1913 Studebaker strike

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1913 Studebaker strike
DateJune 17–23, 1913
(6 days)
Location
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Caused byChange in Studebaker's pay schedule from weekly to biweekly
Goals
  • Return to previous pay schedule
  • Institution of the eight-hour day
  • Improved working conditions
Methods
Resulted inStrike ends in failure for the strikers, company later makes change to their pay schedule to placate workers
Parties

The 1913 Studebaker strike was a

car manufacturer Studebaker in Detroit. The six-day June 1913 strike, organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), is considered the first major labor strike in the automotive industry
.

Early in the year, the IWW, a radical

strikebreakers
. Facing this, the strikers voted to end the strike on June 23.

During the strike, Studebaker instituted a policy where employees could receive up to 70 percent of their pay halfway through the two-week period, which placated many of the employees. The IWW maintained a presence in the city and planned to target Ford the following year. This, among other reasons, contributed to Ford announcing a $5 daily pay for its workers at a time when the industry average pay was about half of that. The strike was one of several that ended in failure for the IWW in 1913, and the union continued to face both internal and external issues through the following years. In Detroit, organized labor would not gain a stable and sizeable foothold until the 1930s.

Background

The

blacklist of labor organizers and workers sympathetic to organized labor and provided strikebreakers to companies facing industrial action.[6][3] Additionally, the Detroit Police Department was generally hostile towards organized labor.[3]

A black and white photograph of a brick building, with a sign on the front saying "Ford Motor Co.', in front of which is two people in a car
Studebaker had been operating their plant on Piquette Avenue (pictured c. 1906) since 1911.[7]

Starting in 1913, the IWW began to focus its efforts on the automotive industry in the

lunch breaks.[12] However, Ford effectively blocked the organizers' efforts by changing the employee's lunch policies and having Robbins arrested.[12] Additionally, they promoted several known IWW members to foremen, which made them ineligible to be members of the union per IWW policies.[11]

The IWW shifted its efforts from Ford to Studebaker, another car manufacturer in the city,[2][11] where several IWW members were employed.[2][11] At the time, a recent change in the company's pay schedule from once a week to once every two weeks had not been well received by many of the employees,[12][11] with some organizing groups to push for a return to the old pay schedule.[11] Additional complaints concerned the low pay, long hours, and a policy change where, if a payday fell on a Sunday or a holiday, workers would be paid the following day and not the previous day.[15] Organizing efforts at the company centered primarily on the company's #3 plant, located at the intersection of Clark Street and West Jefferson Avenue.[12] In mid-June, Dale Schlosser, a vocal advocate for the return to the weekly pay schedule, was fired from his position as Studebaker.[note 2] Many workers at the plant protested Schlosser's firing and called on management to reinstate him[15] but their request was rejected.[15] On June 17, approximately 3,500 workers at the plant performed a walkout.[12] This marked the first major labor dispute in the history of the automotive industry.[note 3]

Course of the strike

Following the walkout, protesting commenced outside the factory, and the strikers were joined by some workers from the nearby

Slavic, and Yiddish.[12]

A black and white photograph of a brick building with an old car in the foreground
The Packard plant on East Grand Boulevard, c. 1905

Following the initial walkout, the strikers continued to rally and recruit more members from the Studebaker plants,[22] with several sources stating that about 6,000 workers were involved in the strike.[23] The police maintained a presence at these rallies and at speeches given during the workers' lunch hours, the police ordered some speakers to cease when their speeches became more extreme.[24] In addition to Studebaker employees, there were plans to spread the strike to other companies, such as Cadillac and Packard.[12] On June 19,[note 5] strikers met at Plant #1 and proceeded to march to the Packard plant in an attempt to recruit their workers.[24] The march to the Packard plant on East Grand Boulevard involved about 2,000 strikers and was initially peaceful.[12][24] The strikers marched around the plant once before police officers, including mounted police, skirmished with the strikers, clubbing many and arresting some of the strikers and IWW members.[12][24] Walsh, who had been severely beaten, later led a group to protest the arrests and talked to the chief of police, who agreed to allow the strikers to continue picketing but barred them from holding large marches or parades.[24]

