OCCUPY FLINT: Dec. 30, 1936, auto workers carry out a brilliant plan and occupy the General Motors plant in FLINT, MICHIGAN. Afraid of being found out by GM’s extensive network of factory floor spies, planning was carried out by small group of workers in their homes. Targets were strategic: At the time GM had two factories with the dies from which car body components were stamped-one in Flint that produced the parts for Buicks, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles and another in Cleveland that produced Chevrolet dies. No stamping dies, no cars. Learning that GM might move the dies out of Flint, the occupy timetable was sped up and the sit-down began on Dec. 30, not in early 1937 as was originally considered. Some 7,000 workers sat in at one time or another until Feb. 11, 1937, winning United Autoworkers Union recognition! The newly formed UAW (1935) had challenged the most powerful corporation in the world and won! In early February 1937, doing GM’s bidding, governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, order the UAW to leave the factory. Miners Union president and major Committee on Industrial Organization leader John L. Lewis, said this in response: “You want my answer I give it to you. I shall personally enter General Motors Chevrolet Plant 4. I shall order the men to disregard your order, to stand fast. I shall then walk up to the largest window in the plant, open it, divest myself of my outer rainment, remove my shirt, and bare my bosom. Then when you order your troops to fire, mine will be the first breast that those bullets will strike. And as my body falls from the window to the ground, you listen to the voice of your grandfather (Murphy’s grandfather had been executed for rebellion by the British) as he whispers in your ear, ‘Frank, are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’” By mid- 1937 there were some 3M new union members – one-quarter of all private sector workers in unions; 477 factory occupations took place in 1937 to further union recognition.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:47:37 +0000
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