Editing General Motors (section)

===Flint sit-down strike===
{{Main|Flint sit-down strike}}
[[File:Flint Sit-Down Strike sleeping.jpg|thumb|Young striker off sentry duty sleeping on the assembly line of auto seats]]

The 1936–1937 [[Flint sit-down strike]] against General Motors changed the UAW from a collection of isolated [[local union]]s on the fringes of the industry into a major [[labor union]] and led to the unionization of the domestic United States [[automobile industry]].

After the first convention of UAW in 1936, the union decided that it could not survive by piecemeal [[organizing (management)|organizing]] campaigns at smaller plants, as it had in the past, but that it could organize the automobile industry only by going after its biggest and most powerful employer, General Motors, focusing on GM's production complex in Flint, Michigan.

Organizing in Flint was a difficult and dangerous plan. GM controlled city politics in Flint and kept a close eye on outsiders. According to [[Wyndham Mortimer]], the UAW officer put in charge of the organizing campaign in Flint, he received a death threat by an anonymous caller when he visited Flint in 1936. GM also maintained an extensive network of spies throughout its plants. This forced UAW members to keep the names of new members secret and meeting workers at their homes.

As the UAW studied its target, it discovered that GM had only two factories that produced the [[Die (manufacturing)|dies]] from which car body components were stamped: one in Flint that produced the parts for [[Buick]]s, [[Pontiac (automobile)|Pontiac]]s, and [[Oldsmobile]]s, and another in [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]] that produced [[Chevrolet]] parts.

[[File:Flint Sit-Down Strike National Guard.jpg|thumb|[[US National Guard|National Guardsmen]] with machine guns overlooking Chevrolet factories number nine and number four]]

While the UAW called for a sit-down strike in Flint, the police, armed with guns and tear gas, attempted to enter the Fisher Body 2 plant on January 11, 1937. The strikers inside the plant pelted them with hinges, bottles, and bolts. At the time, [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[John Nance Garner]] supported federal intervention to break up the Flint Strike, but this idea was rejected by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]. The president urged GM to distinguish a union so the plants could re-open. The strike ended after 44 days.

That development forced GM to bargain with the union. [[John L. Lewis]], President of the [[United Mine Workers]] and founder and leader of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, spoke for the UAW in those negotiations; UAW President [[Homer Martin (labor leader)|Homer Martin]] was sent on a speaking tour to keep him out of the way. GM's representatives refused to be in the same room as the UAW, so Governor [[Frank Murphy]] acted as a courier and [[mediation|intermediary]] between the two groups. Governor Murphy sent in the [[U.S. National Guard]] not to evict the strikers but rather to protect them from the police and corporate [[strike-breaker]]s. The two parties finally reached an agreement on February 11, 1937, on a one-page agreement that recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for GM's employees, who were union members for the next six months.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.hourdetroit.com/community/frank-murphys-law/ | last1=Bak | first1=Richard | title=(Frank) Murphy's Law | work=[[Hour Detroit]] | date=September 2008 | archive-date=July 23, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120723065533/http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/September-2008/Frank-Murpheys-Law/ |url-status=live}}</ref>