FLINT, MI -- Eighty four years ago today, Flint auto workers ended a 44-day long sit-down strike after General Motors agreed to a one-page contract that recognized the United Auto Workers as their bargaining agent, giving birth to the union movement in the United States and around the world.
The settling of the strike on Feb. 11, 1937, did not give the UAW everything it demanded, but it did provide exclusive rights for six months to organize in other plants and gained an assurance from the company not to discriminate against the strikers who were returning to work.
“The young people don’t know what the older people went through to get this,” Irene Mitchell, a local resident, said in a 1980 interview with the U-M Flint Labor History Project. “They don’t realize how they got it. It sounds like a fairytale.”
Flint will mark the end of the Flint Sit-Down Strike virtually this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic with a program organized by UAW Region 1D, which is sharing comments and photos throughout the day on its Facebook page.
At 11 a.m. Thursday, a live presentation that will also be posted on the page is scheduled to include UAW President Rory Gamble, UAW Secretary Treasurer Ray Curry and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Traditionally, union members gather together in person every Feb. 11 to celebrate the end of the strike, known as White Shirt Day, with speakers, remembrances and a traditional bean soup lunch.
The Sit-Down Strike began on Dec. 30, 1936, when about 50 men at the old Fisher 2 plant in Flint sat down on the assembly line, protesting the transfer of three inspectors who refused to quit the union.
Defying court orders and efforts by the company and police to move them out, the strike spread to two other plants in Flint as well as plants in 16 other cities.
After 44 days, the strike ended on Feb. 11, 1937, and the UAW was born.
U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Twp., who recorded a message for the UAW virtual event, said Wednesday, Feb. 10, that historic Sit-Down Strike is important to remember today even though it happened 84 years ago.
“The birth of the labor movement and the creation of the middle class can be traced to Feb. 11, 1937 ...,” Kildee said. “That was the beginning of the end of the Gilded Age and the creation of the middle class ...
“To a great extent what we’ve seen in the last few decades is the return to a new Gilded Age and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few and labor unions have been weakened,” the congressman said. “I think it provides us a pretty important historical reference that the way we build the middle class is by strengthening workers and the way we do that is with strong labor unions.”
Read more on MLive:
UAW’s solidarity celebration of White Shirt Day will go on, but this year it’s online only
Today marks 80th anniversary of start of Flint Sit-Down Strike
Historic photos of 1961 White Shirt Day show UAW remembering Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37
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