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TV, Documentary, American Experience S05E10 - Sit Down and Fight
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00:00Exclusive corporate funding for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual.
00:05Major funding is made possible by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
00:09American Experience is also made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
00:14And viewers like you. Thank you.
00:32Would all the sit-downers please stand up?
00:40More than 50 years ago, these people organized the automobile workers into a union
00:46and changed the lives of working people forever.
00:51They did it by the simple act of sitting down.
01:01The sit-down strike was the most powerful weapon that labor ever had.
01:05The entire machinery of production was held hostage to the demands of the workers.
01:12By doing nothing, they achieved everything.
01:181933, and I got in the union in 1936.
01:25These women did more than join the union.
01:27While the men were occupying the factories,
01:31the women walked the picket lines and faced the police alone.
01:50Before they resorted to the sit-down strike,
01:53they tried again and again to organize inside the plants.
01:56Each time, they were fired and forced to take their battle into the streets.
02:12The entire society was opposed to it.
02:15The judges, the whole system was stacked against you.
02:19Every police department, including the police department of the city of Detroit,
02:22always wound up on the employer's side,
02:24tried to break strikes, tried to break picket lines.
02:27That was the environment in which we lived.
02:30It was a one-sided situation.
02:43And the FW, Veterans Foreign Wars, American Legion,
02:48all organizations were openly against us.
02:53We didn't have the support of our damn thing.
02:56And that's discouraging, too, you know.
03:01It makes you think, well, you know, are we right or wrong,
03:04all these damn people against us?
03:07But we didn't have any.
03:09No one stood with us.
03:10We stood alone.
03:39In ten years,
03:40Membership in the United Automobile Workers Union
03:43would grow from less than a thousand to more than a million.
03:50They would develop a voice powerful enough
03:53to be heard above the machinery of mass production.
03:58This is the story of all these people building all these cars.
04:04It began with one man and one car.
04:14When Henry Ford took his wife Clara for a ride in his first car,
04:19he had no idea that his creation would lead to violent labor struggles in the years ahead.
04:26Ford's first cars were all made by hand.
04:29Ford, skilled craftsmen, put the Model T together part by part.
04:34But Ford longed for a way to make cars faster and cheaper.
04:37He invented the assembly line
04:40and turned workers into machines.
04:50He organized a production system
04:53that sacrificed bodies for speed,
04:56whereby everybody on the line got the same thing
04:59and everybody moved at the same pace.
05:09For every nine workers that Ford hired,
05:13eight would quit within a year.
05:15They couldn't take the speed and the monotony of the assembly line,
05:19and they didn't have to.
05:21Times were good.
05:22Jobs were plentiful.
05:23Then, something happened that changed all that.
05:27If I had my way, dear
05:32Forever there'd be
05:38A garden of roses
05:43For you and for me
05:46The Depression hit Detroit with terrible consequences.
05:49Between 1929 and 1933,
05:53production of automobiles dropped from 5 million to 2 million.
05:58One-third of all wage earners were unemployed,
06:01200,000 people were on relief,
06:04and every day, 4,000 children stood on bread lines.
06:09Then, you know, it was a very unnerving thing
06:11because the unemployed would come around, hang around,
06:15look through the windows,
06:16and it was a constant reminder
06:18that if you didn't behave yourself,
06:20there were lots there to take your place.
06:24They had the most terrible conditions of any plant
06:26in the Ford and Bruce plant
06:29because even if you were in the toilet
06:30and you had diarrhea,
06:33they'd go in there.
06:34If you were in there,
06:35he'd grab you off the toilet
06:36and throw you out of the toilet.
06:37It didn't matter what the situation was.
06:41That's the way the servicemen treated the people there.
06:45You woke up with a sense of dread,
06:48but you knew you had to do it
06:50or else you didn't eat, you know.
06:53A young tool and dye maker,
06:55lucky to have a job at the Ford River Rouge plant,
06:59was making a favorable impression on management.
07:02I remember the superintendent came to me one time
07:06and he said,
07:07it makes me feel real good to see a young fellow like you
07:10going to school and working hard.
07:12He said,
07:12someday he said,
07:13you'll be the vice president of this company.
07:15Little did he understand what plans I had in mind.
07:21What Ruther had in mind
07:22was a new society
07:24that he believed would protect the rights of working people.
07:27He was born into a family of socialists.
07:31As a young man,
07:32he would work for a year in a Russian auto plant.
07:35His father, Valentine,
07:37was a dedicated trade union activist
07:40who passed on his values to his sons.
07:43My father was really the prime influence
07:46in terms of our social philosophy.
07:48His socialism was really based upon a Christian philosophy
07:52rather than based upon a Marxist concept.
