Editing Henry Ford (section)

=====Labor unions=====
Ford was adamantly against [[trade union|labor unions]]. He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of ''My Life and Work''.<ref name="Ford_Crowther_1922_pp253-266">{{Harvnb|Ford|Crowther|1922}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4K82efXzn10C&pg=PA253 pp. 253–66].</ref> He thought they were too heavily influenced by leaders who would end up doing more harm than good for workers despite their ostensible good motives. {{Anchor|No_prosperity_without_productivity}} Most wanted to restrict productivity as a means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for economic prosperity to exist.{{citation needed|date = June 2021}}

He believed that productivity gains that obviated certain jobs would nevertheless stimulate the broader economy and grow new jobs elsewhere, whether within the same corporation or in others. Ford also believed that union leaders had a [[perverse incentive]] to foment perpetual socio-economic crises to maintain their power. Meanwhile, he believed that smart managers had an incentive to do right by their workers, because doing so would maximize their profits. However, Ford did acknowledge that many managers were basically too bad at managing to understand this fact. But Ford believed that eventually, if good managers such as he, could fend off the attacks of misguided people from both left and right (i.e., both socialists and bad-manager reactionaries), the good managers would create a socio-economic system wherein neither bad management nor bad unions could find enough support to continue existing.{{citation needed|date = June 2021}}

To forestall union activity, Ford promoted [[Harry Bennett]], a former [[United States Navy|Navy]] boxer, to head the Service Department. Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to quash union organizing.<ref>Harris, J.: ''Henry Ford'', pp. 91–92. Moffa Press, 1984.</ref> On March 7, 1932, during the [[Great Depression]], unemployed Detroit auto workers staged the [[Ford Hunger March]] to the [[Ford River Rouge Complex]] to present 14 demands to Henry Ford. The [[Dearborn, Michigan|Dearborn]] police department and Ford security guards opened fire on workers leading to over sixty injuries and five deaths. On May 26, 1937, Bennett's security men beat members of the [[United Automobile Workers]] (UAW), including [[Walter Reuther]], with clubs.<ref name="Wallace">{{Cite book |last=Wallace |first=Max |url=http://archive.org/details/americanaxis00maxw |title=The American axis : Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the rise of the Third Reich |date=2003 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=978-0-312-29022-1 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref> While Bennett's men were beating the UAW representatives, the supervising police chief on the scene was Carl Brooks, an alumnus of Bennett's Service Department, and Brooks "did not give orders to intervene".<ref name=Wallace />{{rp|311}}The following day photographs of the injured UAW members appeared in newspapers, later becoming known as [[The Battle of the Overpass]].{{citation needed|date = June 2021}}

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Edsel—who was president of the company—thought Ford had to come to a [[collective bargaining]] agreement with the unions because the violence, work disruptions, and bitter stalemates could not go on forever. But Ford, who still had the final veto in the company on a ''de facto'' basis even if not an official one, refused to cooperate. For several years, he kept Bennett in charge of talking to the unions trying to organize the Ford Motor Company. Sorensen's memoir<ref name="Sorensen1956p261">{{Harvnb|Sorensen|1956|p=261}}.</ref> makes clear that Ford's purpose in putting Bennett in charge was to make sure no agreements were ever reached.{{citation needed|date = June 2021}}

The Ford Motor Company was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the UAW, despite pressure from the rest of the U.S. automotive industry and even the U.S. government. A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the [[River Rouge Plant]]. Sorensen recounted<ref name="Sorensen1956pp266-272">{{Harvnb|Sorensen|1956|pp=266–72}}.</ref> that a distraught Henry Ford was very close to following through with a threat to break up the company rather than cooperate. Still, his wife Clara told him she would leave him if he destroyed the family business. In her view, it would not be worth the chaos it would create. Ford complied with his wife's ultimatum and even agreed with her in retrospect.

Overnight, the Ford Motor Company went from the most stubborn holdout among automakers to the one with the most favorable UAW contract terms. The contract was signed in June 1941.<ref name="Sorensen1956pp266-272" /> About a year later, Ford told Walter Reuther, "It was one of the most sensible things Harry Bennett ever did when he got the UAW into this plant." Reuther inquired, "What do you mean?" Ford replied, "Well, you've been fighting General Motors and the Wall Street crowd. Now you're in here and we've given you a union shop and more than you got out of them. That puts you on our side, doesn't it? We can fight General Motors and Wall Street together, eh?"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Reuther Dickmeyer |first=Elisabeth |url=https://archive.org/details/puttingworldtoge0000dick/page/63 |title=Putting the world together : my father Walter Reuther, the liberal warrior |date=2004 |publisher=LivingForce Pub |isbn=978-0975379219 |location=Lake Orion, Michigan |page=[https://archive.org/details/puttingworldtoge0000dick/page/63 63] |oclc=57172289}}</ref>