CONTENTS - ouroboros ponderosa

, IS I INII )NJ/,\ III IN IN AMI IW \
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The 11rl:" Sl" '('" ,-, 0 " ( '
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II I l lists WIIIIIIl tile ('It> dIll'S
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not alter the picture , and n(lt a ' I' cw , , HISIIlCSS leaders , tim I crslood the allti
I.H11llHl IlIStS and oH . - I ·r '. .
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radical character of the new ' Ofoamzatlon For c · I "
, xamp e, when the ClO
was organized and the left-led United " ' Eleetncal Workers hegan to
organize GE, Gerard Swope re'oi d
NRA architect, informed one f i G ;:
d Roald Radosh;, Swope, Ihe
e _ presIdents that If you can't
get along with these fellows ' and . se ' ttl e matters, there's something wrong
with you " The UAW a d y :vope as "well-led, the discipline
good." Radosh " in fact ':CrU dlse' s th al It was the more p 0 l't' 1 Ica 11 y radical
.
UnIons that led the integration of labor Illto ' thc corporate structure."
Worker action continued to d eve ] op howcvcr
' th I '
of unions Ihroughout 1 9 ' III e re atlve absence
35 and 1936 , N ew forms 01 struggle and
organization were adopted which de ep I y f' fIg htened
bus mess, government,
often employing radical t ctics P ependent unions sprang up,
- ;
I
and union superiors alike Em I
" ged the tradllIonal nghts of
management to der Ille t h e nature of the Job The " s 'k' IPPY, " lor c Instance,
·
was a very effective form of defia n e t h" at was spJlltaneously adopted by
the man on the assembly Ii W
.
r ers mIght qUIetly agree to skip every
fifth fender or leave untig ne
, every sixth bolt to protest intolerable
job conditions. Rapidly th e lme
would come to a h' lt
. .
.
a m complete
contUSIon, with enraged but hel p Iess ' . f oremen at a loss to single out the
participants.
The most threatening device and the
one to become very widely
utilized was, of course the sitdo wn s t 'k n , e. LIke the skippy it more often
than not was employed by the "
.
uc ure an control As Lo UlS Ad amlC . put it
so we I I: "Most workers distrust if t nsClouSly, then unconsciously­
union officials and strike leaders a
ommlttees, even when they have
elected them thcmselves The beau f the sItdown or stay-in is that
worker suspicion of u nion str
unO
rgan
there are no leaders or fficials to i
t
d lzed, " in fact, the sitdown reflects
. '
S uch standard proeedure as strike san :us here can be no sell-out.
t T
on IS hopelessly obsolete when
.
workers drop their tools stop th elr a mes, and sit down beside them,
The initiative conduct" and
t
, con ro come directly from the men
involved.'"
rubber factories of Akron , Bet w
1 9 3 me an establIshed tactic in the
in Akron, developed Iar o ely be en
and 1
936 It became a tradition
h
The sitdown seems to have first bee
speed-up.
ause t e umon had tarled to resist the
The speed-up appears to have been th e e h' Ie f smgle ' cause of discontent
throughout mass production. A 1934 . study
01 the auto mdustry revealed
that the grievance "mentioned m ost f requently ... and upper-most in the
.
Illilids oj Ih()Sl' will) tl'slifil-d is the specd tip." Tac1ics like lile sittinwll
were take II up when wor"'-rs fell they had to challenge the employer's
absolute rihl to control the work process, in the absence of union
interest in '111l."tioning management prerogatives. The challenge to the
speed-up came not only out of the sheer fatigue felt over the absolute
rate of production, then, but also because the production worker was not
free to set the pace of his work and to determine tbe manner in which
it was to be performed. In the factories was joined the battle over who
was to control the workers' life on the job. This was the real issue; as
Mary Vorse put it, "the auto workers' discontent came in about equal
parts from the speed-up and the absolute autocracy of the industry."
The struggle was waged not only by the auto workers, of course, but
it was GM workers who waged one of the most important fights, And the
role of the union as conservator of existing relationships, rather than as
challenger of them, may be clearly seen in the context of the great GM
sitdown strike.
Actually the sit down movement that was beginning to spread rapidly
by latc 1936 was anything but a part of ClO tactics. It "sprang spontane­
ously from an angered maSS of workers, All American labor leaders
would have been shocked, scared, and instinctively opposed to the
initiation or approval of this disorderly revolutionary upheaval,"
according to Saul Alinsky.
The 44-day GM sitdown began on December 28, 1936, when some
7,000 at Cleveland's Fisher plant struck , Two days later workers in Fisher
Body No, 2 in Flint sat down and the spontaneous movement quickly
spread throughout the GM system, bringing it to a standstill,
The former Harvard economist J . Raymond Walsh stated flatly that the
CIa had certainly not called the strike: "The cia high eommand ... tried
in vain to prevent the strike." As Wellington Roe wrote: "To the public,
at least, Lewis was its originator. Actually Lewis had n O more to do with
the sitdown strike than somc native of Patagonia." Althougb, as James
Wecbsler, Lewis' biographer, recorded, "he gave a superb imitation of a
man who bad worked everything out in advance."
Again, it was the lack of control over the assembly line that produced
the sitdown among auto workers, Henry Kraus's book on the GM strike
expressed it this way: "It waS the speed-up that organized Flint, as it was
the one element in the life of all the workers that found a common basis
of resentment."
Though union officialdom feared the undisciplined sitdown movement,
Lewis and the CIa realized that they must move fast if they hoped to
keep up with and establish control over it. Hence Lewis declared on
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