From 1937 to 1941, the Ford Motor Company fought a continuous battle to prevent its workers from being represented by an independent labor union. The battle was national in scope and was directed from the Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. The Ford tactics and actions in Dallas in 1937, which crushed any hope of forming a union in the local Ford plant, were similar to those used in Michigan. After 1937 union strategy was concentrated on organization and confrontation in Michigan where the only decisive battle to unionize Ford could be waged. There were differences as well as similarities in the composition of the workforce in Michigan and Dallas, but the workers' concerns and Ford's labor practices were similar in both places. The differences in labor union success in Michigan and Dallas are found in the structure of the industry, the management and policies of Ford, political differences and union strategy. The CIO and the industrial unions were a new force in the 1930's. They did not receive a pleasant reception from business, the courts or government when they began their rise to power. Dallas and Michigan were no exception.
To understand the union battle with Ford, it is necessary to know something of the political and economic climate of the time. The decade of the Great Depression from 1930 to 1939 resulted in significant changes in the social order, politics and the economy of the United States. The rise of industrial unions, epitomized by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW), was one of several of these significant changes that marked the decade. In 1949, Irving Howe and B.J. Widick in The UAW and Walter Reuther went so far as to say that "since the destruction of chattel slavery and the triumph of capitalist economy in the last half of the 19th century, the most important social development in America has been the emergence of mass industrial unions." The creation and rise to power of the industrial unions was bitterly opposed by the leaders of industry. The industrial unions and the CIO, in particular, were seen as a threat to management's control of industry. The prominence of communists in the CIO in the 1930's aroused fear and anger among business leaders and owners. The public was wary and often hostile due to the communist presence. Without the hardship and deprivation of the Depression and the consequent political changes, it is difficult to believe that these unions would have risen to power securing the rights to representation and collective bargaining that were in place in the major industries by the time America entered the Second World War.
The dominant issue for American workers during the 1930's was unemployment, or to put it positively, job security. The government did not keep official unemployment statistics before 1940, however the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics made retrospective estimates from 1929 to 1940 on an annual basis. Monthly estimates were also made. The lowest percentage of unemployed was in 1929, when the unemployment rate was about 3.2%. By 1930, the percentage had almost tripled to 8.7%, with about 4.3 million persons unemployed. From 1930 to 1933, unemployment rose to levels without parallel. In 1933, the annual rate was 24.9% peaking in March, 1933 at roughly 30% on the eve of Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration. In this depressing and fearsome month, 15 million people were unemployed. The average for the year was nearly 13 million people. An agonizingly slow recovery began in 1933 that brought the rate down to 14.3% in 1937. Then came the second shock as the economy again turned down in the depression within the Great Depression. Unemployment rose to 19% in 1938 and never returned below the 1937 level until 1941. Even in 1941, it averaged 9.9% as compared to the aforementioned 3.2% of 1929.[ii] Even these figures underestimate the effects of the depression. Millions of workers were working part-time or under short-time arrangements. Labor and business had accepted policies of work-sharing. The United States Steel Corporation employed 224,980 full time employees in 1929. By 1933, the grand total of full-time employees at the company was zero. Everyone was part-time and there were only about half as many of the part-timers left at the company as there were full-time employees in 1929.[iii]
The automobile industry suffered the ravages of the depression as much as the steel and coal industries. Irving Howe and B.J. Widick describe the psychological scars left by the depression on union autoworkers in the early postwar years. "It stills dogs their lives today. Next to speedup, the fear of unemployment is the main, almost obsessive subject of conversation in the plants. The older workers will never be able to remove the psychological scars left on them by the depression." According to Howe and Widick, there were over 470,000 men working in Detroit's auto factories in 1929; by 1931, the number had shrunk to 257,000, few of them working full weeks. Thousands of men would gather at employment offices each morning looking for work.[iv] The NRA commissioned Henderson Report on the auto industry claimed, "The fear of layoff is always in their minds even if not definitely brought there by the foreman. The speedup is thus inherent in the present situation of lack of steady work and the army of unemployed waiting outside." The report concluded that labor unrest "flows from insecurity, low annual earnings, inequitable hiring and rehiring methods, espionage, speedup and displacement of workers at an extremely early age. Unless something is done soon, they [the workers] intend to take things into their own hands to get results."[v]
Under these trying circumstances, the anger and frustration of industrial workers led to desperate protests and demands for employment. In March, 1932, Communists organized the Ford Hunger March leading a desperate crowd of 3,000 unemployed men from downtown Detroit to Dearborn to present demands for work to the Ford Motor Company. Defying police orders at the Dearborn city limits, they proceeded to the town, where they were finally dispersed by police with teargas and guns. Four members of the march were killed and over fifty were seriously wounded. The economy and unemployment continued to grow worse as Hoover was defeated in the presidential election and as Roosevelt waited out the long period from November to his March inauguration in perhaps the darkest period in America this century.
Roosevelt's first term began with a flurry of legislation during what was called the "First Hundred Days" of his New Deal. Beyond immediate relief for the unemployed and their families, the centerpiece of the New Deal legislation was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Section 7 of the Act provided for the organization and recognition by the government of independent labor unions in industry and the right of these unions to collective bargaining with employers on behalf of their members. The NIRA gave impetus to a wave of union organization from 1933 to 1935. However, in the Schechter case, the Supreme Court declared Title 1 of the Act including Section 7 unconstitutional. It was a great defeat for the Roosevelt administration and the unions. Nevertheless, in the so-called "Second Hundred Days" in 1935, Congress passed and Roosevelt signed into law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also know as the Wagner Act, after its dedicated sponsor, Senator Robert Wagner. This Act provided guarantees to labor to organize industrial unions and the right to collective bargaining similar to those in the NIRA. It also provided for enforcement by establishing the National Labor Relations Board. Employers refused to comply with the NLRA, believing that the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional as they had done with the NIRA. In 1937, in the landmark case of NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp., the Supreme Court upheld the NLRA and acknowledged the power of the Federal government to regulate business, labor and the economy through the Commerce clause of the Constitution. The Court adopted a broad interpretation of interstate commerce and since 1937 has rarely questioned the power of Congress to legislate in almost any area affecting the economy of the nation. The NLRA gave a legitimacy to industrial unions that was extremely important in their establishment and growth. It eliminated the stigma of illegality that unions had borne. Workers and unions had rights and they were written in law. Public opinion began to change as unions became legal entities with government recognition. By 1937, the public favored the unions by an 8-2 margin, although their opinions on union actions and powers were not as favorable.[vi]
The automobile industry has changed in many ways since the 1930's. One feature of the industry that has not changed is that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler remain dominant American auto companies. In the late 1930's General Motors (GM) was by far the largest of the three and was bigger than U.S. Steel. GM had nearly 250,000 employees and made nearly half of all automobiles manufactured in the United States in 1936. Chrysler and Ford made almost all the others.
