It's one of my favorite holidays today. Happy White Shirt Day! 84 years ago today, working-class people in Flint, MI emerged victorious from the Flint Sit Down Strike. #FlintSitdownStrike #Flint #UAW #LaborHistory 1/

For 44 days, a ragtag group of workers occupied key General Motors production facilities. A group of factory workers, acting in solidarity with each other, brought the world’s largest corporation at the time to its knees & won dignity and fair treatment in the workplace. 2/

They took over the factories & shut shit down. & they were disciplined. In Fisher Body #2 they held a mass mtg, elected a committee of stewards & a strike strategy committee of 5 led by Bud Simons. Set up committees from patrols to education; from entertainment to sanitation 3/

They ran a tight ship & were intentional about not damaging anything & controlling the narrative. The Women’s Auxiliary was established to aid strikers and their families. Strikers depended on family & community to bring food & pass it through the factory windows. 4/

On Jan 11, 1937, company guards overpowered the ppl delivering food to halt the supply & GM shut off the heat. 100s of ppl mobilized to picket outside the plan. Flying squads (other workers) kept coming, a sound truck was there to support the strikers, picketing outside. 5/

Police fired gas bombs into the plant & workers slingshot car hinges using rubber hoses back at the cops. Police opened fire on the crowd wounding 14. Strikers hurled bottles and hinges back & the police retreated. Strikers had won the Battle of Bulls Run. 6/

Genora Johnson, a 23 year old married to a striker took the mic on the sound truck: "Cowards! Cowards! Shooting unarmed and defenseless men! Women of Flint! This is your fight! Join the picket line and defend your jobs, your husband’s job and your children’s home." 7/

The next day THOUSANDS of workers from across the state showed up to celebrate the victory. The company & the cops tried to expel the strikers and failed. Genora Johnson formed the Women's Emergency Brigade - the militant vanguard of the Women's Auxilary. 8/

They wore red arm bands and berets. Genora told them to expect to be to beaten & killed by police in attempts to break the strike. The women of Flint signed up in droves, they were the rapid response crew that mobilized to the scene of action. They carried whittled down 2x4s. 9/

sidenote: I knew some of these ladies when I was a kid. Geraldine Blankenship was a retiree at my Dad's UAW local 651. When I was in college, I had her speak on campus. She came wearing WEB armband & beret that she had worn as 15 yr old member of the Brigade. Rest in power. 10/

Governor Frank Murphy sent in the National Guard, and refused to use the troops to suppress the strike. This was a big deal. In the preceding decades National Guards were pretty much used to violently crush strikes (see: Ludlow Massacre, CO Labor Wars, etc) 11/

Now there's all kinds of political wrangling happening. Its on the front page of every newspaper. Others plants are striking across the US. The #mileg is trying to outlaw sitdown strikes, vigilantes & cops are beating picketers, Roosevelt's getting involved in negotiation. 12/

This is a national moment. Working people refusing to back down & corporate power waging political warfare & violence. An incredible amount of drama (will drop a few reading/watching suggestions at the end). But GM is starting to get the upper hand. 13/

In a strategic masterstroke (too detailed to describe on twitter but again reading list below) strike leaders set a decoy & forced the take over and occupation of Chevy No. 4, GM's crown jewel, a factory that produced all 1 million Chevy engines every year. 14/

Workers took the heart of the GM empire and the Womens Emergency Brigade rushed to the plant gates and locked arms putting their bodies between the strikers and the police yet again. Sit-downers took Chevy No. 4. 15/

"We want the world to understand what we are fighting for. We're fighting for freedom&life&liberty. This is our one great opportunity. What if we should be defeated? Killed? We have only one life. That’s all we can lose&we might as well die like heroes than like slaves" 16/

That's what Joe Sayen, one of the strikers said to the crowd. The workers retook momentum. It was a strategic masterstroke that required flawless tactical execution. Things are heating up now. GM recruiting vigilantes, national guard now seeming prepared to intervene. 17/

The union declared Feb 3rd, Women's Day, and women from across the state mobilize to Flint, the Womens Emergency Brigade turns out thousands with their kids & cute signs like this iconic one, after the Flint Journal (company rag at the time) wrote about "unruly mobs" & riots 18/

By Feb 4th, it's been weeks without power and heat, injunctions have ordered workers to leave the plants, but they refused. 4000 National Guard troops and 1000+ vigilantes & cops surround the plants, but the workers remain resolute. 19/

On Feb 11, 1937, after 44 days of occupying factories in Flint, the Sitdowners prevailed and GM agreed to recognize the UAW as their union and the exclusive bargaining representative for GM's workers. 20/

This was the first major victory after the Wagner Act of 1935, setting the stage for rapid unionization across the US. Sit-down strikes spread from the auto industry to others like laundries and cigar factories, & 1937 saw the largest union growth in the country’s history. 21/

The UAW’s membership went from 30,000 to 400,000 in one year, and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee had 450,000 members less than a year after its inception. The Flint Sit-down Strike sparked a mass movement that spread rapidly across the country. 22/

They secured better wages & working conditions for millions of workers and created a powerful force for working people in the US. 23/

I grew up in the UAW hall in Flint, mostly my dad's local 651 and grandpa/tio's local 599. I grew up learning from sit downers and members of the Womens Emergency Brigade who told me the reason I had food on the table was because working people fought for it. 24/

We must know our history, heed its lessons, and know that the only reason change ever happens is because people decide to take action and demand it.

Proud of my roots & my people. Happy White Shirt Day! #SolidarityForever 25/25

OK some good reading/watching:
1. The Many and The Few by Henry Kraus
2. Sit-Down: The GM Strike of 36-37 by Sidney Fine
3. With Babies & Banners: Story of the Womens Emergency Brigade (Academy Award nominee on Youtube: )