LOOKING BACK Moving Forward Michigan Labor History Society Special Edition, Spring 2019 • mlhs.wayne.edu LABOR in MICHIGAN Learning from the Past & Moving Toward the Future

THEN & NOW: Left, women at the Goody Nut Shop in Detroit occupy their store during a wave of sit-down strikes in 1937. Today, hundreds of By STEVIE BLANCHARD young Detroiters are demanding a higher or more than a century, Michigan , workers have built movements to demonstrating in Fimprove their lives. From mass protests front of fast-food demanding an eight-hour workday, to strikes restaurants and on by streetcar drivers, copper miners, furniture downtown streets, and for a sustain- workers, and others, the labor movement able future with inspired and energized generations of working

Green Union jobs. Continued on page 2 Photos: JimWestphoto.com | HistoricNut Shops strike photo: Walter P. Reuther Library Reuther P. Walter photo: strike Shops HistoricNut | JimWestphoto.com Photos: SPRING 2019

Labor in Michigan Continued from page 1 people. And then, in 1937, a tidal wave of sit-down strikes washed across Mich- igan, as workers stood up to corporate dominance with a new, powerful tactic. The results showed the determination of workers: the sit-down strike at General Photo: Jim Westphoto.comPhoto: Motors in Flint took 44 days — starting just after Christmas 1936, not ending until Feb. 11, 1937, with a victory for the . That was the start of a monumental year. There was hardly a day in 1937 with- out some form of worker action. So much so that local newspapers kept a front-page Hotel workers, government employees, home-care workers, and others have been among the thousands of Michigan workers who have demonstrated in recent months. tally of places on strike. Now, more than eighty years later, it unions, and the workers they represent, Recently, we’ve seen young activists is important not only to look back, but will survive is when those workers take a striking and marching for a higher min- to move forward, always asking how stand for themselves. imum wage, joining with community do we learn from the autoworker, the groups to save families from evictions, lumberjack, the dime-store sales clerk, usiness unionism is behind us. The marching for women’s rights, organizing the cigar-roller, the hotel and restaurant Bservice model, in which workers and striking against cutbacks in education. worker — all among the groups that went view their union as something that they Looking back at earlier decades we can on strike back then — and build power for pay dues to in order to receive services, see what victory looks like and how to get workers today? as they would an insurance company, is there through collective action. Going The Michigan Labor History Society dying in front of us. forward, those events remind us of a basic (MLHS) is committed to examining We’ve learned that the one sure thing truth: organized labor is only as strong as these events and looking at the lessons that will build unions and create better the members are engaged and active. The they provide for today’s challenges. There working conditions for American men and heroes of the past should be our role mod- is no question that labor is in a watershed women is activism. What those early strik- els. We need to fight to be more inclusive moment. ers and today’s workers share is the desire and support all workers. If so, we could see Our opponents have been empow- for change. Labor can continue to harness another year like those in the 1930s that ered, particularly after the 2016 these emotions into collective action. inspire us. We’re certainly due. election. But one thing hasn’t changed, Today, you cannot open an Internet and probably never will: the only way that browser or watch a TV without hearing his publication focuses on 10 key labor about the many losers in our economy, Tevents that took place in Michigan from students to retirees to immigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries. Sto- and far too many more to list. Workers ries were contributed by members of the have become wage slaves. Union mem- MLHS program committee and in some Ten EventsContents in Michigan Labor History bership numbers have declined since cases appeared earlier in the MLHS jour- Fighting for an Eight-Hour Day, 1886...... 4 the 1950s. But there is a silver lining. nal, “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” Streetcars Come To a Halt, 1891...... 5 Like the workers in 1937, there is a in the UAW publication, “We Make Our widespread desire for change among Own History,” or in the program for “For- Furniture Workers Put Down workers. People are tired of losing, then gotten: The Murder at the Ford Rouge Their Tools, 1911...... 7 being told, “that’s how it goes, chum.” Plant,” a jazz opera about the 1930s by Calumet & Copper: We face strong, powerful and unprin- Steve Jones and produced three times in The Italian Hall Disaster, 1913...... 8 cipled opposition. But we have all the Michigan between 2004 and 2010. , 1932...... 10 resources we need to win: the workers. In the centerfold, you will find a map Workers can return to our roots, of labor history sites in Michigan with Flint: Standing Up by to remember that unions are about annotated information on each site. You Sitting Down, 1936...... 11 worker power and voice. They are can use the map and information to Lansing’s Labor Holiday, June 1937...... 12 learning about power: how it is gener- create your own road trip to these sites, Woolworth’s: Dime-Store Women ated and how it is used. The sit-down where you can learn more about Michi- Say ‘Enough,’ Feb. 1937...... 13 strikes were very effective — so much gan’s labor history. Additional copies of so that they are now illegal. But there this publication are available from the Battle of the Overpass, May 1937...... 14 are other tactics and strategies out Michigan Labor History Society, 5401 Lumberjacks Go On Strike, 1937...... 15 there that workers are discovering and Cass Ave., Detroit MI 48202. You can Plan Your Road Trip…………Center insert using. As an earlier union publication also view the map and guide at our web- put it: “We Make Our Own History.” site: mlhs.wayne.edu #WITH THE FAMILY OF LABOR LABORFEST

# # CELEBRATINGFORDMICHIGAN LABOR’S FIELD HERITAGE SUN., SEPT. 12, 2004 •11 A.M.~6 P.M. uerker FOOD • LaborArt by Matt W History Briefs

