Weidt
21st June 2003, 04:26
Monumental Decay: Unions in America
by Joe DeNeen
June 16, 2003
Not too long ago a friend, Sean, told me of a monument dedicated to the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37. The monument stands a few yards east of Harrison Street at the north bank of the Flint River in Riverbank Park. Nearby are worn and waving American and UAW flags above a block reading "UAW: A Walk In History" with long busted lighting fixtures around it. Numerous trees block the view of the monument, leaving one to wonder what structure stands behind the branches.
The monument consists of three cement replicas of the automobile seats the strikers spent 44 days seated on. These seats mark the perimeter and surround two walls that rise in the center. The four sides of the walls are covered in four separate murals made up of hand-painted tiles depicting the strike, the shop floor, workers and numerous quotes from strike participants and notables of the American labor movement including Eugene V. Debs and Samuel Gompers.
Along the base of the walls lie scattered chunks of the murals that have long sense decayed and fallen apart due to aging, weathering and vandalism, leaving the remaining murals cracked and faded.
In 1987, the 50th anniversary of the strike, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Flint City Council, among others, constructed and dedicated the monument in celebration of the women and men who took part in the historic strike.
The Flint Sit-Down Strike took place during the Great Depression. The average auto worker took home $900 a year, while the minimum income a family of four needed to survive was $1,600. With life in such dire poverty, the workers looked to the UAW for assistance in halting abuses by General Motors (GM), the largest corporation in the world, including union-busting by hired Pinkerton guards, routine firings, wage cuts and work stoppages and speedups.
On December 30, 1936, GM began hauling its machinery onto rail cars, prompting the UAW to call the strike and 3,000 workers barricaded the doors and closed Fisher Body Plant 1. Soon after, 100 workers sat down at Plant 2.
The women workers were made to leave the plants to avoid slanders of “immorality,” resulting in the formation of the Women’s Emergency Brigade. The Brigade supported the strike by supplying the strikers with food, clothing and other necessities. When the police, Pinkerton guards and National Guard came knocking at the gates, it was the Women’s Brigade who stopped them, smashing the windows to protect from tear gas and even carried their own clubs for defense. (I highly recommend the documentary, “With Babies and Banners,” which is available at the Flint Public Library.)
The strikers demands included a national conference between the UAW and GM, abolition of all piecework systems of pay, a six-hour day and 30-hour week with time and one-half for work above these, a minimum wage, reinstatement of all employees “unjustly discharged,” straight seniority, speed of production to be mutually determined by each plant management and shop committee, and recognition of the UAW as the sole bargaining agent for General Motors employees.
Victory finally came soon after Chevrolet 4 went on strike after the strikers used Chevrolet 9 as a decoy pulling the plant guards away. With the closure of Chevrolet 4, the strikers shut-down GM’s most important plant that produced one-million engines a year. On February 11, 1937, the strike was own when GM agreed to acknowledge the UAW and enter negotiations bringing out thousands of strikers and their supports in deafening screams of “Solidarity Forever!”
Unfortunately, that great event for American workers has fallen in the waste bin of history, decayed and forgotten like its monument. Ironically, GM ultimately “won” by pulling almost completely out of Flint by 1999 with the closure of Buick City, leaving behind a city with high unemployment, an infrastructure in ruin and weakened unions. GM cannot be blamed fully. Capitalism has created the conditions for Flint to decay and unions have weakened due to poor leadership that has long lost its radical spark of the 1930s and betrayed industrial unionism and the rank-and-file.
The deindustrialization of American society, representative of Flint, has also resulted in the rapid decline of union membership nationwide and the struggle by unions to survive in the 21st Century. With it has come the rise in non-union service-sector jobs with low wages and little to no benefits.
Like the monument, the American labor movement can re-emerge bigger and better.
On June 3, the UAW broke ground behind UAW Region 1-C headquarters, 1940 W. Atherton Road, to begin construction of a new monument, which is expected to be completed on September 1, Labor Day. The monument will consist of a granite base, a surrounding walkway of bricks and six bronze figures representing different workers and a Woman's Emergency Brigade member surrounding an eternal flame.
All across the country new union locals are popping up in every sector of industry. “Janitors for Justice” has been a successful campaign in California unionizing janitors. Even the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has witnessed gains in California in recent months with unionizing of Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley and East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse in Oakland. Recently in Ann Arbor, workers at Borders bookstore unionized making it the first store in Michigan to do so. At the University of Michigan non-tenure track faculty won their struggle for unionization under Lecturers Employee Organization (LEO).
Established unions are also fighting for their survival as companies refuse to sign new contracts. In New York City, thousands of public union workers rallied against lay offs and wage cuts. Union workers at Azteca Foods in Chicago have been fighting for a new contract and called for a nationwide boycott of Azteca products that has gone on for months. In Michigan, thousands of teachers and school faculty have been working without contracts for months and even years.
