in Flint also sparked an enormous increase in
Speaker 1: union membership overall and a wave of sit down strikes
Speaker 1: as people tried to get better pay and working conditions.
Speaker 1: There were a hundred and fifty sit down strikes in
Speaker 1: the United States in nineteen thirty seven alone, about a
Speaker 1: hundred of them in the area around Detroit, Michigan. About
Speaker 1: half a million workers across the country went on strike
Speaker 1: and about two million joined a union between nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: seven and ninety eight. These were not confined to the
Speaker 1: auto industry or two industrial jobs. On February seven, clerks
Speaker 1: at Woolworth stopped working and took over stores for a week,
Speaker 1: winning a twenty pay increase and union involvement in hiring decisions.
Speaker 1: In March, workers at four locations of the H. L.
Speaker 1: Green department store chain in New York City implemented sit
Speaker 1: down strikes. Incarcerated people in Illinois and Pennsylvania went on
Speaker 1: strike as well, although these strikers demands were not met.
Speaker 1: In April of ninety seven, the Supreme Court issued a
Speaker 1: ruling in National Labor Relations Board versus Jones and Lachlan
Speaker 1: Steel Corporation, which upheld the National Labor Relations Act. But
Speaker 1: over the course of the year, public sentiment really turned
Speaker 1: against the proliferation of sit down strikes. I mean, the
Speaker 1: public had not overwhelmingly supported down strikes in the first place,
Speaker 1: but became a lot more critical. And the words of
Speaker 1: the Detroit News quote, sitting down has replaced baseball as
Speaker 1: a national pastime and centered downers clutter the landscape in
Speaker 1: every direction. In late nineteen thirty seven, a Gallop poll
Speaker 1: found that about sevent of Americans disapproved of sit down strikes.
Speaker 1: Then in nineteen thirty nine, the U. S. Supreme Court
Speaker 1: issued a ruling in N L r B. Versus Fan
Speaker 1: Steel Metallurgical Corp. Which found that Fan Steel had violated
Speaker 1: the Wagner Act, but also that the practice of the
Speaker 1: sit down strike was quote a high handed proceeding without
Speaker 1: shadow of a legal right. So labor organizers largely moved
Speaker 1: away from sit down strikes, but they have been cited
Speaker 1: as an inspiration for sit ins during movements for equal rights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we did that episode, that sort of rounded up
Speaker 1: like the sipp In movement and the fishing movement and
Speaker 1: all of those things. The first one that we talked
Speaker 1: about was the Alexandria Public Library sit in, which was
Speaker 1: originally called to sit down strike. Also, we are not
Speaker 1: going to try to recap the the next eighty five
Speaker 1: years of labor history. Well, there are lots of story
Speaker 1: eas within it that we can tell it later times. Um,
Speaker 1: and I mean stuff that's been in the headlines within
Speaker 1: the last year about everything from workers rights to organize
Speaker 1: to like a big corruption scandal at the U A
Speaker 1: w all of that is out of the scope of
Speaker 1: this podcast. Do you have a listener mail for us?
Speaker 1: I do I have listener mail friend Tony. Tony says Hi,
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, longtime listener, first time writing in. I
Speaker 1: was so excited today during part one of the Tarbell
Speaker 1: versus Rockefeller when you started talking about the discovery of
Speaker 1: oil drilling and Titus Bill that I pause the episode
Speaker 1: to call my mom and tell her about it. My
Speaker 1: entire family is from that area in Oil City, very
Speaker 1: near Titus Bill. My mom took me to Drake's well
Speaker 1: when I was little and pointed out that the picture
Speaker 1: of Drake standing in front of the well in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six is also a picture of my ancestor, my
Speaker 1: great great uncle Peter. I've attached to the picture below
Speaker 1: and standing on the right and the top hat is
Speaker 1: Drake and the man on the left next to him
Speaker 1: is Peter Wilson. According to our genealogy findings, Peter Wilson
Speaker 1: owned a successful apothecary in the area and helped bank
Speaker 1: roll Drakes drilling. There's very little mention of Peter Wilson
Speaker 1: outside of the picture at the well, so we don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about his life aside from that, but
Speaker 1: I'm hoping one day I can go dig through city
Speaker 1: records and find more. There are still oil wells all
Speaker 1: over the area, and unfortunately still a lot of issues
Speaker 1: connected to them. Cancer rates in the area are higher
Speaker 1: than in other areas of the state, and several of
Speaker 1: my family members and friends have suffered from issues with
Speaker 1: water quality on their land. It was really cool to
Speaker 1: hear a lot about the history of the area my
Speaker 1: family is from, especially since many of my ancestors, including
Speaker 1: my grandfather, worked for Standard Oil and other oil companies
Speaker 1: in the area. Western Pennsylvania is very beautiful and some
Speaker 1: of the oil money mansions still exist in Oil City,
Speaker 1: and I wish there was a bit more visibility for
Speaker 1: the area in its history. Uh. Tony then apologizes for
Speaker 1: the email running a bit long, but I don't find
Speaker 1: this to be long at all, and Tony says, I'm
Speaker 1: in the process of applying for graduate schools, and I
Speaker 1: have to say a big part of that decision was
Speaker 1: realizing how much I loved history from listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all you do. My husband and I
Speaker 1: look forward to new episodes and listen every week. Have
Speaker 1: a great day, Tony. Thank you so much, Tony for
Speaker 1: this email. I had seen that picture of the well
Speaker 1: when I was doing my research, and it's so cool
Speaker 1: for somebody to right in and be like, that's my
Speaker 1: ancestor in that picture. That has become like a historical touchstone.
Speaker 1: I love it. If you would like to write to
Speaker 1: us about this or any other podcast, were history podcast
Speaker 1: that I heart radio dot com and we're all over
Speaker 1: social media at miss in History, which is what you'll
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