Which Side Are You On: Unions in American History

Ford security men attack labor organizers, 1937. (Photo James Kilpatrick, Detroit News)

Labor unions in the United States began as craft guilds, organizations of workers, like shoemakers or tailors, who could leverage particular skills to bargain for better pay and conditions. In the 1890s, Eugene Debs realized his idea of “one big union,” which included all workers from one industry — in his case railroads, then the largest employers in the nation — and achieved power through numbers.

The failure of the Pullman Strike of 1894 crushed Debs’s hopes. The federal government sided with the companies, declared the strike illegal, and sent in army troops. Debs, frustrated by the strong-arm tactics, went into politics. He ran for president four times as a Socialist.

The advent of a lasting all-inclusive union would have to wait until the 1930s, when New Deal labor laws protected workers’ right to organize. The United Auto Workers, which included all those who made cars no matter what their jobs, was one of the earliest industrial unions.

The most influential figure in the history of the UAW was Walter Reuther. Originally from West Virginia, Reuther, the son of German immigrants, was a skilled mechanic. He went to work in the auto industry in the 1920s. In 1935, he helped organize a sit-down strike over ever-increasing assembly line speeds. The tactic prevented the company from sending in replacements to take employees’ jobs.

The United Auto Workers, formed that same year, began a forty-four-day sit-down strike of its own against General Motors in 1936, closing plants in Flint, Michigan. The workers endured tear gas and battles with the police and National Guardsmen before finally winning recognition in February 1937.

National Guard machine gunners, Flint GM plant, 1936.

The Ford Motor Company continued to oppose the union and repeatedly violated the National Labor Relations Act by firing workers suspected of union membership. In 1937, Reuther and other union organizers tried to hand out leaflets at Ford’s River Rouge factory in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford security men attacked them, broke the back of one man, and threw Reuther down two flights of stairs in what became known as the “Battle of the Overpass.” Photos of the violence sapped public sympathy for Ford. The company finally signed a contract with the UAW in 1941.

UAW organizers Walter Reuther (right) and Richard Frankensteen, 1937.

Reuther was elected president of the union in 1946. In 1948, a would-be assassin fired a shotgun through Reuther’s kitchen window, hitting him in the back. Although he lost the use of his right arm, he survived and remained head of the union for twenty-five years.

Like Eugene Debs, Walter Reuther was drawn to issues of social democracy. He saw the labor struggle as the core of a movement for human solidarity. The UAW pushed for health care and a secure retirement plan for their members in addition to higher pay.

Reuther was noted for accomplishments beyond the union. He originated the idea of the Peace Corps and was an avid environmentalist who helped to get Earth Day going. He supported civil rights “as matter of simple justice,” and stood alongside Martin Luther King at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King said of him, “More than anyone else in America, you stand out as the shining symbol of democratic trade unionism.”

Walter Reuther

There are echoes of the UAW’s history running through the 2023 strike. During World War II, union members had built the armaments that helped America to secure victory. General Motors, though, resisted their request for a 30 percent pay increase in 1945 to make up for postwar inflation. Again the union staged a strike, winning cost-of-living adjustments.

In more recent times, UAW members made concessions during the 2008 financial crisis, taking what amounted to a 30 percent pay cut when General Motors teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. The expectation was that when the company returned to profitability, workers’ sacrifices would be made good. Instead, the company plowed billions of dollars into stock buy-backs for the benefit of shareholders and executives.

During the 1970s, companies like Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda located their U.S. operations in the South, taking advantage of “right to work” laws and a pervasive anti-union climate that meant lower pay and fewer workplace regulations. Today Tesla, BMW and other companies have followed suit, gaining an advantage over unionized rivals.

Recently, Republican South Carolina senator Tim Scott, echoing Ronald Reagan, voiced the sentiments of some when he said, “You strike, you're fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely.” To fire an employee for union activity is a crime under federal law.

Companies have tried to undermine unions by creating tiers of wages, with newly hired employees making less than those who have been on the job longer. Current UAW president Shawn Fain has declared: “Two-tier wages have no place in this union.”

The watchword of the UAW has always been “solidarity” — among workers, among citizens. In April 1970, Walter Reuther said, “We in the UAW . . . have learned some very simple, fundamental truths: that you cannot solve a human problem by pitting one human being against another human being.”

Reuther was killed in a plane crash a month later. The struggle for solidarity goes on.

Read about the tumultuous and consequential Pullman Strike in my book: The Edge of Anarchy: The Railroad Barons, the Gilded Age, and the Greatest Labor Uprising in America. OCTOBER ONLY ebook for only three bucks! Click the image: