The Union Movement and Automobile Industry in the US

The UAW has been faced with a bite of failed strikes, with plant closings across the country, and with reduced confederation membership and role throughout American life. At the same meter, the organization has go on to support legislation of interest to workers and to address various policy-making issues with whatever power it could muster. While the future of the carmobile application and thus of the UAW is far from certain, it is evident that the UAW has no intention of giving up its fight to preserve jobs and improve the industry. The tale of the UAW is chute in interesting ways with the history of command Motors, the largest auto company in the country when the UAW was formed and the company with which the UAW would outfit right up to the present day. popular Motors at the time had been put together by William Crapo Durant from a coalition of seek companies. He made it into the world's second largest auto manufacturer by 1920, a corporation then worth $350 million and employing 100,000 workers. At that time, the workers in American industry still labored in isolation and anonymity. There had been an attempt to form an auto workers union. As early as 1891 there had been an International Union of coach-and-four and Wagon Workers affiliated with the Knights of Labor. The carriage industry gave way to the fresher auto industry, and the union tried to make the transitio

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The UAW at the time was an organization with less than 150 members, but it managed to succeed in Flint and with General Motors. These victories gave the union considerable cachet among workers. The sit-down strike was the tactical maneuver used by the union in these battles.

Within months of its advantage with General Motors, the UAW had increased its membership to nearly 400,000 and then turn its attention to the only remaining target, the Ford company. It took four eld for the UAW under the leadership of Walter Reuther to get Ford to agree to a contract. It also took the full power of the federal courts to change the minds of industry. The history of the organization since has been a history of wild pendulum swings of power, of prejudicial acts on both sides, and of selfish and essentially self-destructive policies. By 1978 the union had reached the height of its power with 760,000 members, but there was an internal weakness in this power: "it had too long pursued a policy of demanding more pay for less work, a place which would contribute to the destruction of the industry." Detroit had long lived in an environment of uniform bargaining based on respective claims of poverty by both labor and management, and this was a battle that had evolved out of the refusal by either side to accept any alteration in the lines that had been drawn in the years 1937-1941 when the UAW had had its first success. Management had hammer out a series of agreements with the union under the snappy eye of the courts and the National Labor Relations Board. These were call
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