The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, was born poor in 1863 on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan outside Detroit. When he died in 1946, he was, if not the richest man in America, close to it. His family wealth was valued in excess of $600 million in 1937.[vii] In 1902, he founded the Ford Motor Company with a total capital of $28,000. Henry Ford was a minority shareholder after he assembled the investors to launch the new company. Ford's goal was to build a car that would be affordable for people with moderate incomes, like the farmers and other small town people that he knew from Dearborn. His success in achieving his goal of producing the affordable car resulted in the growth of Ford Motor Company into a corporate giant. More importantly, Henry Ford changed the way that Americans lived and worked. In many ways the changes that he unleashed were contrary to his own values and belief in the simple agrarian life. He originated a new industrial process and system of labor in Ford. It became known as Fordism. The system began in Ford's Highland Park facility in Detroit in 1913 with the first automobile assembly line. The assembly line is used in automobile manufacturing around the world today and was copied by competitors shortly after its introduction by Ford. The system is based on rigid divisions of labor, a hierarchical management structure and a fixation on the mass market for sale of its product.[viii] David Halberstam in his study of Ford in The Reckoning says "to 'fordize' meant to standardize a product and manufacture it by mass means at a price so low that the common man could afford it."[ix] In 1908, Ford began the production of the Model T. The car was successful from the start. Orders for the Model T soon outstripped the capacity of the company to produce it. Henry Ford's new passion and genius became organizing the process of manufacturing. He had become a proponent of the efficiency methods of Frederick Winslow Taylor and their application to the production process in his industry. In Henry Ford's words, "Mass production precedes mass consumption, and makes it possible by reducing costs and thus permitting both greater use-convenience and price-convenience."[x] Within a few years, the company was well established in the industry. By 1914, Ford produced 48% of all automobiles in the United States with less than 20% of the employees that all the other companies employed to produce the remaining 52%.
Henry Ford plowed the soaring profits of the company back into the business. He refused to pay dividends to the minority shareholders, believing this to be a waste of money. In 1917, he was sued by the Dodge brothers, who had become minority shareholders in the company in partial compensation for work done for Ford. When Dodge attorneys questioned Henry Ford in court about the company's earnings, he replied, "We don't seem to be able to keep the profits down."[xi] The Dodge case was important because it caused Henry Ford to make two decisions with great consequences for the future of the company. First, he settled the case and bought out all the minority shareholders assuming complete ownership and control of the company. Second, he decided that his aversion to paying dividends was correct and that the profits of the company should be used to build a giant, modern industrial complex for the manufacture of automobiles. Ford wanted to build what amounted to an industrial city. The giant facility would import raw materials and process them into usable products, which would then be used to manufacture all the components of an automobile. Workers would assemble these components into the finished automobile at the same location. This idea became a reality in the gargantuan River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The Rouge was built in stages. By 1928, it was substantially complete and in full production. It was not only the largest industrial plant in the world, it also was the most modern. Facilities, equipment and operations were the most technologically advanced of the period. The Rouge was a mile and a half long and three-quarters of a mile wide. It had 93 buildings including 28 major buildings and 93 miles of railroad tracks and 27 miles of conveyor belts within the plant. The number of men working at the plant varied, but was usually between 75,000 and 100,000. It contained its own steel mill, glass factory and inland docks with mechanized loading and unloading of iron ore, coal and other raw materials. In 1928, when the Rouge was complete, the new Model A replaced the Model T. The Rouge at peak production produced a new Model A every nine seconds. Iron ore unloaded from barges at the Rouge docks was part of a finished automobile within four days. The Rouge was the crowning industrial achievement of Henry Ford. By the late 1920's he was the dominant public figure in America, maybe the world. Although Henry Ford was a master of production, his beliefs and attitudes about people and their work were often as reactionary and prejudiced as his methods of production were efficient and revolutionary.
Henry Ford was often quoted in his later years in the press. His bigoted and prejudicial remarks made good stories for the newspapers. He was a virulent anti-Semite and vociferous in his anti-union views. His opinion of his workers was simple. They were to be absolutely obedient to the company, regardless of what the company demanded of them. He said that men worked for two reasons, "One is for wages, and one is for fear of losing their jobs."[xii]
To insure the subservience of his work force, Henry Ford created a new department at Ford called the Sociology Department to spy on his employee's private lives. Those employees who had bad habits like smoking or drinking were likely to arrive at work one morning to find that they had been dismissed. Henry Ford once said, "If you study the history of almost any criminal you will find that he is an inveterate smoker."[xiii] In 1916, Henry Ford became very impressed with a young clerk working at the company named Harry Bennett. Bennett had been a boxer in the Navy and while at Ford, he surrounded himself in with fighters, wrestlers, former football players and gangsters. He cultivated an image as a tough guy. In person he was 5'7" and weighed 145 pounds. Ford made him the head watchman for the entire Rouge.