EXHIBITS Mobilizing• for of Richmond, Virginia; AFL-CIO labor lawyers attending a national conference; DETROITLabor Day 2019 attendees at the North American Labor The annual Labor Day Mobilization History Conference at Wayne State Uni- Luncheon# MUSICsponsored • GAMES by the Michigan versity; students at the WSU Labor School; Labor History Society will be held on union members who work at Central Mich- Tuesday, August 20, at UAW Region 1-A, igan University; FinnFest USA, and others. 9650 S. Telegraph Rd., Taylor, Michigan. MLHS offers groups a two-hour bus Tickets are $40 and include a tasty lun- tour through metro Detroit or a one-hour built automobiles and were retooled for cheon, a special program, and a one-year walking tour along Woodward Avenue the war effort. More than 60,000 Michi- membership in the Society. For infor- from Grand Circus Park to the riverfront. gan women of all ages and races mation and reservations, please call the Guide services are free, but groups are participated in the war production, filling MLHS office at 313-577-4003. asked to provide a bus with a public-ad- the jobs of men who had been drafted into Finnish-Americans in dress system. For reservations, contact the armed forces. the MLHS at 5401 Cass Ave., Detroit, The 48-page book is geared to readers Michigan’s Workforce Michigan 48202, or call 313-577-4003. Thousands of immigrants from Europe, aged six to 12 and was published last year For visitors to the Upper Peninsula, the Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Mid- by Wayne State University Press. The list National Park Service provides free ranger dle East came to Detroit during the 20th price is $16.99 and the book is available walks from the Keweenaw National His- century to seek jobs in the growing auto from WSU Press, at many bookstores, and toric Park visitors’ center in Calumet. The industry. Among them were many set- online. walks take visitors to sites connected with tlers from Finland, some of whom went the 1913 copper miners’ strike and the to work in the copper mines of the Upper tragedy at the Italian Hall. Peninsula, while others moved into the Detroit neighborhood around Woodrow Three Conferences Focus Wilson and Davison Streets. From Sep- tember 19-23, many of the descendants On Michigan History LOOKING BACK The Michigan Labor History Society of these Finnish immigrants will come to is one of the sponsors of the “Michigan metro Detroit for the annual FinnFest, a Moving Forward in Perspective: The Local History Con- gathering that features panels, lectures, Special Edition 2019 published by the ference” taking place March 22-23, and field trips. The Michigan Labor His- Michigan Labor History Society 2019 at the Sterling Conference Center in c/o Walter P. Reuther Library tory Society has been asked to provide a Sterling Heights. The conference, which 5401 Cass, Detroit MI 48202 labor history bus tour for participants. features speakers, panels, and workshops Phone: 313-577-4003 In addition to the usual tour of labor his- on a variety of Michigan history topics, Become a member by sending your name, tory sites, we will visit the old Finn Hall on is one of three held annually by the Lan- address, e-mail, and union affiliation if any to the 14th Street in Detroit, which later became sing-based Historical Society of Michigan. MLHS office, and include membership dues of the headquarters of UAW Local 157. An Upper Peninsula History Confer- $10 per year or $25 for three years ence will be held June 28-30 in Escanaba, Website: MLHS.wayne.edu and the Historical Society of Michigan’s E-mail: [email protected] Metro Detroit annual meeting and history conference is facebook.com/MichiganLaborHistorySociety planned for Ludington Sept. 27-29. OFFICERS Walking & Bus Tours: Information, schedules, and registra- Co-Chairs: Learning About tions are available from the Historical Chuck Browning, Director, UAW Region 1-A Society of Michigan, 5816 Executive Frank Stuglin, Director, UAW Region 1 Labor History Drive, Lansing, Michigan 48911, or online President, at hsmichigan.org. Metro Detroit AFL-CIO ‘Rosie the Riveter:’ Secretary: Alberta Asmar A Herstory for Children Treasurer: David Elsila Author Bailey Sisoy Igro has written a Board members: Stevie Blanchard, children’s book about women who worked John Dick, David Ivers, Mike Kerwin Guided bus and walking tours that focus in war production plants during World Editor: David Elsila on labor history are growing in popularity War II in southeast Michigan. Design Consultant: Barbara Barefield among visitors to metro Detroit. The Mich- “Rosie: A Detroit Herstory” tells the Barefield DesignWorks Detroit igan Labor History Society has scheduled story of women symbolized by the charac- Printed in a : tour guides for several groups recently, ter “Rosie the Riveter” who built tanks, Urban Press Detroit including students from the University aircraft, and ammunition at factories that 3 LOOKING BACK Moving Forward SPECIAL EDITION, SPRING 2019

Fighting for the Eight-Hour Day here must be something fearfully wrong,” wrote a “workingman’s “Twife” in a letter to the editor in Ricardo Levins Morales, rlmartstudio.com the Detroit Evening News March 24, 1886, when a few Detroiters “can accumulate mil- lions in so few years, during which time the workingman has become a serf.” Like a 19th Century version of the “we are the 99 percent” slogan of the 21st Century Occupy movement, the letter-writer was clearly upset with the inequality between those who owned the city’s industries and those who toiled in them. In the weeks after the letter was published, that issue took hold among thousands of Michigan workers who struck for shorter hours and higher pay. Unions in many parts of the U.S. had long been campaigning for shorter hours. In 1884 in Chicago unions passed a resolution declaring that as of May 1, 1886, the eight-hour day should become the legal workplace standard. The eight- hour movement quickly spread across the the company had shown a “lack of spirit site that would later become Tiger Stadium, country. and conciliation” in dealing with workers. for a rally. A leader of the cigar workers Organizer Clair went from department union, George Vonberger, warned, “When nions in Michigan joined the effort to department to tell workers of his firing, the workingmen become intelligent they Uand began making plans for May 1. picking up support and ending at the would turn the rich man out of the palaces “This, The Fearful Day” was the headline plant manager’s office where a growing and live there themselves.” in the Detroit Evening News on that date. crowd demanded Clair’s reinstatement, At some of the targeted companies, “Looked For With Anxiety by Employers shorter hours, and a pay raise. management locked out workers; at and Employed,” it continued. others they tried to break the strikes — Some Detroit workers had already hen management said no, 1,500 in one case, management at a screen and made partial advances. Stove workers had Wworkers struck and went to the Car pail factory hired 12- and 13-year-old gotten 10-percent raises, shipyards had Works foundry and spring works, with a boys as replacements for striking workers. agreed to an eight-hour day after a strike, demand to lower the workday from 10 to The strike at the Michigan Car Works six breweries had set eight-hour days, nine hours with no cut in pay. The next failed after three weeks as workers and carpenters and joiners had won a day, May 4, a crowd of 3,000 assembled returned to their jobs. But their decision one-year contract to reduce the workday for a solidarity rally. to challenge management for as long as to nine hours at 10 hours pay. Painters, Within the week, over 5,100 workers they did generated a new spirit among bakers, and school janitors were joining in Detroit were on strike, including 3,400 Detroit’s workers. Over a four-month the campaign. Months earlier, in the from Michigan Car, Peninsular Car, and period, an estimated 9,000 Detroit-area Saginaw area, lumber mill workers had three other rail-car companies. workers had either gone on strike for gone on strike to reduce their workday to Although the newspapers had predicted shorter hours or had negotiated shorter 10 hours, under the slogan “10 Hours or that workers would be forced to return to hours with their employers. No Sawdust.” work because their families were hurting, May l was a half-day at many Detroit a benefit dance raised $900 for relief and n Labor Day, Monday, September 6, factories because it was a Saturday. At the strikes continued. On one day alone, Onot a legal holiday, spirits were so high the Michigan Car Works, workers who the Evening News published a “box score” among workers that thousands defied their built railroad cars, showed up only to showing 3,780 workers on strike — among employers by leaving their jobs to join a find that the company had laid off 125 them workers at Pullman’s rail-car factory, three-mile long parade from Grand Circus workers. On Monday, they learned that sewer laborers, the Diamond Match fac- Park to a park on Jefferson Ave., where the company had fired Knights of Labor tory, cracker bakers, and more. they heard speeches and picnicked with organizer P.J. Clair. These two actions led On May 5, three thousand workers their families. An estimated 10,000 people 4 even the Evening News to complain that gathered at Michigan and Trumbull, the Continued on page 6 Public Transportation Then and Now: The Great Streetcar Strike of 1891 By JOHN RUMMEL new streetcar route, the Qline on Woodward Avenue, has come to ADetroit. A look back at the ground- breaking trolley strike of 1891 reveals how public transportation, or the lack of it, has shaped the history of the city. Streetcar photos: Walter P. Qline Reuther Library photo: flickr.com/photos/healthiermi Just as today, Detroiters in the last decade of the 19th century needed public transportation to work and move about the city. But disgust with the Detroit City Railway Company, the private streetcar monopoly that ran the trolley system, was so great it inspired a united rebellion from a wide cross-section of the city’s working class and all who relied on the system. ccording to the book “Working Detroit” by historian Steve An early horse-drawn streetcar and a group A of Detroit streetcar workers near the end Babson, male trolley workers of the 19th century. Below, the Qline averaged only 18 cents an light-rail streetcar that opened in hour for a 12-hour work Detroit in 2016. day while women workers suffered the indignity and discrimination of only being paid nine cents. Worse still, to cover both the morning and evening rush hours, workers were often forced to stay at the job site for 18 hours — but those six additional hours were unpaid. Riders too had their gripes. Fares of five cents for each ride were exceedingly The greatest threat to high. While other cities had modernized to social peace was the greed the strike fund. electric trolleys, the company continued to By Friday, the fourth day of the strike, use horse-drawn carriages. Riders endured and callousness of private the trades council made plans for a mass the foul smell of straw, horse manure, and corporations, not unions. rally on Saturday to unite all the workers fumes from gas fired heaters. who had gone out. — Attributed to Mayor Pingree treetcar workers formed an Employees ompany officials pleaded with Mayor SAssociation and began to fight back by CHazen Pingree to call in the state pushing for a 10-hour day. The firing of intersections to block trolleys driven by militia. Pingree, who had long railed 12 organizers in April of 1891 was the . A cheering crowd of 5,000 against the high fares and poor service of catalyst that provoked the strike. men, women and children rolled a street- the private trolley company, refused and City police broke up picket lines and car into the Detroit River. the company capitulated to the strikers’ escorted strikebreakers into the car barns. Thousands of Detroit workers from demands. The mayor became known as a However, as the company had alienated shoe, radiator, and stove factories aban- “friend of the workingman.” both its workers and customers, sym- doned their jobs to show solidarity with It was quite a conversion for this pathy for the strikers was widespread the strikers. Ironworkers leaving their shift former successful shoe manufacturer and quickly grew. By the second day ripped up tracks in front of their shop. but who, as Babson writes, had come to of the strike, huge crowds gathered at Even downtown businesses donated to Continued on page 6 5 Photo: Barbara Ingalls pages 14-15) — For further information, see (Wayne State University Press, University Press, State (Wayne Working Detroit by Steve Babson Working The Labor Legacy Landmark, to The Labor Legacy Landmark, to Hazen Pingree looks over Wood- over Pingree looks Hazen in Park Grand Circus from Ave. ward made Thousands ofDetroit. Detroiters donations to help build this statue of the “Idol of the People.” which hundreds of workers, unions, and which hundreds of workers, unions, for others contributed over $1.6 million over construction costs, was dedicated the 15 years ago as a gift to the city on 300th anniversary of the arrival of French explorers. A project of the Michigan the Landmark is Labor History Society, year visited by thousands of people every past, its who come to learn about labor’s present, and its vision for the future. - - , the paper Here is my tax-deductible donation of $100 or more to the Michigan Labor Historythe Michigan Labor to more $100 or of tax-deductible donation my is Here

