"Sol Dollinger's remembrance of UAW's early days are juicy and provocative. His recall of those goofy internecine political battles within the union is tragic-comic. Yet they, united, even though hollering at each other, made GM, Ford, et al, recognize the union. The sequence involving Genora Johnson Dollinger, the heroine of the 1937 sit-down strike, is deeply moving and inspiring." --Studs Terkel "Should be read by every labor person who takes the principles of trade union history seriously. . . . Brings the history of the UAW up for a new survey of the events to include the men and women who would otherwise be unsung heroes or written out of history totally." --David Yettaw President, UAW Buick Local 599, 1987-1996 This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were not easy or inevitable-not automatic-but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action. Sol Dollinger recounts how workers, especially activists on the political left, created an auto union and struggled with one another over what shape the union should take. In an oral history conducted by Susan Rosenthal, Genora Johnson Dollinger tells the gripping tale of her role in various struggles, both political and personal.
Sol Dollinger served in the merchant marines before and during the Second World War and worked in the 1940s and 1950s at the Hudson Motor Car Company, Budd Wheel Motor Products, and Briggs Manufacturing Company in Detroit, as well as the Chevrolet assembly plant in Flint, Michigan. Genora Johnson Dollinger (1913-1995) played a leading role in organizing women during the Flint sit-down strike of 1936-1937. Her actions were the subject of two award-winning documentaries, The Great Sit-Down Strike and With Babies and Banners.
Part 1 Lost history - Sol Dollinger: Toledo Auto-Lite strike of 1934; 1935 Chevrolet transmission strike; Homer Martin elected president; factional warfare in the U.A.W.; U.A.W. Twenty-point program; U.A.W. targets Ford Motor; equality of sacrifice; anti-union forces ambush U.A.W. Local 212; mafia and Briggs linked by Senator Estis Kefauver hearings; Reuther slams door on union democracy, 1947-1948; good housekeeping seal of approval; who led the 1937 sitdown strikes in Flint? Part 2 Striking Flint - an oral history of Genora (Johnson) Dollinger by Susan Rosenthal: conditions before the strike; preparing for battle; sit down! women comer forward; the women's emergency brigade; breaking the stalemate; a blow against racism; the sweet fruit of victory; fighting racism; organizing the unemployed; personality speaking; class struggle during the war; the employers strike back; back to the future.
