The Revolutionary Workers League (RWL) was a radical left group in the United States , lasting from 1935 through 1946. It was led by Hugo Oehler and published The Fighting Worker newspaper.
69-702: The RWL originated as a tendency within the Workers Party of the United States , which had been formed by the merger of the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) and A. J. Muste 's American Workers Party in December 1934. Some within the new party were advocating an application of Leon Trotsky 's French Turn by having the enter in the Socialist Party of America . The issue was first raised at
138-611: A November 2008 New York Times editorial, Andrew Ross Sorkin claimed that the average UAW worker was paid $ 70 per hour, including health and pension costs, while Toyota workers in the US receive $ 10 to $ 20 less. The UAW asserts that most of this labor cost disparity comes from legacy pension and healthcare benefits to retired members, of which the Japanese automakers have none. The Big Three already sold each of their cars for about $ 2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at
207-528: A bargaining agent under the newly adopted National Labor Relations Act . This recognition marked a turning point in the growth of the UAW and organized labor unions more generally. The next month, auto workers at Chrysler won recognition of the UAW as their representative in a sitdown strike. By mid-1937 the new union claimed 150,000 members and was spreading through the auto and parts manufacturing towns of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The Ford Motor Company
276-464: A benefit not calculated by the UAW's many critics. The UAW has claimed that the primary cause of the automotive sector's weakness was substantially more expensive fuel costs linked to the 2003-2008 oil crisis which caused customers to turn away from large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup trucks , the main market of the American Big Three. In 2008, the situation became critical because
345-699: A blind alley every time.” [1] It was also these strikes that led to the fusion of the two organizations. In 1933 the American Workers Party had initially formed as a separate organization from the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) partly out of the concern that the CLA did not have a strong base in American politics. The origins of the CLA was a split from the Communist Party USA over
414-640: A group headed by David Atkins that merged into the Bordigists , and the Revolutionary Communist Vanguard . The Revolutionary Workers League was active inside a number of trade unions, particularly the United Auto Workers . They succeeded in having one of their members Zygmount "Ziggy" Dobrycinski elected as head of Local 205. However, when the RWL began to make demands for the "politicalization" of
483-481: A lack of organizing funds, fear of retaliation among the workers, distrust from Black and foreign workers, and strong opposition from the automobile companies. By 1935 the majority of members had been recruited by militant local activists taking their own initiative at plants outside Michigan. Many of these militant local unions opposed the AFL's plan to divide their members into different craft unions. They began advocating for
552-524: A left wing and the party had declared itself open to other tendencies. As members of the Socialist Party the Trotskyists continued to exist as an independent tendency and continued publishing their own newspaper, Socialist Appeal . However, soon differences developed between the rest of the party and the " Socialist Appeal tendency ", as the Trotskyists were known, and they split to form their own group,
621-457: A majority of the workers signing cards asking for UAW representation, in February 2014 workers at Volkswagen's Chattanooga , Tennessee plant narrowly voted down the union 712 to 626. However, the UAW organized a minority union Local 42, which was voluntary and does not collect dues. After the close vote against the UAW, Volkswagen announced a new policy allowing groups representing at least 15% of
690-547: A new corporatist mentality that accepted management's argument that shorter hours conflicted with wage increases and other job benefits and abandoning the old confrontational syndicalist position that shorter hours drove up wages and protected against unemployment. The UAW delivered contracts for his membership through negotiation. Reuther would pick one of the Big Three automakers ( General Motors , Ford , and Chrysler ), and if it did not offer concessions, he would strike it and let
759-456: A non-discrimination clause drafted by Shelton Tappes , a Black foundryman who had served on the UAW negotiating team. Communists provided many of the organizers and led some key union locals, especially Local 600 which represented the largest Ford plants. The Communist faction had some key positions in the union, including the directorship of the Washington office, the research department, and
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#1732872693484828-473: A steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation , decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing (including reaction to NAFTA ), and increased globalization . After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant ( VW ) in 2024. UAW members in the 21st century work in industries including autos and auto parts, health care, casino gambling, and higher education. The union
