United Automobile Worker

Local No. Lansing Progressive Force

(Continued from a recent issue)

All unions have in their history one red-letter day, the events of which are cherished in tradition and which form the material from which epics are written. In the Lansing local, that day is June 7, 1937, the date of the famous Lansing Labor Holiday.

The Labor Holiday, the local feels, was necessary and justified. It was the Lansing workers' declaration of independence. The facts which forced the Holiday were these:

A strike was being conducted against the Capitol City Wrecking company, a lumber concern. During the course of the strike five warrants were issued against workers and their wives. At 2 o'clock in the morning the sheriff roused the men and women from their beds and dragged them off to jail, leaving babies and young children alone at home. One of the women was the wife of the president of the local.

A POLITICAL STRIKE

The workers of Lansing considered this action a violation of decency and a challenge from the bosses, as represented by the sheriff, the courts, and labor injunctions. The holiday was justified by an expression of solidarity no one could misunderstand or underestimate. It was a show of power to the bosses.

Eighteen thousand workers, organized and unorganized, poured from the shops into the streets to demonstrate and to demand the release of labor prisoners. It was not a "wildcat" strike. It was not an economic strike at all. It was a political protest and political strike. If there are those who demand legal justification for labor mass political action, those who led the Holiday will tell you that the workers of Lansing were exercising their constitutional right to assemble peacefully for a redress of grievances.

GAINS CONSOLIDATED

Since the Holiday the energy of the local has been directed toward stabilization and consolidation of the gains already made. Efforts are being made to perfect the administrative machinery of the local and to analyze and profit by the mistakes of the past necessarily made because of the rush and turmoil of initial organization.

Educational classes have been established in parliamentary law, public speaking, and history of the labor movement. A broad cultural and entertainment program has been developed, with an effort to induce union members to spend their leisure time at union functions and to build at least part of their social life around union social activities.

Parties are held by the various branches and by the women's auxiliary. Elsewhere on this page there is an announcement of a union-sponsored professional sports program. During the summer the local entered two baseball teams in amateur competition throughout the state.

IMPROVE ORGANIZATION

Organizationally, improvements have been made. For example, a more genuine democracy within the union has been aided by the creating of a joint council to administer the affairs of the local.

Each branch sends delegates to the council in proportion to its membership. Fullest opportunity for differences of opinion pertaining to union affairs is allowed in the local in accordance with the dictates of real democracy and expression of such differences is encouraged.

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS

The members of the local feel that their progressive policies have served as an aid not only to their own membership but to the entire International. The Lansing local has furnished the research director of the International and a member of the general executive board. Four members of the local have been selected by President Homer Martin as international organizers.

At the same time, the practice of hero worship has been frowned upon in the local, and free, unfettered, constructive criticism of the leadership has been encouraged.

The Lansing General Motors shops, although the GM contract did not provide for recognition of stewards, have succeeded in enforcing steward recognition on the local management and steward systems in both Oldsmobile and Fisher Body function as such and function effectively.