07:54He knew very little of Marx.
07:56Why shouldn't you produce things for people
07:58rather than for profits?
08:00I mean,
08:00this was the kind of philosophy he had.
08:03In the 1932 presidential election,
08:07Ruther campaigned
08:08for the socialist candidate Norman Thomas.
08:11But Franklin Delano Roosevelt won overwhelmingly.
08:15He had promised the working people a New Deal.
08:19The workers of this country want representation.
08:23They want organization.
08:25They want participation.
08:28They want protection.
08:29They want employment.
08:31And they're going to have those things
08:34through the leadership and the instrumentality
08:37of this new labor movement that you're for.
08:45In 1935,
08:47the Wagner Act guaranteed workers
08:49the right to organize.
08:51John L. Lewis established the CIO,
08:54the Committee for Industrial Organization,
08:57and began to organize the auto workers
09:00for an assault
09:00on the three most powerful automobile companies in America.
09:05He then began to look around
09:07and there weren't any organizers.
09:08The only ones who knew how to organize
09:11were either communists or socialists
09:13or had some other,
09:15you know,
09:15this is the depth of the Depression.
09:18John L. Lewis was certainly no communist.
09:21But in a battle, he said,
09:23you make arrows from any wood.
09:26In 1936,
09:28the fledgling auto union gathered
09:30in South Bend, Indiana,
09:32and began to plan their strategy
09:34for organizing the auto industry.
09:36The United Automobile Workers,
09:38the UAW,
09:40was born.
09:42Homer Mark was elected president.
09:44He was a very glamorous person.
09:46He was the next creature.
09:48Wonderful platform man.
09:50He had made a speech or two
09:51and the workers said,
09:53oh boy, that's our man.
09:55He'll be our president.
09:56There were all kinds of people for the first time.
09:59Walter Rutherford, for instance,
10:00appears for the first time
10:02as a leading person.
10:04He was elected to,
10:05as one of the members
10:06of the executive board
10:07at South Bend.
10:09Walter Rutherford began organizing
10:11in Detroit.
10:12He demonstrated his shrewdness
10:14in the selection of his first target.
10:17Instead of confronting
10:18the giant Ford Motor Company directly,
10:21he would get at Ford
10:22through a vital supplier,
10:24the Kelsey Hayes Wheel Company.
10:27They manufactured Ford's brake shoes.
10:30Without brake shoes,
10:31Ford couldn't make cars.
10:33One of the organizers
10:35inside Kelsey Hayes
10:36was Rutherford's brother.
10:38There was a woman working next to me,
10:41a young mother,
10:42who I think had real worries at home
10:46about whether her children
10:47were being cared for
10:48because, you know,
10:50there were no daycare centers
10:51and maybe she didn't have a mother
10:52around to care for them,
10:54but every time I conversed with her,
10:57her concern was about her children
10:59and she needed the job.
11:01She was under incredible pressure
11:02and she produced
11:04more pieces per hour than I did.
11:06Her fingers were more nimble.
11:08But she only got
11:1121 and a half cents an hour
11:13and I got 32 and a half cents an hour.
11:16I don't know what these
11:17half cents were for,
11:18but women automatically,
11:20even when they did more work
11:22than men at a job,
11:23were automatically paid less.
11:26One day she was under such
11:27terrible pressure she fainted.
11:30Walter said,
11:31we've got to do something dramatic.
11:32Instead of sending pickets
11:34to march outside the plant,
11:36he would use a revolutionary new tactic,
11:39the sit-down strike.
11:40A small group of people
11:41could bring production to a halt
11:43by sitting down inside the plant.
11:45The woman who had fainted
11:47was the perfect person
11:48to spark the strike.
11:50And he turned to this young mother
11:53and he said,
11:54do you think you could faint again,
11:56but on schedule?
11:58And the change of shift came on Tuesday
12:02and she fainted
12:03and I walked over
12:04and pulled the main switch.
12:06And the superintendent
12:07of the whole department
12:09came pounding down,
12:11threatening people,
12:11they're going to be fired
12:12if they didn't go back to work.
12:14And he came over
12:15and Ray's held with me,
12:19said he's going to be fired,
12:20get back to work.
12:21And I said, no,
12:22there's only one person
12:23who can get him back to work.
12:24Who in the hell's that?
12:26I said, his name's Walter Ruther.
12:29And here's his telephone number.
12:30And Walter was sitting,
12:31waiting for the call.
12:33The workers were startled
12:34to discover
12:35that they had actually
12:36stopped production.
12:38They held the plant
12:39for nine days.
12:40Ford threatened
12:41to take its business elsewhere
12:42and Kelsey Hayes
12:44was forced to settle
12:45with the union.