On June 20, strikers held a meeting, presided over by Robbins, where they came up with a list of demands for Studebaker. Among these were a weekly pay schedule, an eight-hour day with the same pay as for a ten-hour day, improved

working conditions, and no retribution to strikers following the end of the strike.[26] These demands were printed on leaflets and distributed throughout the city to generate support for the strike.[27] By this time, the strikers were facing a difficult situation. Several days after the strike had begun,[27] Studebaker announced a policy whereby employees could receive 70 percent of their pay halfway through the two-week pay period.[12] This slight concession placated several workers who had initially opposed the change in pay schedule.[27] Additionally, May through September was traditionally considered the off-season for automotive manufacturing; as a result, many unemployed people were ready to take the strikers' jobs.[27] Around this time, the EAD had also begun providing Studebaker with strikebreakers.[12] Due to this, on June 23, the strikers voted to end the strike.[27]

Aftermath

Despite the strike, which caused a short-term disruption to Studebaker's production level,

production capacity for the year and sold over 35,000 cars.[28] The failure of the strike severely impacted the IWW's efforts in Detroit,[12] causing their local membership to decrease drastically;[2] however, the union still maintained a presence in the city,[29] where they operated educational and work relief programs.[2][note 6] Additionally, the union planned to continue organizing efforts at Ford,[30][19] with labor historian Philip S. Foner stating that it was widely acknowledged at the time that the IWW was planning to conduct strike action against Ford sometime in early 1914.[29] This fear of activity from the IWW, among other reasons, contributed to Ford announcing a $5 daily wage for workers at their Highland Park Plant in January 1914.[12] Before this, Ford workers' average daily pay was $2.34.[17][31] Despite this, IWW members were active in Detroit as late as 1933, when they became involved in some of the first strikes of the Great Depression.[2][32] In 1932, they counted about 80 members in Detroit.[33]

Discussing the difficulties with the strike, Robbins stated, "There were some 50,000 or 60,000 auto workers in Detroit at the time. The IWW local did not have the ability, nor even the comprehension, of the magnitude of the job. And the speakers were not organizers with plans and discipline to help tackle the job. The strike dissipated itself. Many years would elapse before the auto workers would move as a mass toward industrial unionism."

U.S. Federal Government during the First Red Scare in the 1910s.[28][38]

Following the strike, organized labor in Detroit remained fairly militant compared to elsewhere,[39] with later largescale labor disputes events including the Ford Hunger March (1932), the Flint sit-down strike (1936), and the Battle of the Overpass (1937).[40] In the years shortly after the strike, the Carriage, Wagon and Automobile Workers Union (CWAWU, which had been formed in 1891 as an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor[2] and had participated to some extent in the Studebaker strike)[10] began to more actively organize workers in the city, but their membership declined rapidly by the 1920s.[5] It would not be until the 1930s that labor unions gained a strong foothold with the city's autoworkers.[41] Speaking of organized labor in the city prior to the 1930s, an article published in the Michigan Historical Review states, "autoworker unions gained few members when industrial jobs were plentiful, wages were good, and the industry's employers controlled the labor market."[42] According to a 1986 book on the labor history of Detroit, the strike, while not successful, showed that "it was possible to unite skilled and unskilled autoworkers of diverse nationalities around militant trade unionism".[12] Foner states that IWW organizer Frank Bohn may have referenced the strike's impact during a speech with the strikers where he said, "the strike was not for a few days or weeks, but maybe twenty or thirty years".[43]