The 12 organizers were rehired were rehired The 12 organizers the public Pingree championed Society. Please inscribe the following name (Limit to 24 characters including spaces): (Limit 24 characters name to the following inscribe Please Society. q ______Name______Adress______City______State______ZIP______E-mail______Telephone______Support the MichiganSupport Labor Legacy Landmark to the wall of honor at member name or the name of a friend or family your Add Labor Legacy Landmark at Hart Plaza on the Detroit Michigan’s “Transcending,” on the wall of had their names engraved of people have hundreds Already, riverfront. inscribed on a stainless steel plaque as permanently The names are honor at the site. and its labor movement. who built Detroit a special tribute to the men and women Please fill choose. the name you a place for will reserve or more A donation of $100 contribution to the Michigan Labor Historyout this coupon and mail it with your tax deductible. Contributions are MI 48202. Detroit Ave., Cass 5401 Society, believe “the greatest threat to social to social greatest threat believe “the and callousness peace was the greed not unions.” of private corporations, the as recognized union their and were lowered bargaining agent. Fares cars were to 3 cents and electric next several years. phased in over the trolleys as the only ownership of the but it took until way to improve service public control. 1922 to win complete Republi the elected was he 1897 In can governor and championed public can governor and championed public for taxes higher utilities, of ownership big business and regulation of private President Joe capital. As former Vice Biden enjoys saying, the current crop father’s your “not are Republicans of Republican Party.” Continued from page 5 Continued Streetcar Strike Streetcar Detroit’s riverfront Hart Plaza may see riverfront Detroit’s Changes Coming to Hart Plaza? cussed ways to better connect downtown cussed ways to better connect downtown Detroit to the Detroit River reports. As changes are made, several changes are As reports. works of public art, including the Labor and the Legacy Landmark “Transcending” Underground Railroad Monument, “must the paper declares. be treated respectfully,” some design changes in coming years, in changes design some according to a story in the Detroit Free Press. City planners have informally dis Michigan Labor Legacy Landmark photo: Shawn D. Ellis UAW retiree Dianne Feeley and retiree — UAW

Guide, a website under development. Southwest Detroit Auto Heritage researched material for this story for the Dr. Thomas Klug of Marygrove College Thomas Klug of Marygrove Dr.

Yet, even then there were workers there were workers even then Yet, It would take several decades before decades before It would take several

Continued from page 4 Continued from page Eight-Hour Day Eight-Hour week became widely implemented. different unions before a standard 40-hour different unions before a standard 40-hour take organizing and bargaining by many take organizing and bargaining by many who worked 54-hour weeks). It would who worked 54-hour weeks). It would page 13 about the Woolworth’s workers workers page 13 about the Woolworth’s industries. not covered by the law (see the story, that became the law of the land in many that became the law of the land in many a 40-hour week with overtime pay above a 40-hour week with overtime pay above introduced by the New Deal in 1937 that introduced by the New Deal in 1937 until the Fair Labor Standards Act was was until the Fair Labor Standards Act Motor Co. in 1926, for example), it wasn’t Motor Co. in 1926, took hold in some industries (at Ford industries (at Ford took hold in some standard. While five-day, 40-hour weeks weeks 40-hour five-day, While standard. the eight-hour day became a universal became a universal the eight-hour day effect, a one-day . effect, a one-day general participated with floats and banners—in banners—in and floats with participated 6 LOOKING BACK Moving Forward SPECIAL EDITION, SPRING 2019

