In the 1930's US car workers fought to unionise their work places and control their conditions. Today across China the worlds largest working class repeat the struggle.
Faced with anti union bosses US car workers of the 1930's had to develop new and different tactics in the fight for better pay, conditions and union recognition. The fledgling United Auto Workers (UAW) organised sit down strikes (occupying their factories) and faced with company heavy's they formed workers auxilary's which defended the picket lines and the sit down strikes. In Flint Michigan socialist women in the UAW formed a women's auxilary to defend the sit in.
As one by one the US car companies under pressure from the workers allowed union organisation one company held out, the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford friend to fascists had his own secret police, the "Servicemen."
The battle to unionise Ford was long and bitter. In 1937 at "Battle of the Overpass" the Ford company sent the "Servicemen" to attack UAW organisers beating leading organisers, Walter Reuther (then a socialist, and future leader of the UAW), Richard Frankensteen (long time member of US Communist Party)and beating Richard Merriweather so badly his back was broken. Also badly beaten were ordinary working women helping with the organising campaign all while the local police stood by hands in their pockets.
However the Ford workers continued to fight and organise and in 1941 after a militant sit down strike they were able to secure the best contract in the Detroit motor industry. By the time of Pearl Harbor the majority of the US motor industry was unionised. This remarkable organisation drive was led by socialist and communists in the teeth of the "Great Depression."
Today across China workers in the new car plants are organising to unionise their working conditions. They've never heard of Walter Reuther, or Genora (Johnson) Dollinger (organiser of the Flint Women's Auxiliary) but they're following in the footsteps of militant US car workers of the 1930's, facing the same sort of company goons, "yellow unions" (bosses or company organised unions) and brutal police.
Workers Liberty's take on the recent Honda Strike and the Foxconn suicides:
Genora (Johnson) Dollinger describes her part in the Flint sitdown strike:
The Guardian reports on the Chinese strike wave of 2010:
