Flint Sit-Down Strike

The first major labor dispute in the U.S. auto industry began in Flint, Michigan in 1936. Tensions between General Motors and their workers had reached a head that summer, after hundreds of deaths occurred in Michigan auto plants. The workers believed the deaths were a result of a heat wave combined with difficult working conditions in GM plants. They began their strike on November 12, 1936, by gaining control of Body Plant Number One in Flint. As the strike gained momentum, they would also take control of a second Flint plant on January 1, 1937 and later, Chevy Plant Number Four, the largest plant owned by GM, on February 1 that same year.

One of the National Guard machine guns set up around
the GM plants, 1937, image via wsws.org

            The strategy of this strike was very different from previous labor disputes. Traditionally, strikers would walk off of a job site and form a picket line outside. The goal of this picket line was to try to prevent strikebreakers from entering the workplace. In the sit-down strike however, strikers took control of the plants themselves, which proved much more effective in stopping strikebreakers from getting back to work. Being inside of the plants, they were also protected from potential violence as well as the elements. Some violence did occur however, as GM and local law enforcement tried to force the strikers out of the plant. This culminated with Michigan’s governor dispatching 1,300 National Guardsmen armed with machine guns and howitzers. The strikers proved to be too resilient though, fighting back with whatever they had at their disposal, going so far as threatening to burn the plant if the National Guard came in, and repelling every attempt to drive them from the plants. If you want to learn more details about the strike, specifically the conflicts between the strikers and law enforcement, this article “Eighty-two years since the victory of the Flint sit-down strike” published by wsws.org is does a good job explaining them.

            After 44 days of striking, GM president Alfred P. Sloan announced a $25 million wage increase for workers and recognized their union. The strikers hadn’t won all of their demands, but it was a resounding victory. They won the right to unionize as well as an agreement that GM would not discriminate against strikers returning to work. This was the first major victory for unionization in US history and soon, workers across the country began following the example that had been set in Flint. Union membership skyrocketed from under 10% of total employment in 1937 to nearly 30% in 1954. The actions of the strikers in Flint helped to bring long-lasting improvements to working conditions in American industrial plants, and their effect was felt throughout the remainder of the 20^th century. This was expressed in a February 1987 issue of Agenda, an independent Ann Arbor newspaper, commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the strike, which stressed the importance of remembering the efforts of the strikers so that the progress they helped make will not be undone.

            Connecting the strike back to Gaudium et Spes, although the workers did resort to violence, it was a means of self defense and I believe that they were in line with the principals outlined in Gaudium. The working conditions in the GM plants were clearly unsafe, resulting in hundreds of deaths in a single year in 1936, so the workers were forced to organize and stage a protest in order to protect their own rights as well as the rights of their fellow citizens against abuse from their employers. Furthermore, from what I can tell from my research, there were no deaths as a result of the violence during the strike. Therefore, the strike served to reduce the total loss of life in the long term, despite the violence that occurred as a result of it. Regardless of this though, the strike brought real change to the American workplace and helped to improve the lives of countless Americans.