The Grand Rapids Carpenters’ Strike When Furniture Workers Put Down Their Tools fter the American Civil War, as the nation’s economy became increas- Aingly industrial, German, Dutch, Polish, and other European immigrants flocked to the Midwest. A river city and railroad center with an abundant supply of hardwood forests nearby, Grand Rap- ids was a prime location for the furniture industry. By the 1890s, Grand Rapids was the furniture-manufacturing capital of the U.S. One-third of its 90,000 residents were new Americans, most of whom toiled in the woodworking factories. The workweek consisted of six 10-hour days, workers earning as little as $2 a day. Within the 85 factories, problems augmented by religious and cultural differences caused divisions between skilled and unskilled workers, and between immigrants and the native-born. The divisions were sharpened when a nationwide industrial slump began in 1905. With furniture workers getting only minimal raises or none at all, the time was ripe for collective Above, carpenters at work in the John Widdi- action. Instead, the various factions comb Co. furniture factory in Grand Rapids. in the 7,000-person workforce Left, workers came from many countries to work turned inward. in the shops in Grand Rapids, the “Furniture capital of the U.S.” A monument carved and cast by Roberto Chenlo commemorating their 1911 lthough a workers’ benevolent strike stands in downtown Grand Rapids. The Aassociation had been formed project was the work of the Labor Heritage Soci- as early as 1886, several attempts to ety of West Michigan. organize the city’s furniture factories Top inset: A poster pays tribute to 1911 Grand had failed. The unionization effort Rapids furniture strike. was stymied in part by workers who were content with the status quo, many workers were ready to strike. And on banks to foreclose on striking workers’ of whom had mortgages and did not want April 19, 1911, 4,000 furniture workers mortgages. They targeted leaders for to upset the industrialists who controlled took off their shop aprons and walked retribution, and exploited the well-known local banks. In addition, language barriers away from the job. They asked for a nine- divisions among the workers. and traditional Old World bigotry caused hour workday at 10 hours of pay, the As the strike went into a second distrust, most notably between Roman discontinuation of piecework practices, month, many strikers had to depend Catholics and conservative Dutch Chris- and an end to the firing and blacklisting on the good will of their churches tian Reformed Church members. of union advocates. and neighbors. Tensions among workers But with so many of the furniture ran high, Johnston said. “But they forged workers unhappy with their working he furniture company owners were an extraordinary solidarity.” conditions, a unification effort began in Tnot pleased with the challenge to their Their bond was both challenged and 1910 when a 26-year veteran was fired for authority, and refused to talk with the strengthened when strikebreakers arrived leading a small committee of employees workers or their United Brotherhood of in Grand Rapids. Mindful of the potential seeking a raise. Carpenters and Joiners representatives. for a public relations disaster, the carpen- According to labor historian Michael Leaders of the Grand Rapids Furniture ters union went to great lengths to curb Johnston, even the most conservative Manufacturer’s Association pressured Continued on page 8 7 Furniture Strike LOOKING BACK Continued from page 7 Moving Forward SPECIAL EDITION, SPRING 2019 outbreaks of violence. Although strikers’ wives may have thrown stones at strikebreak- ers crossing picket lines, in an era when labor Calumet’s Italian Hall strife often resulted in gun battles, not one life was lost during the four-month strike. The Copper Country o the dismay of the industrial establish- Tment, much of Grand Rapids rallied in support of the workers, including the mayor Tragedy that Left and the Roman Catholic archbishop. “Although getting a union contract was 73 Persons Dead not an official striker demand,” Johnston said, “both sides knew that unionizing the city’s largest industry was the real issue.” After a long, hot summer of hunger and want, however, the workers began to

e

c i weaken in their resolve as the factories v r

e S remained operational with a workforce k r a of strikebreakers. “Then the Christian P l a n Reformed Church issued an edict that o ti a union membership was incompatible with : N to o church membership,” Johnston said. Facing Ph expulsion, many of the church’s members returned to work. The edict broke the four- Left: Copper County month stalemate. miners. Scores of deaths and injuries hough the strike failed in many respects, were reported every year in these mines. Tsome of the employers did grant wage increases, and the job action is credited with Above: Monument to honor the miners creating a ripple effect in other communi- and those killed in ties. The strike was a “critical cornerstone of the fire at Calu- the labor movement in western Michigan,” met’s Italian Hall Johnston told the Grand Rapids Press. These on Christmas Eve, workers put aside their differences to “forge 1913. Seventy-three people suffocated something far greater. That’s the universal on the staircase idea of the labor movement.” leading to the In that same spirit of solidarity, unions second floor, where came together to honor the valiant furniture a holiday party for workers. A small group of volunteers formed children of strikers

U.S. Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division Prints and Photographs Library of Congress’s U.S. was taking place. the Labor Heritage Society of West Michigan as a vehicle to educate the community and to By DAVID ELSILA raise $1.25 million to construct a monument honoring the strikers. Culminating a more or hundreds of families in Mich- nearly five months. The region was the than 10-year effort, hundreds of union igan’s Copper Country in the location of the richest lode of native members, retirees, and elected officials Fnorthwest Upper Peninsula copper in North America, and people dedicated the monument on April 19, 2007, Christmas 1913 was a time of tragedy, had come from many countries to work the 96th anniversary of the start of the strike not of joy. Instead of celebrating, fam- in the mines. There were Italians, Cor- “The helped make Grand ilies mourned. Black ribbons replaced nish, Finns, Croats, and others. Union Rapids a better place,” retired UAW Christmas trees and wreaths. Horse- literature and union organizers used President Owen Bieber said at the ceremony. drawn funeral hearses moved slowly many languages to build worker soli- The monument, he added, “will act as a living down the streets of Calumet that in darity across these ethnic lines. tribute to the universal struggle of workers, other years might have seen Santa Miners worked six days a week, ten to find courage to unite and stand for what Claus waving from a reindeer-drawn hours a day, in the deep, poorly-lit mine is fundamentally right. It will also live as a sleigh. shafts. Dozens of deaths and hundreds reminder that nothing comes without a The tragedy occurred on Christmas of injuries were recorded each year: price. That hardship turns to resolve. That Eve at Calumet’s Italian Hall during a in the year before the strike there had defeated spirits rise to become victorious party for the children of copper min- been at least 47 deaths and 643 seri- souls. That struggle becomes the toil of love.” ers who had been on strike against the ous injuries. For several years, two-man — This story originally appeared as a Calumet and Hecla Mining Corpora- teams were used to drill into mine walls labor history feature in the American Postal tion (C& H as it was known locally) for where explosives were placed to dis- 8 Worker magazine in July 2007 A Personal Story My Uncle Ted Taipalus was one person who survived the Italian Hall tragedy. His father had been a striking miner, and he and his two brothers and three sisters had gone to the Christmas Eve party along with other strikers’ children. When someone yelled “fire,” he and his brothers escaped on a ladder from a second-story window. But two of his three sis- ters, Ellen, 7, and Mildred, 5, were both caught in the staircase crush and died. The loss of the two young girls hurt his father terribly, Ted said. “He took me in his arms and cried like a baby. I had never seen my dad cry before.” After the strike ended, Ted said, a Photo: Michigan Tech Archives Photo: Tech Michigan mine boss came to his father and asked him to return to work. But so devastated was he from the loss of his daughters, he would never go back into the mines again. Despite the family tragedy, Ted, at the age of 16, was hired as a “puffer boy” in Hecla No. 9 mine at $2.25 a day where he operated the engine that hoisted timbers used as roof sup-