In the next twenty years, Harry Bennett built the Ford Service Department into an internal security force which became his own private army of nearly 3,000 men. It included many convicted felons recently released from prisons, fired policemen, gangsters and assorted thugs. It was organized on military lines with Bennett in complete command. Bennett had full power to hire and fire workers for any reason. In a case before the NLRB in 1940, a worker named John Gallo was reinstated after his dismissal for smiling on the job. Ford fought his reinstatement with diligence. Keith Sward in his biography of Henry Ford offers a description of Bennett and the activities of the Service Department which presents a shocking picture of the work environment at Ford. "For years after Bennett came to power, it was the proud, undisguised aim of the Service Department to blot out every manifestation of personality or manliness inside a Ford plant...Bennett's mercenaries finally mastered every tactic from the swagger of the Prussian drill sergeant to outright sadism and physical assault. On the night shift they would jolt an incoming worker out of his wits and take the starch out of his system by flashing a light in his face and shouting at him, 'Where did you get that badge?' or 'Who's your boss?' Another intimidating practice that came into being under Bennett's rule was the act of 'shaking 'em up in aisles.' In this case a workman summoned to the employment office for any reason at all, even one that was totally unrelated to his work, would be shoved and pushed along the aisle by a pair of officious Servicemen, like a felon in the custody of the police."[xiv] The activities of the Service Department were not only harsh and degrading to the workers, but were often criminal. By the 1930's Henry Ford was in his seventies and had grown eccentric and erratic in his management of the company. He had complete trust in Harry Bennett to handle all labor matters at the company. Bennett was corrupt and was robbing the company to support his lavish lifestyle which included four different homes in the Detroit area. But, Henry Ford in his mean old age liked the way that Bennett intimidated people. The magazine writer, William Richards, once asked Ford in the 1930's what person he most admired of the thousands of extraordinary people he had met in his lifetime. Ford turned, pointed to Bennett and said, "Him."[xv] Henry Ford's final years were characterized by a mean spirit and a loss of his earlier business acumen. During the miseries of the depression, he said, "if there is unemployment in America, it is because the unemployed do not want to work."[xvi] These were the men, Henry Ford and Harry Bennett, and this was the company that the UAW would seek to unionize for its auto workers.
The auto worker toiled in a working environment during the 1930's that was a trial of his mental and physical stamina. The men needed the work. In June, 1914, Henry Ford announced that henceforth Ford would pay all its workers $5 per day. This was seen as a very good wage. Henry Ford said in his autobiography that "the five dollar day for eight hours of work was one of the finest cost cutting moves that we ever made."[xvii] The point seems to have been that because of the high wage, Ford could demand more from its workers. The daily wage was high, but autoworkers annual incomes were low because the plants were shut down when there were model changes.[xviii]
During the 1930's the auto industry eagerly recruited white "hillbillies" in the South. Labor agents went deep into Appalachia and other rural areas searching for cheap and docile labor even though thousands were on relief in Detroit. Hundreds of thousands came to work in the auto plants. They brought their culture and folkways with them including their speech, music, religion and ingrained racial prejudices. The Ku Klux Klan had an estimated 18,000 members in Detroit in 1942 and its offspring the Black Legion claimed 200,000 members in Michigan in 1936. Detroit police held the latter group responsible for over fifty murders in the late 1930's. The transition from a rural to the intense urban life in Detroit caused many problems. This southern white group of the Michigan labor force had a rural background like the auto workers at Ford in Dallas, although the Michigan group came largely from Appalachia. Those in Michigan were often described as transplanted "hillbillies." Howe and Widick provide a succinct summary of the operation of bigotry and racial prejudice among these immigrants to the city. "For many of these people racial and religious prejudice provides a means of objectifying their vague, half conscious resentments into some external symbol of enmity. This symbol is presumed powerful and malicious enough to cause them troubles, but is yet weak enough for them to victimize with impunity. Social pressures thus result in irrational discharges of energy. Against this accumulation of traditional prejudices, deeply rooted in a people's folkways and nourished by economic deprivation and psychological impoverishment, mere rational persuasion [of the detrimental effects of bigotry and prejudice] often proves ineffective."[xix] This same racial prejudice played a role in the effectiveness of threats to hire black workers in Dallas in response to union efforts.
Black Americans were also lured to the North by good wages in the auto plants. Their numbers swelled with migration from the South. By 1938, more than 150,000 black people were jammed into the horrible slums of Detroit. Between 1940 and 1942 alone, over 60,000 more came to Detroit. The largest black settlement was cynically called "Paradise Valley." It was filled with shacks and rotting housing and was "crowded as Coney Island on a Sunday."[xx]
The other major group that comprised the Michigan autoworkers were the immigrants. In 1940, there were 320,000 foreign born persons in the city. Poles were the largest group and were divided from the Southerners by their religion, language and culture. The Poles developed similar racial prejudices toward the blacks as a group "conveniently below the Poles in Detroit's scale of ethnic snobbery." Italians and Jews formed the other large ethnic groups in the city.[xxi]
Despite the enormous difficulties in adjusting from small town or rural life to the pressures of life in a highly industrialized city with poor housing, crowding, congestion, criminal activity and racial and ethnic tensions and prejudice, it was the working conditions in the auto plants that were critical in the psychological and emotional life of the workers. Henry Ford had said that assembly line work was a "boon" for factory workers who have "no brains."[xxii] The most dreaded production practice on the assembly line was the speedup. Workers always claimed that management would speed up the pace of the assembly line and management would deny it. It seems clear that it was a common practice. Ford was notorious for its speedups which were terrifying for older workers who lived in fear that they would be unable to keep up. Ford also had a practice of laying off high wage workers when production for the year ended and then rehiring those same workers for the following model year at the beginner's rate. Ford completely ignored seniority in hiring, firing, laying off and demoting workers. Continued employment was often at the whim of the foremen who often played favorites. There were no breaks or rest periods from the line. Smoking was prohibited. Lunch was consumed on the line or not at all. There was no lunch break. Talking between employees was frowned on and could be cause for dismissal. The Ford Service Department was constantly vigilant for any infractions of these rules. Violators were immediately dismissed.[xxiii]
The Ford Motor Company came to Dallas, Texas in 1909, when it opened a sales and service office on Commerce Street. A few automobiles were assembled there in 1913. Regular assembly of automobiles began in 1914 when Ford opened its first assembly plant located at Canton and William Streets. This plant was vacated in 1925 when a new plant was completed at 5200 East Grand Avenue. The new plant opened August 5, 1925. It was located on a 40 acre tract and was one of 16 automobile and truck assembly plants operated by Ford in the United States. When running at full production, the plant could complete a new car or truck every two and a half minutes. Daily production for all shifts was between 250 and 300 cars or trucks. This was the production when the line was running. It was often shut down for model changes. The Dallas Ford plant built almost all the cars sold by Ford in Texas and also produced cars for sale in the surrounding states of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico and Colorado. In 1937 the plant employed between 1200 and 1500 workers.[xxiv]
E.C. Elsik began work in the Dallas plant in 1935. He had previously worked at the Ford plant in Houston which was shut down in 1932. He describes the working conditions. "There were no relief breaks, no lunch periods, nothing to break the terrible speedup. You were really driven. There was no time to talk, to say hello to anybody. You ate lunch with a sandwich in one hand and worked with the other." He was invited by a foreman to join a goon squad to 'take care' of any union organizers that might show up, but managed to decline the offer.