897-513: A wide range of policy issues or reforms to AFL–CIO governance. On July 24, 1968, just days after the UAW disaffiliation, Teamsters General President Frank Fitzsimmons and Reuther formed the Alliance for Labor Action as a new national trade union center to organize unorganized workers and pursue leftist political and social projects. Meany denounced the ALA as a dual union , although Reuther argued it
966-679: Is headquartered in Detroit , Michigan . As of February 24, 2022, the UAW has more than 391,000 active members and more than 580,000 retired members in over 600 local unions and holds 1,150 contracts with some 1,600 employers. It holds assets amounting to just over $ 1 billion. For most of its history, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had only focused on organizing skilled workers practicing specific trades, an approach known as craft unionism . Most automobile workers were not skilled, so they were largely unorganized. This changed following
1035-524: Is not an abstraction but a guide to action on the national field. Joint work of the two organizations in practical work, limited though it has been, has demonstrated in practice an ability to work out a common policy and to cooperate loyally in advancing it.” [2] Many members of the Workers Party of the United States, in turn, decided to join the Socialist Party of America in 1936 to propagate their views inside that party. The Socialist Party had developed
1104-562: The 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike (led by the Communist Party USA ), were important victories after years of union defeats led by class collaborationist union bureaucrats. As such they served as catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations . Speaking of the role of vanguard parties leading the 1934 strike wave James P. Cannon said, “It has been
1173-790: The COVID-19 pandemic . Though primarily known for autoworkers, academic staff comprised one quarter of UAW membership in 2022, and the 2022 University of California academic workers' strike achieved higher pay for that UAW affiliate. A corruption probe by the Justice Department against UAW and 3 Fiat Chrysler executives was conducted during 2020 regarding several charges such as racketeering , embezzlement , and tax evasion . It resulted in convictions of 12 union officials and 3 Fiat Chrysler executives, including two former Union Presidents, UAW paying back over $ 15 million in improper chargebacks to worker training centers, payment of $ 1.5 million to
1242-539: The Great Recession significantly impaired the ability of consumers to purchase automobiles. The Big Three also based their respective market strategies on fuel-inefficient SUVs, and suffered from lower quality perception (vis-a-vis automobiles manufactured by Japanese or European car makers). Accordingly, the Big Three directed vehicle development focused on light trucks (which had better profit margins) in order to offset
1311-554: The Revolutionary Communist Organisation (Austria) , both groups close to Oehler. The outbreak of World War II led to a severe decline in the group. Its youth section, the Young Workers League appears to have been wound up in about 1940, the international disbanded in 1946, and The Fighting Worker ceased publication in 1947, although an attempt at a relaunch was made in 1950. Workers Party of
1380-585: The Revolutionary Policy Committee . When they reported their talks to the party's Political Committee, they set up their own negotiating committee without any members of the Oehler-Stamm group on it. When Oehler-Stamm group continued their talks with RPC they were censured by the party's Control Commission. Things came to a head at the October 4–9, 1935 Plenum of the party's National Committee, at which
1449-480: The Socialist Party of America en masse. The formation of the U.S. Workers Party was the fusion of two revolutionary socialist organizations that had both successfully led two militant strikes to victory. The Communist League of America had led the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 and the American Workers Party helped lead the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite strike to victory. These strikes, along with
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#17328726934841518-503: The Socialist Workers Party , soon thereafter. United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers ( UAW ), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America , is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ) and southern Ontario , Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in
1587-529: The "Active Workers Conference" at Pittsburgh in March 1935. Though the idea was favored by James Cannon and Max Shachtman , the two former leaders of the CLA, it was opposed by Joseph Zack Kornfeder and Muste. The issue was again brought up at the WPUS June National Committee Plenum. Though the party issued a declaration denouncing "false rumors" of factionalism and moves toward merger with
1656-509: The 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther (president 1946–1970). It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers , but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into
1725-598: The IRS to settle tax issues, commitment to independent oversight for six years, and a referendum that reformed the election mode for leadership. The "One Member One Vote" referendum vote in 2022 determined that UAW members could directly elect the members of the UAW International Executive Board (IEB), the highest ruling body of the UAW. Shawn Fain was elected president in March 2023. A strike against all big three automakers began on September 15, 2023, for
