Labor Day Is An Excellent Day To Recall Flint Sit Down Strikes—Working People Need To Stick Up For One Another

Happy Labor Day.

The picture is from the Flint Sit Down Strikes of  the 1930’s

Auto workers at the General Motors Fisher Body Plant #1  and at other plants sat down on the job and demanded the right to organize.

Imagine today, rather than some of our working brothers and sisters listening to Glenn Beck and other hucksters who tell us to be powerless in the face corporate control of our antion, that these same folks would instead stand up for their rights as working people.

What a better nation we would be living in today if this were the case.

People motivated by anger and fear don’t have the self-respect required to truly look out for themselves and to look out for others.

What they know is anger and fear instead of concern for others and concern for their nation.

Liberals and progressives need to show compassion for such troubled persons. Yet at the same time, we must fight back all the time before these people help ruin the future by handing the county to huge corporations and elected hate mongers to an even larger extent than is already the case in America.

The Detroit News has a site up on the Flint Strikes that you see a small example of in the  picture above.

From that site–

“Before the Depression there were 470,000 auto workers. The number fell by half, as did the wages, which had been reduced from $40 per week to about $20. Because these harsh times still haunted the workers, job security was an important issue. Another bone of contention was the hated “spies” informing on union members. The workers could be fired by any foreman anytime. The work itself — dangerous, difficult, and boring — caused many injuries, often for simple reasons such as lack of gloves. Exertion caused the families extreme exhaustion, which distressed the workers’ families, who shared the fear of possible job loss….”

Historicalvoices.org has an audio gallery recalling the strike and the strikers.

In the end, the strikers got a raise and United Auto Workers was recognized as the bargaining agent  for the workers. This was a victory for all American workers.

Here is a history of the United Auto Workers.

(Below–National Guard outside Flint auto plant during strike. I doubt the strikers had similar weapons.  )