Rex Young had worked for Ford in Oklahoma City. He came to Dallas in 1936 and went to work at the Ford plant sanding car bodies. He comments on plant practices. "Ford made a lot of money cheating his workers. We used to work 12 to 15 hours a day sometimes and get paid for only eight. The plant rules said that if the line was down for five minutes, you punched out for at least a full hour. So many a time the foreman would stop the line, after five minutes we would punch out and then go right back to work---on our own time--- until the hour was up. Many and many a time we gave Ford 55 minutes of free labor that way. There was no way to argue, no matter what they did to us---no one to argue with or run to for help. If you opened your mouth or just looked like you were going to, out you went, and that was that."[xxv] The Ford labor practices were much the same in Dallas as they were in Michigan. There was the same disregard for business ethics and humane treatment. The attitudes and views toward the Ford workers held by Henry Ford and Harry Bennett permeated the company.
The United Auto Workers in the early 1930's were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) because there was no other federation in existence. The AFL was not particularly interested in organizing workers in the mass-production industries. Unions were only local unions in one plant. They were impotent. The AFL was completely discredited by 1935 as far as automobile workers were concerned. Militant new independent unions were formed and adopted the tactic of the sit-down strike, first used in Toledo in 1934. The AFL failed to exert energetic leadership of the new unions, when it had the opportunity. In 1935, the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers offered a new alternative. The CIO was militant and had many communist and socialist leaders and members. In 1936, at its convention in South Bend, Indiana, the auto unions voted to affiliate with the CIO. Homer Martin became President. He was a former Baptist minister, who could galvanize southern-born workers with his biblical exhortations. Vice President, Wyndham Mortimer was a Communist Party leader. Detroit socialist, Walter Reuther, was elected to the executive board. Reuther later emerged as the survivor of the factional warfare which plagued the union. In 1935, a wave of sitdown strike in auto industries began in Akron, Ohio at the Goodyear plant. Sit-downs hit Firestone, Bendix, Kelsey-Hayes, Briggs, and Fisher Body. The biggest was yet to come at the end of 1936 with the sit-down at General Motors. The CIO was an organization of heretics in the eyes of the AFL.[xxvi]
To business leaders, the CIO and the sit-down strike was revolution. In 1937, Business Week summarized the threat posed by the sit-down strikes.
By means of sitdown strikes, the country has been put at the mercy of thoroughly irresponsible groups which in effect have no leadership, no control, no authority that can restrain them. Great industries, whose operations affect the daily welfare of millions, are confronted with demands to sign contracts with groups which, day by day and hour by hour, demonstrate that they have almost no control over their own people, no conception of the validity or the sanctity of a contract, no respect for the property rights or for the rights of any sort except their own.[xxvii]
The UAW with its advocacy of the sit-down was a threat to business wherever it organized in 1937. Many saw the union as attacking capitalism and private property. For most of the workers who went on strike, it was nothing close.[xxviii] Whether it was Dallas or Dearborn, owners and management wanted no part of the UAW.
In the spring of 1937, there was a clash between the UAW and Ford in Kansas City, Missouri. During the General Motors strike, the UAW had begun efforts to organize the assembly plant in Kansas City. There were threats of violence against union men ant the local management was instructed "to be careful in discharging men to make sure that they were released for some infraction of the rules." Ford floated plans to build another assembly plant in St. Louis that would result in the loss of 1000 jobs in Kansas City. The UAW claimed to represent 2000 of the 2500 workers in the plant and launched a sit-down strike. Ford gave in to reinstatement of some workers and granted some recognition to the union. Ford retained its hostility to the UAW presence in the plant and organized its own company union. The UAW increased its membership drive, causing Ford to announce that it would shut down the plant for three months "to clear up the present situation." The shutdown was approved in Dearborn by Bennett. The union retaliated with another strike and the company discharged all maintenance and production and announced removal of all operations to Omaha.
Faced with loss of the plant, the city manager, H.F. McElroy, went hat in hand to Dearborn to assure the Ford management that there would be no labor troubles in Kansas City and to ask that the plant remain in the city. McElroy agreed to an open shop and to use the city police to disperse pickets and protect strikebreakers. After his return, the police forbade picketing and arrested union leaders. Teargas was used to disperse demonstrators in favor of the UAW. Armed Ford employees kept the plant open. Allan Nevins and Frank Hill describe the end in Kansas City. "As Christmas approached, the UAW workers who knew of Henry Ford's reiterated statements, who read about the terrorism in Dallas, and who realized that only Blue Card men [members of the company sponsored union] stood much chance of permanent employment, changed their allegiance. The police force stood by to protect them.....By New Year's, the UAW had been rendered powerless in the Kansas City plant.[xxix]
The general manager of the Dallas plant, C.B. Ostrander fearing the spread of union activity to Dallas began to take action to make sure that there would be no union presence or success in Dallas at Ford. This anti-union activity was later extended beyond the Ford plant by the local management. Ostrander instructed his assistant, the plant superintendent, W.A. Abbott, Jr. to organize a group of men to cruise around Dallas and the surrounding area to gather information on any union activity or presence. Abbott selected an employee known as "Fats" Perry, a 232 pound brawler with ten years at the plant, to lead the group. John C. Moseley, the manager of the Dallas Service Department was directed to develop a security plan for the plant in the event of a sit-down strike. At about the same time as Ostrander was issuing these instructions, W.A. Worley, a Service Department employee from Dearborn was "transferred" to Dallas. Evidence from the NLRB hearing in 1940 along with Worley's own admissions to others in the plant shows that Worley was sent from headquarters to prevent any union activity at the Dallas plant.[xxx]
While these preparations to stop the UAW from entering Dallas were underway, momentous events for organized labor, the automobile industry and the nation were occurring in Michigan and Ohio. During January and February, the great sit-down strikes at Flint and Cleveland had succeeded in gaining recognition of the UAW by General Motors. In March, Chrysler gave in after a short sit-down strike and also recognized the UAW. The union was able to negotiate contracts with both companies. The UAW was recognized as the representative of all the auto workers by both companies and they agreed to the principle of collective bargaining. The UAW had not yet directed its attention to Ford, but this clearly was imminent.
