Flint Sit-Down Strike Case Study

Flint Michigan Sit-down Strike Throughout history the exploiting of people through labor has been a major problem between those who own the means of production and the ones who work those means. It is through grievances of the workers that they begin to take action against those injustices being conducted through the abusing of labor for greater capital gains. In the case of the Flint Sit-down strike the automotive workers of General Motors (GM) were the victims of the exploiting of labor. After the great depression was over in the United States, where many workers were willing to work for less in a job market where employment was scarce, employers took advantage of the manual labor since personnel were easy to replace. In the case of these

Since the working conditions were emplaced for the job market of the great depression as the economy began to boom workers became less tolerant of being taken advantage in their work labor. As many past events of protests it is through grievances that ignites a plan of action in order to create a change. Although when someone wants to create a change it is through support that they can be more effective. In the book “The Politics of Protest” David S. Meyer explains “organizations can provide the infrastructure of a movement when a new set of claims emerges strongly, offering not only resources but also connections to government” (2014). This shows how organizing and creating an organization of collective action can be an effective tactic in order to create a change. Also how they can create

“Several early strikes in 1936 prepared the UAW for its next challenge… For 44 days during the winter of 1937, rank-and-file members in General Mortars factories in Flint stopped production, sat down, and refused to move until GM recognized the union” (Dowgiewicz 2010). This shows how although workers could have just walked out and stopped their production which had happened in prior strikes they were unsuccessful and did not get recognized. In this situation after having chosen different methods of getting noticed they had to change their tactic to a sit-down strike. In this tactic since many of the workers were easily replaceable and production can continue in the workspace by the worker occupying that space made it difficult for anyone to replace them. While this strike was taking place “The Global Nonviolent Action Database” reported, “In early February, the majority of GM’s 200,000 workers were on strike and production of cars had diminished to 1,500 per week, from 53,000 in mid-December” (Sigmond 2011). This shows how the success in order to gain the attention of GM by lowering their production was being achieved. Also the type of impact that these employees are creating and how they are needed in order for the success of