The next time you visit one of your local Buick auto dealers, take a moment to reflect on the very first sitdown strike in Flint, Michigan more than five decades ago. Also known as Buick City and Vehicle City, Flint was the hub in which today’s biggest automakers. And although the UAW won strikes in smaller individual plants, the Flint Sitdown Strike was a first in that it helped garner a contract with General Motors, the world’s largest automaker at the time.
The plants that the UAW targeted for the Flint strike supplied Buick parts as well as parts for other GM brands. These parts would be used in the cars that would eventually make their way from the assembly line to the Buick auto dealers and other GM dealers around the country. That’s exactly why the UAW targeted these particular plants. The union wanted to cripple the auto industry for a short time to show the major car corporations just how important the workers were to the manufacturing aspect.
The Flint strike was “the strike heard ’round the world,” according to the British Broadcasting System. It resulted in the UAW growing from about 30,000 members to more than 500,000 members within the next year.
The next time you visit your local Buick dealer or drive by any other Buick auto dealers in the country, think of the sacrifice that the strikers made to help mold the industry and workforce into what it is today. Have you ever thought about what the auto industry would be like today without the union or the Flint Sitdown Strike?