12:52The UAW won the right
12:54to organize
12:55and an increase in pay
12:57for all workers.
12:58And Walter Ruther
13:00won his first victory.
13:02The UAW was on its way.
13:04Its next objective
13:06to organize
13:07the mammoth
13:08General Motors complex
13:09in Flint, Michigan.
13:11GM was now
13:12the largest auto manufacturer
13:13in the world.
13:15We were worried,
13:16how are we going to tackle
13:17Flint
13:18with 42,000 workers,
13:21a city that was really
13:22like almost a feudal domain
13:24of General Motors.
13:26They controlled everything there.
13:28The city of Flint
13:29had passed an ordinance
13:30that only two could meet
13:34when they'd stop
13:35and talk
13:36on the streets
13:37and they'd break it up.
13:38They'd break it up.
13:39If three of you stopped,
13:41they'd be fine
13:42until you break it up.
13:44Threatened by a hostile
13:45police force
13:46and constantly watched
13:48by company spies,
13:49the union organizers
13:51were forced
13:51to hold secret meetings.
13:53Slowly,
13:54they built a corps
13:55of men they could trust.
13:57The break came one day
13:58in December.
14:00Workers at the Fisher Body Plant
14:01punched in as usual,
14:03an ordinary day.
14:04Then,
14:05something happened.
14:11Or rather,
14:12nothing happened.
14:14Nothing moved.
14:17The workers had sat down.
14:20They would not work
14:21and they would stay
14:22in the factory
14:23until General Motors
14:24signed a contract
14:25with their union.
14:28when they tie a can
14:29to a union man.
14:30Sit down,
14:31sit down.
14:32When they give him a sack,
14:33they'll take him back.
14:34Sit down,
14:35sit down.
14:36Sit down,
14:37just take a seat.
14:38Sit down
14:39and rest your feet.
14:40Sit down,
14:41you've got a beat.
14:42Sit down,
14:43sit down.
14:44When they smile
14:45and say,
14:46no raise in pay.
14:47Sit down.
14:47Sit down.
14:48When you want the boss
14:49to come across.
14:50Sit down,
14:51sit down.
14:52Sit down,
14:53just take a seat.
14:54Sit down
14:55and rest your feet.
14:56Sit down,
14:57you've got a beat.
14:58Sit down,
14:59sit down.
15:00On January 4th,
15:021937,
15:04GM went to court
15:05and obtained
15:06an injunction
15:07ordering the strikers
15:08to leave the plant.
15:09It was issued
15:10by a local judge.
15:12The union attorneys
15:14discovered
15:14that he had
15:15a massive holding
15:17of GM's stock,
15:19which he had not
15:19bothered to disclose,
15:21although he was
15:21sitting in judgment
15:22on a GM matter
15:25of interest.
15:27GM tried
15:28a new tactic.
15:29They turned off
15:30the heat in the plant
15:31and blocked food deliveries
15:33to the sit downers.
15:34A committee of strikers
15:36went to the main gate
15:37to see what was going on.
15:39And they go down.
15:41There's not a single
15:42factory policeman
15:44in view.
15:46They had all retreated
15:48to the women's
15:49restroom
15:50because they didn't
15:51want to be present
15:52when the attack
15:53came on the building.
15:55And that was a warning
15:57to us that something
15:58was about to happen.
16:00The men waited.
16:02At dusk,
16:03they saw the Flint police
16:04approaching
16:05in full riot gear.
16:07They attacked
16:08with tear gas
16:09and guns.
16:23The battle lasted
16:25into the morning hours.
16:28Ironically,
16:29GM supplied
16:30the strikers weapons,
16:31slingshots fashioned
16:33from inner tubes.
16:35For ammunition,
16:36the workers used
16:37car door hinges.
16:38each hinge
16:39weighed a pound
16:40and a half.
16:43Fourteen workers
16:44were wounded
16:45by police gunfire.
16:46But the strikers
16:47had prevailed.
16:49The police retreated
16:51to the far shore
16:52of the Flint River.
16:53The battle
16:54of the running bulls
16:55was the strikers'
16:56first victory.
16:57But the strike
16:58was not over.
17:00The next day,
17:01January 12th,
17:03the strikers watched
17:04silently
17:05as the National Guard
17:06rolled into Flint
17:07and set up machine guns.
17:11And they marched
17:12and asked the guards
17:13up about 100 feet
17:15from us.
17:16And the commander
17:18commanded them
17:19to fix bayonets.
17:21So they put the bayonets
17:23and those guns
17:23were loaded, too.
17:24Those rifles were loaded.
17:26I said,
17:27you better tell,
17:28give the command
17:29to take those bayonets
17:30off of those guns there
17:31or we're going to march
17:33in between them
17:33and we're going to
17:35take the bayonets off
17:36and we're going to
17:36shove them right down
17:37their throat.
17:38Now, if you think
17:39we're fooling,
17:40you're crazy as hell.
17:42They just marched
17:43right in between
17:43the National Guard.
17:45These National Guards
17:46were some of them
17:47in their teens.
17:49And it was five degrees
17:51but above zero,
17:52but they were sweating.
17:54And we went back
17:56to the commander
17:56and said,
17:57now,
17:58as far as we're concerned,
17:59this is a peaceful
18:00sit-down strike
18:01and we're here
18:02in support of that strike
18:04and we're going to do
18:05everything necessary
18:06to see that they win
18:07the strike.
18:08We don't care
18:09if the National Guards
18:09or who it is.
18:11So he gave the order
18:13to take the bayonets
18:14off the rifles
18:15and stand at ease
18:16and he told the fellas
18:17going back
18:18in the picket line.
18:20As the sit-down
18:21continued in Flint,
18:22Walter Ruther
18:23began calling
18:24support strikes
18:25at GM plants
18:26in Detroit.
18:28Cadillac
18:29and Fleetwood
18:30sat down.
18:31In Oakland, California,
18:33Atlanta, Georgia,
18:34Kansas City, Missouri,
18:36Cleveland, Ohio
18:37and Anderson, Indiana,
18:39strikes paralyzed
18:40the General Motors
18:41operations nationwide.
18:43But GM refused
18:45to yield.
18:47As the days go by,
18:49you wonder, you know,
18:50when the company
18:51is going to start bending.
18:53and isn't the company
18:54going to face the reality
18:55they're going to have
18:56to recognize us.
18:58And you have all
18:58this confidence
18:59and as days go on,
19:01you wonder, you know,
19:01you wonder how it's
19:02going to end.
19:03Is this company
19:03just going to hold
19:04out forever?
19:17The the
19:17the
19:17the
19:17the
19:33The strike was in its 29th day, and the men in the plant were beginning to feel the strain
19:40of separation from family and friends.
19:46We never expected to have a strike that long.
19:48We thought, you know, my God, how are we going to keep them in?
19:53But here, this was on for over a month, so we said something has to be done to add spirit
19:59to the strike and give it a lift.
20:04The strike leaders devised a secret plan to deliver a crippling blow to the heart of
20:10the General Motors operation.
20:12Their target was a vital and heavily guarded building, GM engine plant number four.
20:19To draw the guards away from the engine plant, they staged a mock strike at plant number nine.
20:25Even the men in plant nine thought that this was a real strike.
20:29Union leaders hoped that they would fight just long enough for the UAW to take control
20:35of the engine plant.
20:37It was announced that we were going in front of Chevy nine.
20:41And all the women, it was a tremendous picket line, you know, were standing there right in
20:46front and we had clubs, you know.
20:49Just for the sake of having clubs, we didn't know what we were going to use for.
20:54And suddenly, one of the strikers in Chevy nine broke the window and he yelled out, the
21:02guards are choking us.
21:04And that was gas.
21:07All of us dashed and broke all the windows possible.
21:20The battle in plant nine raged for 45 minutes and many inside were severely beaten.
21:28But the plan worked.
21:29The engine plant, left unguarded, was seized.
21:35How could anybody absolutely just fall for something like that?
21:41All right.
21:41They didn't know what was going to happen.
21:43But to take the 200 police that they had in Chevy four and to take them out and just,
21:49you know, why didn't they leave 200 here and 200 in another place, you know?
21:53Well, they didn't.
21:55They absolutely were stupid.
22:06When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run, there can be no power greater
22:12any...
22:13The union had forced the largest automaker in the world to the bargaining table.
22:18On February 11, 1937, General Motors and the UAW signed a single page contract.
22:27GM was the first of the big three to recognize the union.
22:44You know, you were there for over a month, never sleeping, never eating, never knowing what
22:51was going to happen the next day, you know?
22:53You were just sort of as if you were in a dream, really.
22:57And then suddenly it happened, you know?
23:00They came out.
23:01You saw them coming out, you know?
23:04It was just wonderful.
23:08Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong.
23:14A hundred years from now, the effect of what we did in 37 will still be going on.
23:23I'm sure of that, because we were the forerunners of the civil rights, equal rights, and we went
23:31down for the rights of our sisters to belong to the union and join it and work with us.
23:46Labor's sit-down hysteria spreads.
23:48At the height of the strike that closed four of Detroit's leading hotels for two days, armed police block the
23:53doors.
23:542,500 guests have had to leave.
23:56Waitresses, cooks, and bellhops refuse to work, but find time for play.
24:03Mrs. Martin Johnson, crippled widow of the late explorer, is one of the guests compelled to move out.
24:08In the arms of an obliging cop, Mrs. Johnson takes her troubles quite cheerfully.
24:13Ethel Chate, famous radio singer, has just arrived.
24:16The law says she shall not pass, so Ethel decides on a sit-down of her own.
24:22After the sit-down strike, people organized themselves.
24:26They came by literally the tens of thousands, and all kinds of people.
24:34They were all joining the CIO.
24:37They weren't joining the UAW or this, that, and the other union.
24:40They were joining the CIO.
24:41It was a crusade.
24:48Everybody sat down.
24:51In Detroit, all nine Chrysler factories sat down, and Chrysler signed within a month.
24:58The second of the big auto companies had recognized the union.
25:02In one year's time, the membership of the UAW had grown to a quarter of a million strong,
25:08and a local business weekly declared, the revolution is here.
25:14The UAW was finally ready to face the last of the big three.
25:19The company that started it all, Ford.
25:22Ford had developed one of the largest and most powerful private security forces in the world.
25:28It was headed by Harry Bennett.
25:31An ex-Navy boxer, Bennett liked to brag to Henry Ford about his underworld connections.
25:37Convicts were paroled to the Ford Motor Company for rehabilitation under Bennett's supervision.
25:43They formed the core of the private army that protected Fortress Ford.
25:49On May 26, 1937, Walter Ruther obtained a permit to hand out leaflets at the Ford overpass during a shift
25:57change.
25:58He and another UAW official, Richard Frankenstein, went to the Rouge plant.
26:03Bennett's goons stood by, ready to attack.
26:08The printer was late in delivering the handbill.
26:12So the reporters were apprehensive and impatient because they needed some pictures for their deadline edition.
26:25So they talked Walter and Frankenstein into going up on the overpass and pretend they were to pretend like they
26:33were handing out handbills.
26:34In the meantime, the company's watching every move that's going on.
26:37They're watching from the plant.
27:02You know, they got their picture. They really did. That's a famous picture around the world.
27:07Only one roll of film survived, but it was enough.
27:11Time magazine ran an account of the attack.
27:14For the first time, the country became aware of the viciousness of Ford's private army.
27:20Still, Ford would manage to fend off the UAW for another three years, and no one was ever prosecuted for
27:28the attack.
27:29Oh, that picture, the way it was used, you know, to Walter's advantage, they forgot about Frankenstein, who was leading
27:37the fight.
27:40This projected Walter Ruther eventually into the presidency of the UAW.
27:45Ruther's presidency was still a long way off. The UAW now had 300,000 members, but a power struggle for
27:54control of the Union suddenly threatened to destroy it.
27:59The president of the UAW, Homer Martin, reacting to real and imagined threats to his leadership, began to behave in
28:07a most erratic way.
28:09He was a basket case. There was a drugstore under the Hoffman building. They had the UAW headquarters.
28:15And he'd get up on the stools there preaching the gospel.
28:19And he'd get right up on top of the counter, and he's walking up and down the counter.
28:23They were eating sodas and things like that, and having a snack, and he's preaching the gospel to them.
28:30Opposition to Martin grew until he was finally expelled. He formed a rival union, taking his followers with him.
28:38There were two splits. There was the split between Martin and the rest.
28:43And then after that split, there was a secondary split between the so-called right and left, and what became
28:50the UAW CIO.
28:51So there isn't any question that the communist group was a main feature within the left group.
29:01Now, they weren't all communists by any means. Probably 90% were not.
29:06Martin's departure set the stage for a power struggle within the Union.
29:10His former deputy, Richard Frankenstein, tried to take advantage of the leadership vacuum by forging an alliance with the left.
29:19So Frankenstein got up in front of that convention and said,
29:23Mr. Chairman, I'm making a deal, and it'll take me ten minutes to finish it.
29:28Right in front of her. And they recessed the convention.
29:32And Frankenstein and all the top commies gathered in the back of the hall, and I went up, and I
29:39said,
29:39What are you bastards doing?
29:42Climestone said to me in front of all these guys,
29:45If the day comes when the party's interests require us to destroy the UAW, we will destroy the UAW.
29:53And I said, Brother, count me on the other side of every fight, and I'm going to stop until we
29:58drive you bastards out of this union.
30:01Ruther's battle with the left was suddenly overshadowed when Homer Martin went to General Motors claiming that he represented the
30:08autoworkers.
30:10GM, taking advantage of the rivalry between Martin and the UAW, refused to talk to either of them.
30:17Everything the union had fought for was about to be lost.
30:22Ruther, determined to force GM's hand, called a strike.
30:26The sit-down strike was declared illegal early in 1939, but Ruther was ready with a new tactic.