In May, 1937 the Ford headquarters in Dearborn published a booklet entitled "Ford Gives Viewpoint on Labor." The Dallas plant soon received a copy and proceeded on May 20 to distribute a copy to each employee as he punched out for the day. This booklet was a collection of the personal thoughts of Henry Ford on the subject of the automobile industry unions. This certainly meant the UAW, although Henry Ford did not mention the union by name. The booklet can only be seen as an expression of company policy considering its author and the manner of distribution. The views expressed are vehemently anti-union. The thoughts of Henry Ford appear crazed and deluded. However convoluted in their thinking, they would have a certain appeal to those harboring anti-union views. Ford's opinions boil down to an idea that workers will be victimized by their own union leaders and will not benefit from any "victories" won by the UAW in the form of new labor contracts. He is referring to the new agreements between the UAW and General Motors and Chrysler. In a section of the booklet subtitled "Common Sense", Henry Ford says, "The Wagner Act is just one of those things that helps to fasten control upon the necks of labor. Labor doesn't see that yet. It thinks the Wagner Act helps it. All you have to do is to wait and see how it works. It fits perfectly the plans to get control of labor."[xxxi] In its summary of the trial examiners findings in the Dallas NLRB proceeding on unfair labor practices at Ford, the Board found, "Nothing could more effectively have impressed employees of respondent [Ford] throughout the nation with the fact that, not only did the Ford Motor Company not have a willingness to permit its employees to engage in labor organization and collective bargaining, but that it would view with disfavor any effort on their part to do so, and that any man who violated this position would jeopardize his employment."[xxxii]
The Dallas plant workers were internally organized at Superintendent Abbott's direction into groups of 15 to 25 men. The men were told to report to the group's leader any contacts from the union or any other evidence of union activity. All plant employees were required to attend meetings at which it was made clear that it was "war" by the company against the union.[xxxiii] There were rumors that Ford would move the plant elsewhere or bring in black workers to take the place of the white workers if there was any support for the union in the plant.[xxxiv] The threat to relocate the plant was not an idle threat as shown in the troubles in Kansas City. Unlike General Motors and Chrysler, Ford already employed many black workers in the Rouge. There is no reason to believe Ford would hesitate to hire black workers in Dallas if it served management's purposes. Essentially every worker in the plant had been mobilized to halt any union activity.
"Fats" Perry and W.A. Worley were meanwhile engaged in their "outside" activities on behalf of the company. To perform this assignment, they were provided with a company car and received all expenses from the company. The traveled around Dallas and the surrounding area in search of union activity and also did some investigation of employees at the Dallas plant. Until June, 1937 they had not found any union activity whatsoever. However, they had developed a network to obtain information . At least some of the Dallas employees were aware that Perry and Worley were in charge of "handling" CIO organizers. On June 23, Perry received information that two CIO men were on their way to Dallas from Kansas City and passed this on to his immediate superior, R.F. Rutland who worked for Abbott . On the same day, the two CIO organizers arrived in Dallas and began to talk with Ford workers. They stopped at the lunch counter in a drugstore across the street from the Ford plant. Rutland and Perry attacked the organizers in the drugstore. Both were severely beaten.
The CIO-UAW organizers soon left town, but not before they had retained a local lawyer, W.J. Houston, to represent the CIO in Dallas. Houston and one of his clients (unrelated to his CIO representation) were having lunch in a drugstore at Elm and Akard in downtown Dallas on July 10. Houston was approached by a seemingly friendly young man, who then proceeded to drag him out of the drugstore to the sidewalk where seven men attacked him and beat him severely. The police later arrived and Houston went to the police station along with his client and three men who identified themselves as Ford workers. They said that Houston had approached them about joining the union. The Ford men said they took offense to this offer and attacked Houston. These men told the police that what they did was voluntary and was not at the instructions of the company. Houston said that the men who came to the police station were not the men that made the attack, but that he knew who the real attackers were and intended to press charges later.[xxxv] Later Houston reconsidered and did not press charges.
In the NLRB proceeding in 1940, "Fats" Perry and others stated in their testimony that during the period from June to November, 1937, that on 30 to 50 occasions people were assaulted and beaten in Dallas or taken to the outskirts of the city, where they were beaten, flogged, blackjacked, and in one case tarred and feathered by members of the Ford strong arm squad. The victims included anyone suspected of union advocacy or sympathies.[xxxvi] Regarding the actions of the Ford strong arm squad, the Trial Examiner, Robert Denham, stated his conclusions in his report of the proceeding.
"No case within the history of the Board is known to the undersigned [Denham] in which an employer [Ford] had deliberately planned and carried into execution a program of brutal beatings, whippings, and other manifestations of physical violence comparable to that shown by the uncontradicted and wholly credible evidence on which the findings [in the NLRB case against Ford] are based. Blackjacks, loaded hose, cat-o-nine tails made of rubber stripping and electric light wire were among the weapons used by the Ford Motor Company's strong arm squad. There was no limit of brutality to which this squad and those who were directing it were unwilling to go if necessary, for at one stage, even murder was planned."[xxxvii]
Expense money for these activities was obtained through forced contributions from the Ford employees. Expenses included fines, attorney's fees, bail bonds and expenses for wire-tapping operations performed on attorney Houston's line. A receptacle, known as "the pickle jar" was placed near the time clocks and employees were told by members of the strong arm squad to "hit the jar," in order to contribute to management's fight against the UAW-CIO[xxxviii] By means of this system, Ford employees actually paid for activities of the strong arm squad from their wages.
