Lessons for Wisconsin From the Flint Sit-Down Strikes of 1936-37

[tpsbmam]

With the state legislature in Wisconsin occupied and surrounded by thousands of state workers and their supporters, and with schools closed throughout the state because of teachers calling in sick, I cannot help but think of the greatest strike and building occupation in the history of the American labor movement—the Flint Sit-Down Strikes of 1936-37. Though the Wisconsin struggle is being led by government workers, and the Flint strikes involved workers involved in automobile production, both movements took place during the worst economic crisis of their era and were fighting for the same goal— collective bargaining rights for working people through a union of their own choosing—and were much more about dignity and respect than about income.

The Flint Strike, which involved the occupation of nine General Motors automobile plants over a six-week period, transformed the history of the industrial labor movement. During December of 1936, when the first GM plant was seized and occupied, the entire automobile and steel industries in the United States were union free. When the strike was finally settled, both General Motors and United States Steel agreed to bargain collectively with the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions seeking to organize their industries.

The Flint strike , though it was precipitated by local conditions—a fierce unrelenting speed up on the GM assembly line , the involvement of a Ku Klux Klan-like organization called the Black Legion in suppressing labor unrest in GM plants—was part of a national movement to win bargaining rights for industrial workers. As a result, the Flint workers were supported by the national leadership of the CIO—led by the formidable John L Lewis—as well as their own national union, and numerous left-wing organizations including the Communist Party. Though only GM workers actually occupied the factories, at key points in the strike, thousands of union workers were mobilized to come down from other cities to make sure that right-wing Citizens Committees were unable to storm the plants, and that food and medical supplies were delivered to the striking workers. There were also doctors, nurses, lawyers, and journalists who came from all over the country to help the strikers. By the second week of the sit-down strikes, it was clear to everyone involved that this had become a truly national movement.

The same dynamic must operate if the Wisconsin movement is to achieve its main goal—removal from the governor’s legislative program of any effort to weaken the bargaining rights of public workers in the state. Unions around the nation who face similar initiatives (in Ohio, Tennessee and New Jersey) must send delegations to join the occupation and the protests and give whatever financial and legal support is necessary to teachers who are keeping the local schools closed. National union leaders who have a high public profile, people like Richard Trumka and Randy Weingarten, must not only come to Madison to offer their support of the movement, they must head straight to the White House to demand that President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders come out aggressively in support of the Madison movement. Student social justice organizations must send delegations to Madison to join the thousands of students at the state’s public universities who have been a central part of this movement from the beginning.

More at link: http://www.hnn.us/articles/136764.html

Michael Moore tweeted about this article this morning.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. A hearty K&R

[elfin]

2. We lived close to that site

About 10 years after that event, my dad put me on his shoulders and walked to the place of the sit in and explained how history was made right there.

He was "management", but supported the action and NEVER blamed the unions for the later messes of GM. Whatta guy.