Notes

  1. ^ At the time, Ford was using a ten-hour workday.[11][13]
  2. ^ Sources agree that Schlosser was an advocate for the weekly pay schedule[15][16][12] but differ on when and why Schlosser was fired. Several sources state that Schlosser was fired on June 17 due to an unexcused absence.[16][12] Historian Philip S. Foner states that Schlosser was fired for circulating a petition calling for weekly pay. Additionally, while he does not give an exact date for his firing, he states that the workers held a meeting on June 14 to discuss how they would respond to the firing.[15]
  3. ^ Multiple sources state that this strike was the first major labor strike in automotive history.[12][17][18][19][20][16][21][15] However, the industry had seen some smaller strikes before, with historian Philip S. Foner citing a 1906 strike at the Pope Manufacturing Company's car plant in Toledo, Ohio as probably the industry's first.[15]
  4. ^ Sources differ on how many workers joined the strike, with Foner stating that 2,000 workers from Plant #1 joined the strike, while Babson et al. states that the workers continued their march after 200 to 300 workers from Plant #1 joined them. Additionally, Foner and Babson et al. disagree on the impact of the strike at Plant #5, with Foner stating that about 2,000 workers (nearly all of the plant's workforce) joined the strike and Babson et al. stating that efforts to attract strikers were less successful than at the other plants, and while some workers joined, the plant continued operations.[15][12]
  5. ^ Foner listed several strike events as occurring in July. In the same source, he states that the strike ended on June 23.[25] Additionally, some sources list events described by Foner as occurring in July as occurring in June.[12]
  6. ^ While multiple sources state that the IWW maintained a presence in Detroit after the strike, one source mentions the IWW had "left Detroit" following the strike.[30]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Babson et al. 1986, p. 32.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnard 2004, p. 32.
  3. ^ a b c d e Foner 1965, p. 384.
  4. ^ a b Esch 2018, p. 37.
  5. ^ a b Vargas 1999, p. 62.
  6. ^ a b Barnard 2004, p. 30.
  7. ^ Babson et al. 1986, p. 243.
  8. ^ Greenberg & Watts 2009, p. 72.
  9. ^ Greenberg & Watts 2009, pp. 72–73.
  10. ^ a b c Greenberg & Watts 2009, p. 73.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Peterson 1987, p. 109.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Babson et al. 1986, p. 33.
  13. ^ a b Foner 1965, p. 385.
  14. ^ May 1992, p. 383.
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Foner 1965, p. 386.
  16. ^ a b c Martelle 2012, p. 74.
  17. ^ a b Brooke 2008, p. 14.
  18. ^ a b c Goldstein 2001, p. 90.
  19. ^ a b Hermann 2014, p. 63.
  20. ^ Lewchuk 1987, p. 38.
  21. ^ Smith 2001, p. 160.
  22. ^ Foner 1965, pp. 386–387.
  23. ^ Foner 1965, p. 386; Peterson 1987, p. 109; Vargas 1999, p. 62; Goldstein 2001, p. 90; Barnard 2004, p. 32; Hillstrom 2006, p. 104; Greenberg & Watts 2009, p. 73.
  24. ^ a b c d e Foner 1965, p. 387.
  25. ^ Foner 1965, pp. 386–388.
  26. ^ Foner 1965, pp. 387–388.
  27. ^ a b c d e Foner 1965, p. 388.
  28. ^ a b Bonsall 2000, p. 98.
  29. ^ a b Esch 2018, p. 38.
  30. ^ a b Brooke 2008, p. 15.
  31. ^ Bonsall 2000, pp. 130–131.
  32. ^ Babson et al. 1986, p. 62.
  33. ^ Peterson 1987, p. 111.
  34. ^ Peterson 1987, p. 110.
  35. ^ Dubofsky 1969, pp. 285–287.
  36. ^ a b Dubofsky 1969, p. 287.
  37. ^ Dubofsky 1969, pp. 287–290.
  38. ^ Babson et al. 1986, p. 39.
  39. ^ Campbell et al. 2020, p. 30.
  40. ^ Campbell et al. 2020, pp. 30–32.
  41. ^ Woodford 2001, p. 143.
  42. ^ Smith 2001, pp. 160–161.
  43. ^ Foner 1965, p. 390.

Sources

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