Later, when the violent and illegal activities of the strong arm squad had begun to attract public attention and the Texas Rangers were sent to Dallas, a Ford representative came from the Dearborn headquarters to promise that the company would protect Perry and the men in the strong arm squad. The trial record of the NLRB proceeding later showed that the company protected members of the squad from imprisonment and helped them with money to go into hiding. Later, "Fats" Perry became disgruntled with his employers at Ford over his pay. Evidence was produced at the hearing that indicated that persons at Ford considered killing him. Perry went to the NLRB and became a witness to the criminal activities in Dallas.[xxxix] Subsequently, Perry and other witnesses were granted immunity for their testimony in the proceedings. The violence and intimidation directed at union organizers and sympathizers outside the plant and the intimidation and threats directed at the workers inside the plant effectively ended any prospects that the union had of organizing the Ford plant in Dallas.
Local reaction to the labor trouble in the city was subdued. The Dallas police did not do much to halt the assaults even though several attacks were in public in broad daylight. Few arrests were made and when they were, the suspects were bailed out quickly. During the NLRB hearings, some of the testimony implied a conspiracy between the police and Ford's strong arm squad. This lead was never pursued in the courts. There are definite parallels to the experiences in Michigan and Kansas City, where the police were hostile to the UAW, particularly during any increase in union activity. In Kansas City for example, the county sheriff confiscated over 85 weapons, including many firearms, from Ford loyalists. They were promptly released without bail by the prosecuting attorney.[xl]
The Dallas Morning News and Dallas Times Herald covered the labor trouble of 1937 and the later 1940 hearings, but were strongly anti-union (CIO) in their coverage. In an article in the News on June 25, the headline declared "CIO Men Here to Organize Ford Won't Tell Names." The article states that the men worked in another Ford plant and have been sent to Dallas to organize the Ford plant. They claim to have come at the invitation of workers in the Dallas plant and say they will not be run out of town by company police. They refuse to give their names because it would jeopardize their jobs. They blame the company for the attack in the drug store on June 23.[xli]
This coverage of the attack on the CIO organizers was followed by an article on June 29 describing a meeting attended by some 1500 Ford plant employees on a Monday night at the nearby Mt. Auburn school. At the meeting, Claud Dill, a member of the Service Department at the plant, but identified in the article as a metal finisher, made implied threats to any new CIO organizers that came to town. He told the gathering that if the CIO tried to organize the plant, "we can't make any promises of their immunity from bodily harm." Dill announced that the Ford workers would rather have lice, than be contaminated by John L Lewis and his CIO and "let the newspapers carry that word to him from Dallas." The article makes a point of printing statements by the employees denying any management role in sponsoring or organizing the meeting. One senior employee took the stage and expressed his great appreciation and gratitude to the company. Dill then asked the women waiting in the cars for their men to blow their car horns if they approve of the men's stand against the CIO. The horns blow, "Ford horns," according to the News.[xlii]
The next article in the News on the Ford conflict was in the July 1 edition with a headline "Ford Workers and A.F. of L. Declare War Against C.I.O." and a sub-headline "Second Mass Meeting Is Held By Workers to Prove First Was Not Sponsored by Officials." The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was often presented as a reasonable alternative to the CIO for workers who wanted a union. The article describes a crowd of Ford workers gathering near the plant where they are addressed by Claud Dill, who "appealed to the 'spirit of Texans' to keep out of the state what he called a 'menace to our homes and families.'" The implication is clear that the UAW-CIO is likely to shut down the Dallas plant or cause the company to do so by its militant actions. In the depression, the "menace to home and family" is loss of employment. Dill proceeds to insinuate in his speech that loyal Ford workers were responsible for the drugstore attack on the CIO organizers a week earlier and that the attack will be repeated against any other CIO organizers that show up in Dallas.[xliii] According to another account in a pro-labor pamphlet produced by George Lambert, victim in one of the attacks, one of the Ford workers, J.H. Wood, jumped to his feet and claimed, "I'm one of the men who thrashed that CIO worker. Sure I'm one of Ford's bouncers!"[xliv] There is no indication in the News article of why anyone in Dallas would become a member of the CIO. It was also clear that there was a great risk in even discussing membership. The article succeeds in creating exactly the impression on the reader that the Ford management would want, specifically that the union was bad and Ford employees were vehemently opposed to it.
In the July 2 edition, the News ran a short article in the center of the paper again stressing the heavy opposition of the Ford workers to the union as CIO efforts were "continuing in strict secrecy." Threats from Ford employees were repeated against any union organizers that were caught by the Ford men.[xlv] On July 3, the News ran an article with the headline "Ford Workers Hit Maverick CIO Speech." In the article it says that liberal Texas Congressman, Maury Maverick had taken the side of the CIO in the labor struggle with Ford. The article informs us that "Claud Dill, local leader of the anti-CIO movement in the Ford plant" sent a telegram signed "1500 employees of the Dallas branch of the Ford Motor Company and their families. The "Ford men" informed the San Antonio Congressman that they considered his activities un-American and that they would try to prevent his reelection. The telegram further describes the CIO's objective is to make "slaves and puppets" out of the workers.[xlvi] On July 5, another article describes an attack on a Ford plant worker who merely met with a CIO man, but refused to join the union. The article again stresses the opposition of the Ford employees and officials to the CIO. The police make no arrests after the attack, as the assailants flee.[xlvii]
On July 11, the News reported the attack on attorney W.J. Houston, with a headline on the "thrashing" of the CIO attorney. The labor troubles finally made the front page on August 10 with the attack on the socialist sponsored gathering in Fretz Park, which was revealed in the hearings in 1940 as the work of the Ford strong-arm squad. In this front page article, no mention was made of who the 23 unidentified people involved in the attack might actually be. The sub-headline directs one victim to "Go Back North."[xlviii] As a result of these attacks and the failure of the Dallas police to make any arrests, Texas Governor James V. Allred sent a force of Texas Rangers to Dallas to investigate the recent attacks on union organizers and sympathizers. The News reported in a headline that the Governor was bitterly criticized for sending the Rangers to Dallas. In a subheadline, the News posed the question of whether the Governor had turned socialist. The following article quotes several telegrams sent to the Governor by residents of Dallas. The telegrams are reported as saying that the Dallas police are hardworking and diligent and very capable of dealing with any problems in the city.[xlix] The tenor of these articles leads to a conclusion that the News was opposed to the dispatch of the Rangers to Dallas, preferring the local police. Later when the police were dispatched to Dallas, the News applauded the decision in its editiorial.[l]
The coverage in the Dallas Times Herald was similar to the coverage in the News as far as the events were concerned, although not as inflammatory in its headlines. On June 24, in a report of the first attack, the headline said, "Ford Plant Workers Beat CIO Organizers." It duly reports that Ford officials knew nothing of the attack on "union agitators."[li] On June 29, the Times Herald article on the employee meeting was similar to the News article with the added opinion that it was a bad time for organizing since the plant employees had just received a raise. There is also a brief comment from Harry Bennett responding to allegations that the Service Department is engaged in thuggery and intimidation. Naturally, Bennett denies this saying that the company keeps a great deal of cash on hand to pay its employees and the Service Department protects this money for the workers. Mr. Bennett also states that contrary to CIO claims, Ford employs only 340 men in its Service Department.[lii] On July 1, the Times Herald headline is "Chief Warns Labor Groups Against Violence." Dallas Police Chief Jones issued a warning that labor union violence like that in the North will not be tolerated in Dallas. Readers are also informed that workers at Ford "returned to their jobs Thursday secure in the knowledge that advances of organized labor will be repulsed."[liii] Subsequent coverage of the Fretz Park attack actually did mention in its front page article that socialists had blamed the attack on Ford hirelings, perhaps assuming that socialists were not credible or deserved the beatings.[liv] The Times Herald during these months was also covering developments in Michigan, printing Associated Press coverage, which was fairly neutral. None of the newspaper coverage by either newspaper of events in Dallas was critical of Ford or its management in any way.
