April 23 Sitting Down in California for Dignity

On this day in labor history, the year was 1937.

That was the day 1800 autoworkers sat down at the Ford Motor plant in Richmond, California.

It was the largest Ford plant on the West Coast.

The UAW organizing drive at Ford had just begun a few weeks earlier with a sit-down strike in Kansas City.

Company manager Clarence Bullwinkle, reported he had returned from lunch only to find the plant occupied and all power shut off.

Workers began their occupation after 12 workers with seniority rights had been transferred from the assembly plant to the loading department and then discharged.

Strikers voted to allow company officials and office workers to leave the plant but not to return.

Bullwinkle was told to “get out and stay out until you meet our demands.”

He refused to budge and holed up in his office.

Demands included recognition of the union, seniority rights and regular pay instead of discharge for workers who are out sick or injured on duty.

As the night shift arrived and then left, they passed their lunch buckets in solidarity to the striking workers.

Within 12 hours the strike was reportedly called off after Ford officials agreed to meet with strikers.

Seeing this as tantamount to winning union recognition, workers paraded through the streets in the early hours of Saturday morning.

But they hit the picket lines later that day, when Ford officials failed to appear.

By Monday, they were back on the job. Fearing another day’s loss of production, Ford officials met with union leaders.

While workers did not win formal recognition, they did win seniority rights and recognition of the shop stewards committee in a first step towards union recognition, which would come four years later.