30:35He called out only the tool and die makers, just as GM was retooling for the new 1940 models.
30:43With these skilled workers on strike, GM could make cars.
30:47We shall not, we shall not be moved.
30:49Meanwhile, all the other workers remained on the payroll.
30:54Time magazine described Ruther's strategy as amputating one finger at a time to cripple a hand.
31:01We shall not be moved.
31:01The union is behind us.
31:04We shall not be moved just like the tree that's standing by the water.
31:10We shall not be moved.
31:12When strike breakers attacked the picket line, Ruther responded with the union's own show of force.
31:19Make way, make way.
31:25The flying squadron's riding fine.
31:28Give power and strength to the picket line.
31:30We're going to make conduits inside.
31:32Make way, the flying squad.
31:36The flying squadron was sort of a defense mechanism.
31:40And they're sort of the shock troops.
31:42You responded wherever there's difficulty.
31:46In fact, every local union in those days had a flying squadron.
31:49It was a show of force and a show of support.
32:00Faced with the prospect of no new cars in 1940, GM finally gave in.
32:07Ruther had scored a double victory, recognition of the UAW and the defeat of Martin's rival union.
32:14Nine days later, Martin left the labor movement and allied himself with the Ford Motor Company.
32:22Walter Ruther had saved the UAW.
32:25But the union's left wing was concerned about his soaring popularity.
32:30His battle with the left was suddenly helped by surprising news from Europe.
32:37In August of 1939, Joseph Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler.
32:46Poland would be divided between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
32:52The invasion came in September.
32:56Reaction in the United States was devastating.
32:59Polish Americans, including the large number of them in the UAW, were outraged.
33:06Communism, by allying itself with fascism, lost favor with most leftists in America.
33:12The net result within the UAW was a migration toward the political center of the union.
33:19Something that Walter Ruther was able to take full advantage of.
33:23Well, I think by then he had sensed the pulse of this country.
33:29And the general pulse of this country was that anything red was no good, and anything no good was communist.
33:39And it was very just sort of red baiting, red dashing, or what you're going to call bashing.
33:47And so the easiest way to take care of a political enemy, especially in a worker's atmosphere, was to paint
33:54him.
33:54Paint him with a red brush.
33:56Let me be honest.
33:57On our side, in local elections or other things, sometimes there was red baiting, which was unjustified.
34:04Because if you could nail somebody as a communist, the chances were you could beat him.
34:10Political infighting had diverted the union leaders from their main objective, to organize the last holdout among the big three.
34:19To bring into the union the more than 90,000 workers at the giant River Rouge Ford plant.
34:25Don't forget that one of the main reasons that they had to organize Ford is because General Motors and Chrysler
34:30told them,
34:30if you don't organize Ford, don't sit back at the table to us to get a contract.
34:33Because this man will sell cars cheap and bust us while we're trying to live up to your standards.
34:40So they had to come in and organize.
34:42The attempt to organize Ford would lead to a shocking racial incident.
34:49Ford had hired more blacks than any other automaker,
34:52and had gained their loyalty by giving money to black causes and by being seen with black heroes.
35:00He knew that one of the popular men in the country, one of the beloved men, was Dr. George Washington
35:07Carver.
35:09And every year, he'd bring George Washington Carver up,
35:12and the newspapers would talk about how these two geniuses would walk through the gardens,
35:19and they would talk about science.
35:22That went in favor with the churches, it went in favor with the black leaders.
35:27But all the time, under all of this, the average black who worked, worked in the foundry,
35:34and they were dying at the age of 45 and 50 of tuberculosis, pneumonia, and what have you.
35:43What a price to pay so that this could be seen.
35:50Despite their working conditions, the blacks remained loyal to Ford.
35:55At least at Ford, they had jobs.
35:58But black union organizers set out to convince them that they would benefit by joining the union.
36:04We organized a huge commedia, and they hit the streets, and they went into bars, and they went into homes,
36:14which was one of the biggest moves of blacks to counteract a situation and call for a unity with whites
36:26that I've ever seen.
36:27And it won.
36:28Harry Bennett underestimated the strength of an integrated union.
36:33On April 1, 1941, he fired eight union organizers.
36:39And to his astonishment, 1,500 men stopped working.
36:43The protests spread.
36:45Suddenly, the River Rouge plant was paralyzed.
36:48Within hours, it was surrounded by a barricade of cars and a picket line of 10,000 workers.
36:55Most of the black workers had walked out with the union, but some, recently hired by Bennett, were still inside
37:02the plant.
37:04The rest of the blacks who were in the plant were Ford workers who didn't come out because they were
37:11afraid to come out.
37:12And they weren't strikebreakers.