City government and leaders in Dallas had no response to the labor problems at Ford. Robert Fairbanks argues that although this "lack of local response" to the labor troubles in 1935 and 1937 "certainly seem to confirm that local government and civic leaders had little time for the needs of working people and unions," closer examination reveals a more balanced position on organized labor. City leaders were more supportive in their dealings with the Dallas Building Trades Council and the millinery workers.[lv] Whatever the response to other union activity, the negative response to the UAW-CIO seems unquestioned.
In 1940, when the NLRB conducted the Ford hearings in Dallas, the actions of Ford inside the plant and the outside activities of its strong arm squad received brief coverage. It was not until March 10, after the hearings had been going on for almost two weeks that the Dallas Morning News produced a major article on the hearings. The article's headline trumpeted "All Rules of Evidence are Cast Overboard". The opening sentence of the article began "One of the most bitterly criticized federal agencies created by the new deal is conducting a hearing in Dallas that is drawing capacity crowds to Federal District Judge T. White Davidson's courtroom in the Federal Building." Doubts were raised about the impartiality of the Board and Trial Examiner Denham in the article. "No attempt is made by Denham to follow the rules of evidence applicable in Federal District Courts. He frequently states, in explaining why he admits certain testimony objected to, that he wants to get the whole picture of the situation." The article also emphasized the objections of the Ford defense attorneys and their superior legal experience as compared to the NLRB legal representatives. The reporting talked more about defense arguments that Ford's rights as a company were being invaded by the NLRB than evaluating the credibility of the charges that were made against Ford for its unfair labor practices. Rules in administrative proceedings such as the NLRB hearings do not follow the same strict rules of admissibility of evidence that Federal and State court proceedings do. Furthermore, any decision would be subject to review in the federal courts. The News must have known about the evidentiary rules and the provision in the Act for judicial review, but instead portrayed the Trial Examiner as violating the rights of Ford. Further, the article made an issue of immunity granted to the government's witnesses in exchange for their testimony in the proceeding. Without the immunity, there would not have been testimony. The News knew this was the case, because the article also mentioned refusal of witnesses to answer because of the Fifth Amendment.[lvi] Ultimately, the NLRB decison in the Dallas Ford matter was affirmed by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and was denied a hearing by the United States Supreme Court. Under the terms of the ruling, Ford was required to end its unfair labor practices, which included the activities of its strong arm squad and discharge of employees for union activities. This was the only major article in the News regarding the hearings.
The Dallas Times-Herald coverage in several articles in March was more even-handed. It reported quite well the actual proceedings. There is not really any bias in the articles. The Times-Herald did not really do any independent reporting however, as it used the Associated Press wire for its reports. The coverage by the News evidently reflected the prevailing opinions among the business elite of the city as embodied in the Open Shop Association and most likely reflected the opinions of many in the general public regarding unions and the NLRB, if the validity of the public polls that were featured in the News are accurate. It would be easy for the public to draw the conclusion from the News coverage that the Ford workers were content and that the union was only trying to cause trouble for the city.
In a 1975 interview of Carl Brannin, a local socialist and news reporter, Brannin responded to a question regarding the Ford troubles with the following recollection in 1975.
"Ford was trying to prevent the union from establishing itself there [Detroit], and they had a strong arm organization which was very rough and resorted to a lot of brutal tactics in Detroit. Some of these people had been sent down here to scotch any attempt at unionism. There was no active movement here to organize Ford......So the newspapers carried stories about it at the time and protested this violent sort of thing, [referring to the violence of the Ford strong arm squad in 1937] but there was a period of about several weeks when, if anybody came around to the Ford plant, and he looked like he might be talking unionism, this gang took him out and beat him up.... So there was a reign of terror going on here for quite some time, and the chief of police and the city authorities were very indifferent about it. They were not concerned at all. There were one or two arrests, but nothing came of it."