Let us not forget the old slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Unions need to revitalize their role in American society with waves of aggressive campaigns across the country unionizing every worker regardless of industry, trade, ethnicity, sex or nationality. To expropriate a line from Karl Marx, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all countries, unite!”
by Joe DeNeen
June 16, 2003
Not too long ago a friend, Sean, told me of a monument dedicated to the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37. The monument stands a few yards east of Harrison Street at the north bank of the Flint River in Riverbank Park. Nearby are worn and waving American and UAW flags above a block reading "UAW: A Walk In History" with long busted lighting fixtures around it. Numerous trees block the view of the monument, leaving one to wonder what structure stands behind the branches.
The monument consists of three cement replicas of the automobile seats the strikers spent 44 days seated on. These seats mark the perimeter and surround two walls that rise in the center. The four sides of the walls are covered in four separate murals made up of hand-painted tiles depicting the strike, the shop floor, workers and numerous quotes from strike participants and notables of the American labor movement including Eugene V. Debs and Samuel Gompers.
Along the base of the walls lie scattered chunks of the murals that have long sense decayed and fallen apart due to aging, weathering and vandalism, leaving the remaining murals cracked and faded.
In 1987, the 50th anniversary of the strike, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Flint City Council, among others, constructed and dedicated the monument in celebration of the women and men who took part in the historic strike.
The Flint Sit-Down Strike took place during the Great Depression. The average auto worker took home $900 a year, while the minimum income a family of four needed to survive was $1,600. With life in such dire poverty, the workers looked to the UAW for assistance in halting abuses by General Motors (GM), the largest corporation in the world, including union-busting by hired Pinkerton guards, routine firings, wage cuts and work stoppages and speedups.
On December 30, 1936, GM began hauling its machinery onto rail cars, prompting the UAW to call the strike and 3,000 workers barricaded the doors and closed Fisher Body Plant 1. Soon after, 100 workers sat down at Plant 2.
The women workers were made to leave the plants to avoid slanders of “immorality,” resulting in the formation of the Women’s Emergency Brigade. The Brigade supported the strike by supplying the strikers with food, clothing and other necessities. When the police, Pinkerton guards and National Guard came knocking at the gates, it was the Women’s Brigade who stopped them, smashing the windows to protect from tear gas and even carried their own clubs for defense. (I highly recommend the documentary, “With Babies and Banners,” which is available at the Flint Public Library.)
The strikers demands included a national conference between the UAW and GM, abolition of all piecework systems of pay, a six-hour day and 30-hour week with time and one-half for work above these, a minimum wage, reinstatement of all employees “unjustly discharged,” straight seniority, speed of production to be mutually determined by each plant management and shop committee, and recognition of the UAW as the sole bargaining agent for General Motors employees.
Victory finally came soon after Chevrolet 4 went on strike after the strikers used Chevrolet 9 as a decoy pulling the plant guards away. With the closure of Chevrolet 4, the strikers shut-down GM’s most important plant that produced one-million engines a year. On February 11, 1937, the strike was own when GM agreed to acknowledge the UAW and enter negotiations bringing out thousands of strikers and their supports in deafening screams of “Solidarity Forever!”
Unfortunately, that great event for American workers has fallen in the waste bin of history, decayed and forgotten like its monument. Ironically, GM ultimately “won” by pulling almost completely out of Flint by 1999 with the closure of Buick City, leaving behind a city with high unemployment, an infrastructure in ruin and weakened unions. GM cannot be blamed fully. Capitalism has created the conditions for Flint to decay and unions have weakened due to poor leadership that has long lost its radical spark of the 1930s and betrayed industrial unionism and the rank-and-file.
The deindustrialization of American society, representative of Flint, has also resulted in the rapid decline of union membership nationwide and the struggle by unions to survive in the 21st Century. With it has come the rise in non-union service-sector jobs with low wages and little to no benefits.
Like the monument, the American labor movement can re-emerge bigger and better.
On June 3, the UAW broke ground behind UAW Region 1-C headquarters, 1940 W. Atherton Road, to begin construction of a new monument, which is expected to be completed on September 1, Labor Day. The monument will consist of a granite base, a surrounding walkway of bricks and six bronze figures representing different workers and a Woman's Emergency Brigade member surrounding an eternal flame.
All across the country new union locals are popping up in every sector of industry. “Janitors for Justice” has been a successful campaign in California unionizing janitors. Even the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) has witnessed gains in California in recent months with unionizing of Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley and East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse in Oakland. Recently in Ann Arbor, workers at Borders bookstore unionized making it the first store in Michigan to do so. At the University of Michigan non-tenure track faculty won their struggle for unionization under Lecturers Employee Organization (LEO).
Established unions are also fighting for their survival as companies refuse to sign new contracts. In New York City, thousands of public union workers rallied against lay offs and wage cuts. Union workers at Azteca Foods in Chicago have been fighting for a new contract and called for a nationwide boycott of Azteca products that has gone on for months. In Michigan, thousands of teachers and school faculty have been working without contracts for months and even years.
Let us not forget the old slogan, “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Unions need to revitalize their role in American society with waves of aggressive campaigns across the country unionizing every worker regardless of industry, trade, ethnicity, sex or nationality. To expropriate a line from Karl Marx, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of all countries, unite!”