e c ports in a stope, the space left after ore has been extracted. i v r e Ted left the mines in 1929 and moved to Detroit, where S k r he worked for many years in customs enforcement on the a P l a U.S.-Canada border, making trips back to Calumet from time n o ti a : N to to time. In 1955, he went with ho P Reuther Library P. Walter Photos: friends to the Eagles Hall in Top: Families bury the dead after a three- Calumet, then climbed upstairs mile march to Lake View Cemetery. to where a dance was in prog- During the five-month-long strike noted ress. It was the same hall that union leader Mother Jones, right, paraded forty-two years earlier had been with strikers. Other women rallied the Italian Hall, a place that the townspeople, including Anna (“Big he once vowed he would never Annie”) Clemenc, above right, who was later inducted into Labor’s International return to. When he discovered Hall of Fame. where he was, “I just wanted to get away from there,” he lodge copper ore, but now mine owners wrote. He never returned. were seeking to replace them with one- man drills, nicknamed “widow makers” — D.E. because no one would be around to sum- the midst of the celebration, some- mon help in case of an accident. one opened the door to the second-story hall and yelled “fire,” spreading panic, increases and shorter workweeks. But hen the miners union, the Western and scores of people headed for the exit, it wouldn’t be until thirty years later WFederation of Miners, asked to jamming the narrow staircase that led that the company finally recognized the meet with management to discuss mine to the street. Seventy-three people, 58 Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union safety and other issues, they met a stone of them children, perished, their bod- as the workers’ representative. wall. The president of the Boston-based ies jammed against each other, unable For many years, townspeople and C&H, James MacNaughton, rejected to breathe. There was no fire, and for visitors have made a Christmas Eve pil- any request to negotiate. “Grass will grow the past century suspicion has reigned grimage to the site of the Italian Hall in in the streets before C&H recognizes the that the false cry of alarm came from the 400 block of Seventh Street in Calu- union,” he told a local newspaper. “The an agent of the mine owners who had met. The brick arch that framed the fatal union must be killed at all cost.” become increasingly frustrated by the staircase, surrounded by a landscaped Miners responded by walking out at strikers’ resolve. historical park, is all that remains of several sites. For months, they picketed, The miners, after burying their dead, the hall, which was demolished in the rallied, and paraded. The legendary continued their strike, which lasted for 1980s. The site is part of the Keweenaw Mother Jones joined five months. During the strike, C&H National Historical Park maintained by a parade down Calumet’s Fifth Street, officials threatened some miners’ the U.S. National Park Service. and women — most notably Anna “Big families with evictions from their com- On December 24, 2018, the Calumet Annie” Clement — mobilized to sup- pany-owned homes. They brought in community dedicated a new monument port the miners. strikebreakers, and Michigan authori- at the site of the tragedy. It includes the As the strike extended into the cold ties sent in thousands of National Guard names of all 73 victims. The National winter months, the Western Federation troops. Management did not budge Park Service maintains a visitors cen- of Miners organized a Christmas Eve from its hard line, and after five months ter at 98 Fifth Street in Calumet that party, complete with gifts, candy, music, on strike, most miners returned to work. includes several exhibits and schedules and an appearance by Santa Claus. In Eventually they would gain some wage ranger walks. 9 LOOKING BACK Moving Forward SPECIAL EDITION, SPRING 2019

The Ford Hunger March: Five Martyrs for Justice By JIM PITA n the dark days of the Great Depres- sion, unemployment in Detroit was Inearly 50 percent, even higher among black workers. Families that couldn’t pay their rent or mortgages were losing their homes and facing eviction. A local physi- cian reported that there were up to four Photos: Walter P. Reuther Library deaths a day in which malnutrition played a role. The grim conditions led many work- ers to form Unemployed Councils to press for relief. Homeless workers slept in downtown Detroit’s Grand Circus Park where, as organizer Joe Billups recalled, people spoke at all hours raising the issue of unemployment insurance. “’Work or bread’ was the slogan,” he said. On March 6, 1932, a racially mixed Above, jobless workers and their sup- crowd of workers filled a hall on Detroit’s porters rally before marching to the Ford Woodward Ave. to hear organizer and Rouge Plant on March 6, 1932. Communist Party leader William Z. Fos- Right, demonstrators scatter after being ter call for a demonstration. The next day, attacked by Ford security guards. Five men March 7, three thousand workers set out died as a result. from several locations to converge at Fort Top, a poster announces a public meet- and Oakwood Streets on Detroit’s far-west ing to investigate the attack on the Ford side. Their intention was to continue to Hunger March. the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, reached the Dearborn city limits. A line mere Cemetery in Detroit in the shadow where the number of jobs had dropped of Dearborn police blocked Miller Road of the Ford Rouge plant. Williams, an from 128,000 to 37,000 between 1929 and and ordered the marchers to turn back. African American who died three months 1932, even as was maintaining They did not, and crossed into Dearborn, later, was denied burial in the cemetery that there was plenty of work for anyone pushing the police line back. The police because he was black. His comrades then who wanted a job. The event became responded with tear gas, but the wind blew said they would bury him in Detroit’s known as the Ford Hunger March. the gas back into their ranks. Firefighters Grand Circus Park, but police stopped Metro Detroit was in the midst of a positioned on the pedestrian overpass at them as they were digging up concrete for cold snap as the marchers took off, some the Ford plant sprayed the approaching a grave. Instead, they planned to cremate of them even being waved off by Detroit marchers with high-pressure hoses. him and scatter his ashes from an airplane Mayor Frank Murphy as they left down- The event then took a tragic turn. Ford over the Rouge plant. town Detroit. When they reached the security agents opened gunfire on the Some fifty years later, a team of labor Fort Street Bridge at Fort and Oakwood, crowd. Four men died of their wounds activists found the victims’ gravesites, march leaders provided instructions — be that day; a fifth died three months later. marked only by small brass markers in an loud but be peaceful — as the march- Dozens were wounded. overgrown part of the cemetery. They per- ers prepared to walk to the employment The victims ranged in age from 17 to 37. suaded UAW Local 600’s retiree chapter office at the Ford Rouge plant. They were: Joe York, 20, a leader in the to pay for headstones for the four, as well At about 1:30 p.m., the marchers Young Communist League; Joe DeBlasio, as for a fifth honoring Curtis Williams. crossed the bridge and moved north along 31, an Italian-American immigrant active Today, one can visit Woodmere Ceme- Miller Road. The objective was to accom- with the Detroit Unemployed Councils; tery and find the graves in block 18 of the pany a team of activists who intended to Joe Bussell, 17, a high-school student Fernwood section. At Fort and Denmark deliver a list of demands to Henry Ford. and Young Communist League member; Streets, near the Fort Street Bridge, work A contingent of Detroit police offi- Kalman Leny, 27, unemployed; and is underway to build a neighborhood park cers was deployed to assure order was Curtis Williams, 37, an unemployed that will have a memorial to the Hunger maintained within Detroit city limits. autoworker and Communist Party member. Marchers, a few yards away from where 10 The police peeled off as the march All but Williams were buried in Wood- they gathered on that chilly day in 1932. The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike Standing Up By Sitting Down n December 30, 1936, two days before the New Year rang in, Oworkers in Flint learned that Gen- eral Motors planned to move key dies from its massive Fisher Body complex in order to thwart an anticipated strike by the United Auto Workers. For months, workers had been meeting secretly at private homes and elsewhere out of sight of GM management to orga- nize their union. When they heard about the company’s plan to move dies, lead- ers decided in a quick strategy session to occupy Fisher Body Plant No. 1, catching the company off guard and beginning a sit-down strike that would last for 44 days Photos: Walter P. Reuther Library and change the face of the U.S. labor movement. Quickly the strike spread to Fisher Body Plant No. 2, and sit-down fever spread to hundreds of workers. One of the workers memorialized the day in a song sung inside and outside the struck plant: These 4,000 Union Boys Top, crowds gather outside GMs’ Fisher 1 plant Oh they sure made lots of noise. in Flint, while sit-down strikers occupy the They decided then and there to inside. Left, musicians help keep up the strikers’ spirits. Above, after 44 days, the stike ends. shut down tight. In the office they got snooty, March 25 and their strike until April 6, So we started picket duty, when the company agreed to recognize Now the Fisher Body shop is on strike. the union and negotiate a contract. Even Workers gave GM a list of demands, opponents of the strike tried to block before Flint, workers at the Kelsey-Hayes including a 30-hour work week to help food shipments to the sit-downers. parts plant in Detroit had had their own share jobs with the unemployed, recogni- Police attacked strike supporters with sit-in, and there were sit-down strikes in tion of the UAW and a national contract, tear gas and billy clubs. But workers in other cities as well. Now, emboldened minimum pay rates and an end to the other plants in the Flint GM complex by the successes in Flint, Detroit, and speedup of the assembly line, and senior- joined the strike, and an active Women’s elsewhere, the sit-downs soon spread to ity rights. Emergency Brigade led by Genora John- hotels, department stores, cigar factories, The sit-down strike proved effective. son Dollinger kept the police at bay and and other businesses. That spring, more Within days, over 100,000 GM workers public spirit alive. Forty-four days later, than 100,000 workers rallied to support throughout the U.S. and Canada were on on Feb. 11, 1937, the company gave in. them in Detroit’s Cadillac Square. strike, either walking picket lines outside GM, one of America’s largest companies, Labor historians credit the sit-down or sitting down inside — in Detroit and had agreed to recognize the UAW and strikes in Flint and elsewhere as the birth cities in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and negotiate a contract. The working people of a powerful industrial-union movement. Ontario, Canada. Inside the Flint plants, in Flint — and throughout North Amer- Until the mid-1930s, most unions were workers took turns doing guard duty, ica — had triumphed. organized along strict craft lines — cleanups, and machine maintenance. Barely stopping to celebrate, UAW electricians in one, carpenters in another, Musical instruments materialized. Edu- workers at the Chrysler Corp. sat down on toolmakers in still another. The unions cation classes alternated with calisthenics. March 8 in eight Detroit plants, including emerging in the auto, steel, rubber, and GM sought court injunctions against the legendary Dodge Main, joined later other industries organized everyone, the strikers. It turned off the heat in by workers in Marysville, Michigan, and regardless of the kind of work they did, the plants. The company-backed Flint in Los Angeles and New Castle, Indiana. into , thus gaining the Alliance harassed strikers’ families, and They continued their occupation until Continued on back cover 11 LOOKING BACK Moving Forward SPECIAL EDITION, SPRING 2019