37:14They were just a bunch of scared people who didn't know what would happen to them if they hit that
37:21picket line.
37:22Bennett now ordered the black workers to attack the picket line.
37:41Bennett's tactic backfired.
37:43The black leaders in Detroit denounced him.
37:46The urban league withdrew its support of Ford, and the NAACP came out in support of the UAW.
37:54A race riot had been averted.
37:58Guaranteed safety, the blacks gradually came out and joined the union.
38:05Bennett's attempt to drive a wedge between the blacks and whites had failed,
38:09and Henry Ford was forced, finally, to deal with the UAW.
38:16The ironic part, the minute that he made a decision to let them organize, he gave them the best contract
38:23that everybody had.
38:24He just went the opposite way.
38:27He gave them everything they wanted.
38:29He said, no argument at all, just go ahead and organize whatever you want you got.
38:34We're gonna roll, we're gonna roll, we're gonna roll the union on.
38:41In just five years, the UAW had organized the big three auto companies.
38:48It was April 1941, and the UAW looked forward to a new era for the working man.
38:54We're gonna roll right over him.
38:56If the scab is in the way, we're gonna roll right over him.
39:00We're gonna roll the union on.
39:03We're gonna roll, we're gonna roll, we're gonna roll the union on.
39:10We're gonna roll, we're gonna roll, we're gonna roll the union on.
39:30The UAW members were now eager to enjoy the benefits they had won.
39:36But by the spring of 1941, Europe was at war.
39:41Many of the workers were isolationists and wanted no part of it.
39:45There was a sharp division in our country.
39:48There were the American firsters who were really fascist,
39:51who were promoting the point of view, let's keep America out of war, the Yanks are not coming.
39:59And the communists in those days, there was a pact between Hitler and Stalin.
40:03And the communists were preaching the same line.
40:07The Yanks are not coming, it's an imperialistic bloodbath.
40:11Come summer of 1941, of course, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union,
40:17overnight, the Communist Party line changed, became 2000 pro-war effort.
40:24Walter Ruther, on the other hand, recognized the danger of Hitler early on.
40:29And he was for aid to Britain, and he was for assisting the Allies.
40:36Ruther had a radical idea.
40:39Instead of building an aircraft factory from scratch,
40:42he argued that the auto industry could quickly convert to war production,
40:47and promised that the auto workers could turn out 500 planes a day.
40:53And I said, R.J., I got an idea I think is exciting.
40:57You're the President of the Union.
40:59And I think it would be fine if you submitted this to President Roosevelt as the President of our Union.
41:07Tommy said, Tommy said,
41:09Well, you, he said, you're not going to make a horse's ass out of me.
41:13I said, no, R.J., this is, I'm serious, this is a good, this is a sound idea.
41:19Why, he says, you're full of crap, he said.
41:22And nearly every single manufacturer said he's dreaming.
41:27Of course, one of the reasons for it is, first of all, they didn't in fact think he was dreaming.
41:32Secondly, they really didn't want to discontinue making automobiles,
41:36which were much more profitable than war profits.
41:40Yeah, he was ridiculed, but then again, history proved that he was right.
41:57The UAW supported the war.
42:00Every worker had a son or a husband or a brother fighting somewhere.
42:05The interests of the autoworkers had to be protected while they were overseas.
42:21When it became apparent that the Allies would win the war, the UAW turned to post-war concerns.
42:30Wartime wage controls, coupled with rampant inflation, had weakened the buying power of the American worker.
42:39During the war, the Congress appropriated $400 billion for battleships and bombers to destroy homes and to destroy life.
42:50But when we call upon the Congress to appropriate money to help people, they don't appropriate billions and billions.
42:57They get out the congressional eyedropper and give us a couple of drops.
43:01We believe that a country that can spend $400 billion to destroy life can afford to spend the same amount
43:08of money to make life better.
43:11The UAW was now the largest union in the United States, with more than a million members.
43:17Walter Ruther intended to use its strength to improve the quality of life for all Americans.
43:24He called the first post-war strike against General Motors, and he made a remarkable proposal.
43:31He demanded that GM raise workers' wages by 30% without raising the price of cars.
43:39The labor movement, as a matter of sound economics and as a matter of social responsibility,
43:47had to, in effect, insist that its wage increases come out of that greater productivity and not out of the
43:54pockets of the American consumers through higher prices.
43:57And it's for these reasons that I raise the question of wage increases without price increases,
44:04because only wage increases in that framework are socially responsible.
44:11A government commission found that General Motors could well afford to raise wages without raising auto prices, but GM refused.
44:21On November 21st, 1945, 200,000 auto workers went out on strike.
44:27On the line, on the line, on the picket, on the picket line,
44:34We'll win our fight, our fight for the right, on the picket, on the picket line.
