Public Employee Press

Sit-down strikes of 1930s inspired civil rights sit-ins

As we seek strategies to fight today's inequities, it is exciting to search our past for ideas. The DC 37 Education Fund Library has many DVDs and books on the labor and civil rights movements that provide perspective and inspiration.

Two thrilling DVDs focus on the powerful sit-down strike wave of the mid-1930s, when working people fought back against the hardships of the Great Depression, millions joined unions and even the unemployed organized mass protests.

In 1936 and 1937, a series of automobile factory occupations or sit-down strikes captured the imagination of U.S. workers. The unionists changed the rules of the game by occupying the plant instead of picketing outside, eliminating the threat of scabs running the machines. The fledging United Auto Workers used the tactic in January 1937 at a key General Motors factory in Flint, Mich., holding out despite court injunctions and pitched battles with police and company goons.

The PBS Frontline documentary, "Sit-down and Fight," tells of this battle with interviews and period footage. A companion piece, "With Babies and Banners," features the crucial role of women in the confrontations. Both are available at the Ed Fund Library.

By February the workers had won recognition and a contract from the giant anti-union firm. The movement spread through the industrial heartland, with one-half million workers participating in more than 500 such strikes in 1936 and 1937, raising the workers' movement to a new level and sparking sit-downs for union recognition at factories, hotels, bakeries, and stores nationwide.

The sit-down strikes subsided as the Wagner Act took effect, providing a democratic way to unionize (which today has been undermined by employer abuses). But the sit-down lived on as an inspiration for the civil rights sit-in movement of the 1960s.

—Ken Nash
DC 37 Ed Fund Library, Room 211