Always problematic for workers, the shift in production, in this instance from the civilian production of automobiles to military production of war materials and back again, created problems in unlearning and relearning day-to-day work tasks and routines.
The increased numbers of women spawned new and different problems for supervisors and managers in the densely masculine shop culture. They often confronted the intractable issues of sexuality, sexism, and sexual harassment at the workplace.
Ironically, after World War II ended, gender solidarity prevailed over racial solidarity when managers and white workers accepted black men and purged white women from American auto plants.
Labor in the Craft System. Men at Work? Masculinity and Mass Production in the s and s. Labor and the Post-War Automation Movement. Annotated Bibliography. Harry Bennett. Battle of the Overpass. During the Second World War, the UAW along with the other industrial unions consolidated their membership base through dues check-off systems and maintenance of membership contract provisions.
An important technological issue involved the wartime conversion to military production and the later postwar reconversion to civilian production. The United Auto Workers, a recently formed trade union, had slowly and secretly begun organizing at GM.
If the union was to bring the automobile industry together, it had to go after its largest employer—and do so strategically. Organizers decided to focus on the Fisher Body Plant No. Organizers met with Flint workers at their homes and talked them out of walking off the job right away. Instead, organizers planned to stop production through a sit-down strike in January of , after Christmas bonuses had been paid and a new labor-friendly governor was in power in Michigan.
That plan was derailed on December 30, , when workers at the body plant saw critical equipment being lugged onto railroad cars to be sent to other factories. Word was out that the Flint factory was a union stronghold. Workers gathered for an emergency meeting, then flooded back into the plant.
The strike was on. A young striker sleeping on an assembly line of auto seats in the body plant factory. Now, men who had worked in the plant occupied it around the clock.
They slept on sheepskins, piled-up car mats and makeshift beds, and ate food donated by local grocery stores, farmers and families. Outside the plant, women raised funds, took care of families and even formed human shields to fend off police. Though GM tried to stop the strike in the courts, and even received an injunction that said the workers were trespassing, the effort backfired. GM had the law on their side, but they risked public humiliation and legal consequences of their own if they used physical force to evict the workers.
Instead, 13 days after the strike began, GM cut off heat in degree weather. When workers went outside to complain, security guards and police rushed in. As tear gas filled the plant, workers fought back, throwing everything from automobile bolts to pieces of roof on the attackers before the police finally fled.
In the past, news of 1, guardsmen descending on Flint to impose law and order would have been devastating to workers, who knew they would be used as a weapon against them. Instead, the National Guard became a peacekeeping force that ultimately protected the workers and facilitated negotiations.
Under the order issued by Governor Frank Murphy, the troops are commanded to preserve order, to protect property of General Motors and strikers as well. Here is a machine gun company in full kit and with gun unlimbered.
Eventually, the strike spread to 17 GM plants over 44 days. The union's other emphasis was to win contracts that improved the standard of living for auto workers. By the mids, the UAW fought for a guaranteed annual wage to stabilize hours and wages—a demand which was met in in the form of Supplemental Unemployment Benefits funded by the auto companies. Automation and other damaging trends in the auto industry caused a decline in UAW membership, and the Parma Chevy plant Local , which once had 6, members, had only 3, active members, with 1, laid off in The aging Coit Rd.
Fisher Body plant also closed the next year despite worker concessions, and workers at GM, Ford, and Chrysler were forced to accept givebacks.
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