Lansing’s Labor Holiday A 1937 General Strike for Worker Rights returned home from Detroit at around 2:30 a.m., and discovered what had hap- pened, he called his union representatives to meet him in the union hall as soon as possible. They decided to call a labor holiday— otherwise known as a general strike—and shut the city down in protest to these Photo of Lansing Labor Holiday plaque: Maureen Sheahan strong-arm tactics by the authorities. By the start of the workday, between 2,000 and 5,000 union members and sympa- thizers poured into the downtown streets, forcing the closing of many shops, facto- ries, theaters, and businesses of all kinds. Armed with clubs, sticks, and two-by- fours, workers paraded down the streets of the city singing labor songs, while Washburn and other union representa- tives successfully negotiated the release of those imprisoned. By nightfall, the hol- iday was over and before long, workers had negotiated a contract with Capital City Wrecking Company management. Thousands of Lansing-area workers shut down the city The Lansing Labor Holiday was a rare in a general strike on June 7, 1937. instance of a mass, spontaneous demon- At Lansing City Hall plaza, a memorial plaque to the stration by the working class in the city of Lansing Labor Holiday was unveiled in 2017 on the 80th Lansing to address a perceived injustice anniversary of the general strike. standing in the way of the momentum of he labor history of 1930s Michigan of other companies. union organizing in the late 1930s. is often told from the geographic A few weeks after the successful sit- The general strike tactic had been used T perspective of Detroit, or of Flint down strike, the new union came to the in only a few cases in the United States with its iconic sit-down strike, which aid of workers in a small shop, Capital (most notably Seattle in 1919, San Fran- ended on February 11, 1937. City Wrecking Company. When these cisco in 1936, and in many major U.S. The story of the one-day general strike workers sought to join the union and then cities in 1877). In the case of the Lansing in Lansing, Michigan’s capital city, is often elected officers, the company proceeded workers, they did not advocate an over- overlooked; but now having observed its to fire all of them and refused to negoti- throw of the system, as was the case in 80th anniversary in June 2017, the Lan- ate. Several weeks of futile attempts to get many of the historic conflagrations of this sing Labor Holiday has begun to get the a contract and reinstate the fired workers kind in Europe; rather, the workers were attention it deserves, in part through the resulted in a strike. As fellow unionists forcefully demanding that the new indus- establishment of a state historical marker mobilized on the picket line, the company trial relations pattern, ushered in by the commemorating the event. obtained a court injunction against the passage of the National Labor Relations Lansing’s REO Motors plant [named , but Washburn and his fellow Act of 1935, work for them. The peace- for auto pioneer Ransom E. Olds, devel- unionists ignored the injunction and kept ful and successful Lansing Labor Holiday oper of the Oldsmobile] experienced a up the pressure on the picket line. gave voice to the desires of this genera- month-long sit-down strike during March At 2 a.m. on June 7, 1937, Lansing tion of newly empowered workers. and April 1937 just as United Auto Work- Sheriff Allan MacDonald cut the phone The new historical marker at City Hall ers Local 182 was being established as lines and then knocked on the door of the Plaza in downtown Lansing recognizes an amalgamated union for workers in the Washburn home armed with warrants for the importance of the Lansing Labor auto shops in the Lansing area. Lester the arrest of Lester Washburn, who was Holiday as a one-day peaceful citywide Washburn, one of the original organizers not at home, and his wife. The sheriff strike action that galvanized the local of the UAW international union, worked took Mrs. Washburn to jail, leaving three labor community. The marker stands in at REO and led this effort. Local 182 children unattended, while his deputies sight of both city hall and the state cap- became the union for workers at REO, dispersed throughout the city to round up itol, serving as a reminder of the day that 12 Oldsmobile, Fisher Body, and a number seven other picketers. When Washburn Continued on back cover The Women of Woolworth’s Nickeled-and-Dimed No More More than a hundred women at the down- town Detroit Woolworth’s store occupied their workplace for six days to demand higher pay and shorter hours.

raise (a stunning 40-percent increase over the prevailing 25 cents per hour), an eight-hour workday plus time-and-a-half after 48 hours in a week, seniority, and no retaliation were on the list. Management demurred, and the strik- ers settled in, rolling out sleeping bags in the aisles, setting up a strike kitchen for food, and playing phonograph records for dancing and entertainment, bolstering the strikers’ morale. These brave sit-downers — there were