44:40On the line, on the line, on the picket, on the picket line.
44:46Ruther held out for 113 days.
44:49On the picket, on the picket line.
44:52Finally, he was forced to accept GM's offer of a wage increase that made no mention of prices.
44:58But his effort had touched something in the hearts of the rank-and-file members of his union.
45:04That sunk in to me, you know, because it's not talking about wage increases.
45:10It's not talking about seniority, you know, or promotional rights or anything like that.
45:16It's putting the rights of the people and the interests of the people there in front of you.
45:25So it's a movement.
45:27As Phil Murray used to say, this is not just a union, it's a movement.
45:33In 1946, Walter Ruther won the presidency of the UAW by a narrow margin.
45:40And the left wing of the union still controlled the executive board.
45:44He's elected with a minority of the board.
45:48And the majority, rather than finding a common ground on which they both could work.
45:56After all, the union was more important than they were.
45:59They seemed to have forgotten it.
46:02And instead of trying to find a common ground, they went after him.
46:08I think they lost a lot of support as a consequence of the vicious tone of the material that was
46:19circulated against Walter.
46:30The blow that finally defeated the left wing of the union came not from the Ruther faction, but from the
46:35United States Congress.
46:42Washington is under a virtual state of siege during the closing hours of the Taft-Hartley labor bill fight,
46:48as forces of labor stage last-minute demonstrations to defeat the measure.
46:53President Truman, after long deliberation, gives his reasons for vetoing the measure.
46:58I would have signed a bill with some doubtful features if, taken as a whole, it had been a good
47:05bill.
47:05But the Taft-Hartley bill is a shocking piece of legislation.
47:12The Taft-Hartley law allowed any state to outlaw the union shop, making it virtually impossible to unionize in the
47:21South.
47:22It prohibited unions from making political contributions in national elections.
47:27It violated basic civil liberties.
47:30No communist could hold a union office.
47:34By forcing communists out of the union, it broadened Ruther's base of support,
47:40but by imposing limitations on what a union could fight for,
47:44it ended Ruther's dream of an unbounded working class.
47:49If Ruther couldn't change society, he would at least continue to do all he could to improve the lives of
47:56the autoworkers.
47:57Over the next 23 years, he negotiated pensions, health care, cost of living increases.
48:04The standard of living for the autoworkers rose to a level they had only dreamed of in 1937.
48:12Well, sometimes I wonder how far the union would ever have gotten if it hadn't been for Walter Ruther.
48:19I just don't think that we had the leadership anywhere else that would have brought us as far as he
48:35did,
48:35and as effectively and as quickly as he did.
48:40It's a number of things.
48:41It's just a natural sense that some people have, a leadership sense that some people have and others don't.
48:52There's just something that's inside of a person that comes out at the right time that I just can't explain.
49:09My main point is that the labor movement is about that problem that we face tomorrow morning.
49:17The guy has every right to say, dammit, my union has to do something about that problem I've got.
49:23I got it right now, today, not tomorrow, right now, and I expect my union to do something.
49:29And I think you've got to say to him, you're right, brother, we're going to do something about that.
49:34But to make that the sole purpose of the labor movement is to miss the main target.
49:44The labor movement is about changing society.
49:53What good is a dollar an hour more in wages if your neighborhood's burning down?
49:58What good is another week's vacation if the lake you used to go to where you got a cottage is
50:03polluted, you can't swim in it, the kids can't play in it.
50:06And what good is another hundred dollar pension if the world goes up in atomic smoke in a war?
50:17I mean, don't you see that these immediate things, you can't realize them, they have no value excepting in the
50:24context of a society in a world in which these values can be given meaning.
50:31And so I don't think you have to be noble to look at it, I think that's a pretty practical
50:35look at the thing.
50:37I may be motivated because I just have to think that these values are important and I'm willing to fight
50:43for them and I'm willing to die for them because I believe in them.
50:50I've had what I think is the richest self-fulfilling kind of experience that a human may have.
51:01I have been living what I believe.
51:05I mean, can you ask for more than that?
51:16On May 9th, 1970, Walter Ruther and his wife May were killed in a plane crash.
51:22In Detroit, flags were flown at half-staff on city buildings and at the headquarters of General Motors, Chrysler and
51:30Ford.
51:32In auto plants across the country, the assembly line stopped for three minutes while workers paid their respects.
52:15We observe here before costs.
52:16There are so many parts that are nearby in Washington state.
52:17Well, if you don't know that you're killed its own islanders,
52:21And you will see about this 싶
52:27It is with gratitude.
52:28Visit Access to Access to Access to Access to Information and Church
52:28Instead, Fly to Mission toひ do with the Mountain
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