On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.
That day marked a pivotal moment in the continuing Flint sit-down strike.
The nationwide strike against GM started in Flint in late December.
By late January, UAW organizers agreed that nearby Chevrolet Engine Plant #4 had to be shut down.
It was a massive facility.
It employed 4000 workers on two shifts
The plant superintendant had been firing union activists.
Armed guards patrolled every inch of the facility to prevent a sit-down.
Union organizers knew there were company spies in their ranks.
They planned the takeover by staging distracting job actions at nearby Chevrolet plants #9 and then #6.
This would draw the guards away from plant #4.
And so, on this day, just as the day shift was ending, workers sat down at Chevy plant #9.
The company guards were ready to launch an attack.
They began beating and gassing the sit-downers.
The Women’s Emergency Brigade smashed plant windows to dissipate the gas.
The diversion worked. Guards left Chevy #4 unattended.
Workers there turned off all the machines and barricaded themselves in.
The plant guards tried to reenter and were met with pistons, connector rods and fire hoses.
The Women’s Emergency Brigade gathered outside the plant and locked arms.
UAW organizer Joe Sayen announced, “We want the whole world to understand what we are fighting for. We are fighting for freedom and life and liberty. This is our one great opportunity. What if we should be defeated? What if we should be killed? We have only one life. That’s all we can lose and we might as well die like heroes than like slaves.”
February 17 - Standing Up By Sitting Down
February 16 - The Wisconsin Uprising Begins
February 15 - The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a Close
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job
February 13 - Martial Law Declared to Crush the UAW
February 12 - The NAACP is Founded
February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I
February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive
February 9 - Organizing Bloody Harlan
February 8 - Butte Copper Miners Join the 1919 Strike Wave
February 7 - Strike at Cripple Creek
February 6 - Philly Garment Workers Win!
February 5 - The Fight for Craft Governance
February 4 - Solidarity on the Coast
February 3 - Anti-Trust Injunctions Used Against Labor
February 2 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
January 31 - The Big Easy Fires 7000 Teachers
January 30 - Fred Korematsu Day
January 29 - Bread & Roses Striker, Anna LoPizzo, Shot Dead
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