One of the biggest victories for workers’ rights in the United States happened during one bitterly cold winter in Flint, Michigan.
“Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike That Created the Middle Class,” by Edward McClelland, tells the horrific details of working conditions at a GM plant in 1936 that led line workers to occupy the factory for nearly two months, eventually winning the right to unionize.
That hard-won victory created the United Auto Workers, says McClelland. “It was a time of unprecedented inequality in America. The sit-down strike began to change all that,” he says.
The new union became one of the most powerful organizations in the country, setting a new standard for wages, creating worker benefits like medical insurance, paid time off for illness and vacation, and defining safety standards at factories.