Later in the interview, in response to a question of whether he believed the police and/or city hall were in collusion with Ford, he responded, "I think the mildest thing you could say was that they were indifferent."[lvii] One of the socialists that was beaten by the Ford strong-arm squad in the tar and feather incident says that the victim, Herbert Harris was dropped off at the front step of the Dallas Morning News office "so it would be much more convenient for them to get a picture of him and get it in the paper. There had also been arrangements with the Dallas police so the Ford thugs wouldn't be interfered with."[lviii]
While the UAW-CIO was meeting insurmountable resistance to even the most minimal presence at Ford in Dallas, it increased it efforts in Michigan and met with a similar reception. In Dearborn on May 26, 1937, Richard Frankensteen and Walter Reuther, leaders in the UAW, after obtaining a permit from Dearborn City Hall traveled from Detroit to the main plant gate at the Rouge to distribute union handbills. They were accompanied by 50 to 60 others, mostly women, who were also to pass out handbills at various gates to Ford workers as they left the plant. The women were to leave immediately after the handbills were passed out. This first direct approach to the Rouge plant had been carefully planned in the preceding weeks. Frankensteen, Reuther, two other UAW men and a local Detroit minister led the group toward Gate 4, the main gate of the Rouge, which was approached by an overpass over Miller Road. A number of reporters and photographers were present when the union men arrived to distribute the handbills. Soon a small group of Ford servicemen arrived at the scene and ordered the UAW men to leave immediately. The union people were not on Ford property, but on public property on the overpass. The UAW men began to move back, but other servicemen came up the stairs of the overpass behind them. The servicemen then preceded to beat both Frankensteen and Reuther. About four or five servicemen attacked each man. After slugging and kicking them for a while, they were finally permitted to leave as they were kicked and punched down the stairs to the overpass. The servicemen completed their "security" efforts by then proceeding to attack the remaining women, reporters and photographers. This episode became famous in labor history as "The Battle of the Overpass."[lix] The attacks were similar to what went on in Dallas in the following months. Under the regime of Henry Ford and Harry Bennett, this was Ford company policy toward union men and women.
After the Battle of the Overpass, the UAW concentrated on legal action against Ford through the NLRB. Proceedings were initiated around the country charging unfair labor practices. The most important proceeding was the one concerning the Rouge. The NLRB rendered its decision on December 22, 1937. The Board held, "We think it plain from the record that the respondent deliberately planned and carried out the assaults in an effort to crush union organization among its employees. In the late summer of 1940, the UAW had finally overcome its internal battles over leadership and was ready to make a concerted effort to unionize Ford. The key was the Rouge plant. Without the Rouge, no union could be successful at Ford. The company used various strategies through its control of the Dearborn city government, but the union now had the resources to sustain the battle. Thousands of Ford workers joined the union. In one week in March, 1941, 6000 workers signed membership cards for UAW Local No. 600 which represented workers at Rouge. Within the giant plant, Ford had already begun to make some concessions on grievance procedures.
On April 1, 1941, Harry Bennett took a new hard line by summarily dismissing union leaders in several key areas of the plant, including the rolling mill, steel building and the tire plant. The news spread quickly throughout the plant. Workers in the rolling mill sat down on the job. Others followed, and by evening, the entire Rouge plant was engaged in a spontaneous sit-down strike. The union recognized the existing situation by issuing a formal strike call shortly after midnight. At midnight, thousands of workers left the Rouge at the shift change and walked to the union offices. Bennett, believing that the union would post pickets at the plant, posted his servicemen at the plant gates ready to drive off the strikers. The union however decided to block all access roads to and from the plant with a barricade of cars and trucks. However, strikers did approach main gate 4, where a battle ensued between several hundred black workers under the command of the Service Department. The strikers were temporarily driven off, but returned armed with baseball bats and clubs. They drove the gathered servicemen back. By this time thousands of spectators and workers had gathered around the Rouge. Continued operation of the plant under these conditions was impossible. Bennett tried to maintain the allegiance of several hundred black workers recently recruited from the South, but black leaders, including Walter White of the NAACP and local leaders of the black community in Detroit, were able to convince the black workers to leave the plant.
In a final effort to secure outside force to end the strike, Bennett sent telegrams to Michigan Governor Murray D. Van Wagoner and President Roosevelt requesting intervention by state and federal forces to restore order and reopen the plant. His requests were ignored. Governor Van Wagoner made a proposal to settle matters by allowing a union election within the Rouge and Highland Park plants, with the winner to be recognized as the representative by Ford. With the Rouge shut down, the company quickly agreed. The union election was held on May 21 and was hotly contested. Bennett encouraged the AFL to participate as an alternative to the UAW. The AFL eagerly participated in this effort to wrest control from its rival CIO which had granted the UAW charter. The election was held and the UAW received approximately 70% of the vote in the Rouge, the AFL received 27% and less than 3% of all the workers voted for no union. Charles Sorensen, long-time associate of Henry Ford and company executive, wrote in his autobiography that the union election was "crushing news to Henry Ford, perhaps the greatest disappointment he had in all his business experience." Incredibly, Henry Ford believed that his workers would vote against a union.The UAW was promptly certified by the NLRB to engage in collective bargaining for the Ford workers.[lx]
By this time Ford had decided that it wanted to sign a labor contract with the union as quickly as possible. It granted many concessions to the union. At the eleventh hour, Henry Ford balked at signing, but finally agreed. The contract was signed on June 20, 1941. It set a new standard for the industry as Ford and its workers agreed to an eight-hour workday and forty hour workweek with overtime pay for any excess, including double pay for Sundays and Holidays. The company agreed to recognize seniority rules with regard to layoffs and pay, and established detailed grievance procedures. Perhaps most important for the union, Ford became a union shop with a dues checkoff system. This meant that all workers must either belong to the union when employed or join within thirty days of employment. Union dues would automatically be deducted from their paychecks and Ford agreed to pay the dues directly to the union. This was a major victory for the union, because without checkoff, union officials were like bill collectors when they collected union dues from members. All Ford automobiles were to carry the union label. The Service Department was abolished. All security personnel in Ford were to wear badges with clear identification. This was the greatest victory to date for the UAW and created a public sensation upon release to the press.[lxi]
Under the new contract all 120,000 eligible employees in 34 Ford plants were covered. All currently employed workers were required to join the UAW. According to the union history of Local 870 of the UAW in Dallas, "It was just like waking up free and in the light after sleeping in a dark dungeon. You couldn't believe the change. The nightmare was over." There were 1380 men working in the Dallas Ford plant when the contract was signed; 1320 men went to the union meeting.[lxii]
The union contract in 1941 finally provided the job security and improvement in working conditions to Ford's auto workers that had always been their goal in the union struggles of the !930's and early 1940's. The UAW came to Dallas because of the victory of the workers in Michigan. With the size and power of Ford concentrated in Michigan, the UAW had to win recognition of the union at the Rouge or be crushed in a smaller plant like Dallas. The AFL had often tried to establish unions in individual plants instead of industry wide unions as the CIO advocated. These individual industrial unions were almost never successful. The UAW had effective and dedicated leadership in its campaign in Mich
