FDR, New Deals, and the Limits of Power 221ment in CIO-UAW success.
Ultimately, events in Flint turned violent. Company police used tear gas
to try to dislodge the strikers and shot into the plant. But the strikers
retaliated with everything at their disposal. Given the frigid January tem-
peratures, they shot water hoses as the police and, as one striker described
it, “bring up those hoses... stones, bottles, bricks, hinges, bolts. Flying
through the air, not much for defense but that’s all we have. Some of our
men are down. Lousy, shooting a man when he has no gun.” After 44 days,
with production of automobiles stopped and the federal and state govern-
ment unwilling to break the strike, GM began to negotiate with UAW offi-
cials. In mid-February, GM gave up, recognizing the union and giving work-
ers a 5 percent raise and, among other things, the right to speak to each
other in the lunchroom. The Wagner Act might have established the right
to unionize, but the freezing workers with water hoses and bolts trained at
the police, along with the shutdown in business, actually led to UAW suc-
cess. The government’s main contribution was doing nothing, but within
the context of the historical struggle between Capital and Labor, that
amounted to a significant advantage for the union. UAW membership
soared, from 166,000 to over 400,000 by October and nearly 500 sit-down
strikes took place in 1937.
Just days after the Flint victory, one of the more unusual, and unknown,
strikes took place when over 4000 Polish-speaking women working at 6 cigar
factories in Detroit held a sit-in strike for over 2 months. Among other issues,
their wages had been cut, some by 50 percent, during the depression, and their
factories were filled with toxic tobacco dust. When the first workers decided
to strike, they did not even have a union, having been rejected for membership
by the AFL. The women began consulting with the UAW and CIO, however,
and local politicians and plant owners finally responded, ordering a brutal
crackdown in which they grabbed and twisted women’s arms, pulled their hair
and clothing off, and even threw a pregnant supporter off her porch. The
president of the UAW threatened a general strike unless the violence ended
and the women’s union was recognized and a rally in defense of the cigar-
makers drew over 200,000 supporters and the UAW’s representative Victor
Reuther promised two auto strikes for every woman evicted from a factory.
The resolve of the woman was crucial—they did not budge despite the violent
backlash against them and on April 23d, 1937, they officially formed Cigar