Photos: Walter P. Reuther Library over a hundred of them, some as young as 16 — occupied the property of one of the largest companies in the country. There were workers outside looking for a job, any job. But the sit-down strategy pretty much precluded management from hiring strikebreakers (unless they tried to forc- ibly eject the sit-downers, which could have provoked public outrage). Just as in Flint with the autoworkers, the dime-store occupiers knew union activ- By JIM PEDERSEN ity was protected by the nascent National Do you think the odds are stacked against 1253 Woodward Avenue was typical, Labor Relations Act, but trespassing and workers, and they have to settle for less and mostly staffed by young women, mostly occupying private property was very much less? Is it time to throw in the towel as big selling inexpensive household items like illegal. No matter. The story spread and corporations flex their power and workers health and beauty products, pins and nee- help poured in. Food, donations, and seem to have only a small chance of winning dles, kitchen stock, all marked with nickel messages of solidarity came to the store. a strike or a contract? Think again, and con- and dime price tags. A lunch counter The strikers kept the store’s three sider this lesson from Michigan labor history. offered a quick bite or a dessert to the phones busy, calling supporters, family, and predominantly white shoppers with a few the press. Like any other group of young n the depths of the Great Depression, pennies left over from shopping. women, they kept up with girlfriends, and against the biggest retailer in the coun- On Saturday, February 27, 1937 at 11 boyfriends, did their hair and makeup Itry, Detroit low-wage women workers a.m. an organizer from the Waiters and every day for the media attention, played stood up for justice, getting a union, gain- Waitresses union strode to the middle of cards, and generally had a good time. ing a contract, and winning raises. Their the main floor, blew a whistle and hollered Management refused to negotiate, victory over the F.W. Woolworth company “Strike, Strike,” which set off an uproar hoping to outlast the women. After just a followed the huge win at General Motors of shouts and scurrying throughout the few days, the union pulled a second store plants in nearby Flint by just a few days, store, alerting workers on the floor to fold offline, striking a nearby Woolworth’s at using the same new-fangled strike weapon their arms and walk out into the aisles. Woodward and West Grand Boulevard in as the Flint autoworkers did: the sit-down Customers were escorted out and the Detroit and threatening a national strike strike. doors were locked behind them, while and boycott. Woolworth’s Five and Dime was the big, hand-lettered signs were posted in Watching developments from his office low-end retailer of its day, carrying thou- the windows announcing the strike and in the Woolworth Building in New York, sands of cheap everyday items at stores reading, “All We Want Is a Living Wage.” Frank W. Woolworth got worried. Would throughout the country. Its owner, Frank The strike committee and management the strike spread to other cities? Orders W. Woolworth once said, “We must went to a conference room where the came down, and on the following Wednes- have cheap help or we cannot sell cheap demands of the strikers were given to the day, Detroit Woolworth’s management goods.” The four-story Detroit store at managers: union recognition, a 10-cent Continued on back cover 13 LOOKING BACK Moving Forward Photos: Walter P. Reuther Library

Above, women joined men in passing out union leaflets to workers outside the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, before company thugs began beating them, left. On the overpass to the plant, below left, Ford security personnel approach and other organizers before punching and kicking them, resulting in serious injuries and one death. Ford Takes on the Union: The Battle of the Overpass would have to wait. Henry Ford transfer just about anyone on the payroll. remained strongly opposed to unions, Workers who talked with each other on and his 2,000-strong Ford Service the assembly line were suspect, and had Department kept close watch on work- to use the “Ford whisper” — talking from ers at the Ford Rouge plant, roughing the sides of their mouths — to communi- up or firing anyone they deemed sym- cate with each other. pathetic to unions. Workers were watched Nevertheless, the newly energized he year 1937 was a turning point in and followed in their neighborhoods as well UAW kept up its efforts. On May 26, the effort by Michigan’s autowork- as in the plant. Harry Bennett, an ex-prize- 1937, union organizers planned a mass dis- Ters to organize unions. By April of fighter who ran the Service Department, tribution of leaflets to workers outside the that year, successful sit-down strikes had had built connections with the FBI, local gates to the Ford Rouge plant during the led to agreements with General Motors police, and organized crime figures. 2 p.m. shift change. Although UAW orga- and Chrysler to recognize the United His network sought to collect informa- nizer (and later president) Walter Reuther Auto Workers and to negotiate contracts. tion on the 90,000 plant workers and he had obtained a permit for leafleting, many But workers at the Ford Motor Co. had the authority to hire, fire, demote, or worried that violence would break out. So, the UAW brought volunteers from the union’s Women’s Auxiliary to help distrib- ‘I Saw Days I Didn’t Have a Loaf of Bread’ ute the leaflets, believing (wrongly, as it My husband was a Ford worker, first at Highland Park, then at the Rouge. turned out) that Bennett’s force wouldn’t In 1932, when Ford’s plant was built in Ypsilanti, he was sent there. He had rough up women. The union had also been making $6 a day, but when we got to Ypsilanti, the unskilled workers were invited local clergy, staff members of a cut to $2.80 a day. They said the Chamber of Commerce said Ford couldn’t come Senate Committee on Civil Liberties, and to Ypsilanti and pay $6 a day because the small shops there could not compete reporters to witness the distribution. with him. Ypsilanti had a paper mill, a stove works, a small foundry. Maybe more As the women arrived at the Schaefer I don’t know about. Road side of the Rouge complex, Ford We had two children, and I saw days I didn’t have the price of a loaf of bread. Servicemen met them, pushing, shoving, An old black man had a little store near us and he would trust me until payday. and punching, forcing them back on to We found a “decent” little house for $10 a month. I can’t remember how long he the streetcars they’d arrived on, while worked for $2.80, but they would get a 40-cent-a-day raise now and then. By the beating several of the men who accom- time my twins were born in April, 1934, he was getting $4.40 a day. panied them. Meanwhile, reporters and We had a 1928 Chevy. At $6 a day we thought we could buy a new Ford, so in photographers described being accosted the summer before we went to Ypsilanti, we bought one, traded in our old car, of by men in sunglasses who had emerged course. Then when they cut us to $2.80 a day, we just took the Ford back to the from 25 parked cars nearby and who told dealer and told him we could not pay for it. So we lost all of it. The dealer gave us the reporters to leave. an old Ford for $100, to pay $10 a month. Even that was a struggle. And I can’t On the other side of the Rouge plant, remember when his pay did get back to $6. facing Miller Road, Reuther, Richard My husband used to tell me about the Ford Service Department men sneaking Frankensteen, and other union organiz- around. He used to say when we get the union we’ll put a uniform on them, and ers walked up the stairs of the overpass we will know them. I am now 88 years old.” that connected the plant with streetcar — Carrie Smith in “We Make Our Own History” (UAW, 1986) tracks and a parking lot on the other 14 side of Miller Road. As they stood, with Striking lumberjacks read the bulletin board the Ford Motor Co. sign in the back- outside union headquarters in Marenisco, ground, Ford Servicemen approached Michigan. them and started to brutally beat them. Reuther was beaten and kicked down the stairs. Frankensteen was held down while being kicked in the groin and body repeatedly. Organizer Robert Kanter was beaten and pushed off the

overpass, falling over 20 feet. J. J. Ken- Photos: Minnesota Historical Society Historical Minnesota Photos: nedy was hospitalized and died four months later as a result of his wounds. Lumberjacks lived in crowded Another organizer, Richard Merri- quarters without water to wash. weather, suffered a broken back. Women who had come to the Miller Rd. side were also pushed, knocked Forests Grew Silent down, kicked and roughed up. “When we arrived at Gate 4, we could see Brothers Reuther and Frankensteen When the being severely beaten,” said Catherine ‘Bebe’ Gelles, head of UAW Local 174’s Lumberjacks Struck Women’s Auxiliary. When she tried to ife for lumberjacks in the north bunks, shower baths, union recognition, pull the Ford Service Department men woods of Michigan’s Upper Penin- and a procedure. off one UAW man, “the three turned Lsula in the 1930s was no bed of roses. The soon spread from Mare- to me, knocking me to the ground, and Instead, it was likely a bed of hay and nisco to other nearby lumber camps in kicking me in the stomach, and then straw mattress ticks wrapped in gunny Gogebic County. Matt Savola, a charis- pushing me to the streetcar.” sacks and spread over two-man bunks in matic 29-year-old Finnish-American and During all this, Dearborn police the cabins where they lived while cutting Communist, rallied the strikers, and, stood by and did nothing, even when trees for ten hours a day at 27 to 33 cents using experience gained while preventing the Ford Servicemen turned their an hour. evictions in Iron River, organized relief attention to the reporters and photog- “There was no place to wash,” said committees to supply food and housing raphers. They attacked, taking their lumber union organizer Matt Savola. to the growing number of strikers. film and ripping up their notebooks. Men would go without baths for two or Energized by their success in shutting But they didn’t succeed in suppress- three months, bathing only when they down several camps, a truckload of strikers ing the story. Photos and reports ran were able to go to town. They would save drove 200 miles one night to the Cleve- in newspapers and magazines nation- up their underwear and socks for a couple land Cliffs lumber camp near Munising. wide. Once the public saw the pictures, of weeks, and then boil them in an iron Walking in before dawn, the strikers woke Ford was no longer innocent, and com- pot to get rid of lice. up the Munising lumberjacks and got a panies across the U.S. encountered “A terrible stench comes from the hay- spirited response. “From there until day- workers demanding union elections. wire strung around the woodstove where light I had to sign up these guys into the The general public no longer accepted the men would hang their socks to dry,” union,” said organizer George Rahkonen. company pleas of innocence. Savola said in an interview with Debra “By daylight the camp was empty. All The organizers returned to the Bernhardt for her report on the lumber of them had gone on strike.” It seemed Miller Road overpass many times strikes that swept over the U.P. in 1937. that woodsmen, hearing of the successful during the ensuing years, even as An estimated 6,000 men participated in union campaigns among industrial workers Henry Ford pursued his goal of pre- the strikes over sixteen weeks. in Flint, Detroit, and elsewhere, and learn- venting a union at Ford. Harry Bennett It wasn’t easy to organize a union ing of the new National Labor Relations and his Service Department continued among lumberjacks, given their tradi- Act that guaranteed the right to collective to intimidate the workers. But the “Bat- tion of individualism, the isolation of bargaining, wanted their own “New Deal.” tle of the Overpass” had signaled that the logging camps, and the hold that Lumbering in the U.P. was often sub- change was coming. Workers would employers had over them as they worked contracted to local jobbers who ran the stand their ground, using legal as well and boarded on company property. But camps, supplying timber to companies as direct action to pursue their desire the squalid conditions, low pay, and long that manufactured household goods, fur- for a union. hours ignited a reaction, and on May 11, niture, and “woodies” — the wood-sided Finally, following a strike in 1941, 1937, half the crew at Bonifas Camp No. vehicles made by Ford and other auto Ford agreed to a union election, and a 2 near Marenisco, a small town in the far firms. Ford had a sub-assembly plant in majority of workers voted for the UAW- western U.P., walked out. Workers held a Kingsford near Iron Mountain and ran CIO. Ford workers joined the workers mass rally called by Lumber and Sawmill sawmills in Sidnaw, Pequaming, and at GM and Chrysler to benefit from a Workers Local 2530. They set demands Alberta, where the company built a model union contract. of a wage increase to 55 cents an hour, a village of workers’ homes. Although Ford — MLHS Program Committee 40-hour week, single rather than two-man Continued on back cover 15 MICHIGAN LABOR HISTORY SOCIETY Presorted Standard c/o Walter P. Reuther Library U.S. Postage Wayne State University PAID 5401 Cass Avenue • Detroit, MI 48202 Permit No. 1328 Detroit, MI

MLHS Annual Meeting Tuesday, May 22 • 6 p.m. The Michigan Labor History Society’s Annual Meeting will take place Tuesday, May 22, at 6 p.m. at UAW Local 22, 4300 Michigan Ave., Detroit. Please join us for a program on the efforts of Michigan public workers to guarantee their rights in the workplace. Food, bever- ages, free parking, and free admission.

into paying higher wages, cleaning up Lumberjacks camps, establishing an eight-hour day, Continued from page 15 and improving food. “You bet things are security forces ejected strikers from the better since the strike,” a Munising lum- Alberta sawmill, lumberjacks struck six berjack said. “And best of all, they treat us other nearby camps in Baraga County. with some respect.” As the strikes spread to camps through- — This story is based on the scholarly essay out the U.P., groups of vigilantes, aided We Were Different: The Michigan Timber Photo: Walter P. Reuther Library by police, targeted the strikers. Workers’ Strike of 1937 by Debra E. In Munising, police padlocked the Bernhardt.This daughter of Michigan, who union hall and strikers were driven out of grew up in Iron River, wrote her report while town. In Newberry, 60 miles east, a mob a master’s-degree student at Wayne State attacked an unarmed group of strikers, University. She later become the first director killing Joe Kist, last seen “rising to his of New York University’s Tamiment Library knees only to be pounded to the ground” and the Robert F. Wagner Archives, one of by a club-wielding foreman, according to the country’s largest collections of labor and Ending their sit-down, women hoist a a National Labor Relations Board report. progressive archives. She died in 2001. An “We Won” sign. No arrests were made and none of man- annual award is named in her honor by the agement’s agents were ever disciplined. New York Labor History Association. Woolworth’s Women Six weeks after Kist died in New- Continued from page 13 berry, some camp managers began to Flint Sit-Down Strike was back at the table, and a contract was bargain. Four jobbers in Baraga County Continued from page 11 announced just ahead of a deadline of signed contracts on July 10, recognizing designation “industrial union.” The UAW Friday, March 5. Good thing, because the the union, setting a 40-cent hourly min- and other unions like the Steelworkers women had worked out a plan for Friday imum wage, and promising single bunks, and Rubber Workers formed the Congress night dates — a special “love booth” for washrooms, and grievance arbitration. of Industrial Organizations (CIO), a new five-minute visits with sweeethearts. But By the beginning of August, 38 jobbers federation challenging the craft structure with the end of the strike, they were able had settled with the union, covering 400 of the American Federation of Labor to celebrate with real dates, instead. to 500 workers. Eventually 77 jobbers, all (AFL). Starting in Flint, American labor The Woolworth’s women won a five- of them small operations, would sign con- was put on a new course. cent-an-hour raise, a 48-hour workweek tracts. Meanwhile, the Michigan Dept. — Adapted from “Standing Up by Sitting (down from 54 hours), with time-and-a- of Labor sent a mediator to work out an Down” from We Make Our Own History half pay for overtime, free laundering of agreement between the union and the (UAW, 1986), edited by David Elsila uniforms, and a so that all larger contractors, but while the union workers became part of the union. accepted the settlement, major operators Lansing Labor Holiday These brave workers inspired others, turned it down. Continued from page 12 as retail workers in cities across America On August 29, the strikers voted to helped usher in a period where workers won union recognition and respect. end the . While the big opera- could use and consolidate their new rights They should inspire us today, to take tors had failed to sign, the union felt it to organize and bargain under the legal on powerful political and economic forces, had made important gains. Not only had protection of the nation. knowing that with courage, determination, they signed 77 contracts, but operators — Lansing Labor Holiday and solidarity we can win. And we can throughout the U.P. had been forced Commemoration Committee have some fun while we fight!