1794-556: The International Motor Vehicle Program said. According to the 2007 GM Annual Report, typical autoworkers earned a base wage of approximately $ 28 per hour. Following the 2007 National Agreement, the base starting wage was lowered to about $ 15 per hour. A second-tier wage of $ 14.50 an hour, which applies only to newly hired workers, is lower than the average wage in non-union auto companies in the Deep South . One of
1863-594: The Midwestern United States and Canada, had been impacted economically from losses in jobs and income. This peaked with the near-bankruptcy of Chrysler in 1979. In 1985 the union's Canadian division disaffiliated from the UAW over a dispute regarding negotiation tactics and formed the Canadian Auto Workers as an independent union. Specifically the Canadian division claimed they were being used to pressure
1932-611: The Oehler-Stamm group was forbidden to issue a factional periodical and were given a final warning to cease their violations of " organizational discipline ". Oehler and his faction then withdrew to form the Revolutionary Workers League. By this time a majority of the National Committee come around to support the French turn. The RWL originally thought of itself as an "opposition" within the official Trotskyist movement, in
2001-650: The Revolutionary Workers League, sometimes called RWL (Revolt) after its periodical. They had small groups in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere. After an attempted merger with the Fieldites and some Socialist Labor Party dissidents failed, the Stammites disbanded in 1941. Other groups to split from the RWL included the Leninist League , led by George Marlen, a second Marxist Workers League led by Karl Mienov,
2070-534: The Trotskyists. Joseph Zack then renounced Marxism completely, and founded a new group called the One Big Union Club . The majority of the group apparently renounced Trotskyism at its third Plenum in October–November 1938. However this caused a spit between Oehler, who believed that Trotsky had degenerated from Marxism in 1934, and Stamm who felt that Trotsky had degenerated in 1928. Others reasons given for
2139-508: The UAW used the rhetoric of civic or liberal nationalism to fight for the rights of Black workers and other workers of color between the 1930s and 1970s. At the same time, it used this rhetoric to simultaneously rebuff the demands and limit the organizing efforts of Black workers seeking to overcome institutional racial hierarchies in the workplace, housing, and the UAW. The UAW leadership denounced these demands and efforts as antidemocratic and anti-American. Three examples, Williams argues, show how
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2208-645: The UAW's use of working class nationalism functioned as a counter subversive tradition within American liberalism: the UAW campaign at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan , in the late 1930s, the 1942 conflict in Detroit over the black occupancy of the Sojourner Truth housing project, and the responses of the UAW under the conservative leadership of Reuther to the demands of Black workers for representation in UAW leadership between
2277-452: The UAW, the first Earth Day would have likely flopped!" With the 1973 oil embargo , rising fuel prices caused the U.S. auto makers to lose market share to foreign manufacturers who placed more emphasis on fuel efficiency. This started years of layoffs and wage reductions, and the UAW found itself in the position of giving up many of the benefits it had won for workers over the decades. By the early 1980s, auto producing states, especially in
2346-643: The United States Progressive Era Repression and persecution Anti-war and civil rights movements Contemporary The Workers Party of the United States ( WPUS ) was established in December 1934 by a merger of the American Workers Party (AWP) led by A.J. Muste and the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) led by James P. Cannon . The party was dissolved in 1936 when its members entered
2415-565: The Volkswagen (VW) Chattanooga, Tennessee plant voted to join the UAW, the union's first victory in the South outside Detroit's Big Three. District 65, a former affiliate of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union that included as a predecessor the United Office and Professional Workers of America , merged into the UAW in 1989. In 2008, the 6,500 postdoctoral scholars (postdocs) at
2484-677: The anti-Stalinist Left. Oehler and Negrete were both imprisoned by the Loyalist regime, and only returned to the US after the intervention of the US embassy. With the declaration of the Trotskyist Fourth International , the RWL instead founded the Provisional International Contact Commission for the New Communist (Fourth) International . Besides themselves, this included the Leninist League (UK) and
2553-404: The auto industry rebound in the 21st century and blamed for seeking generous benefit packages in the past which in part led to the automotive industry crisis of 2008–10 . UAW workers receiving generous benefit packages when compared with those working at non-union Japanese auto assembly plants in the U.S., had been cited as a primary reason for the cost differential before the 2009 restructuring. In
2622-510: The benefits negotiated by the United Auto Workers was the former jobs bank program, under which laid-off members once received 95 percent of their take-home pay and benefits. More than 12,000 UAW members were paid this benefit in 2005. In December 2008, the UAW agreed to suspend the program as a concession to help U.S. automakers during the auto industry crisis. UAW leadership granted concessions to its unions in order to win labor peace,
2691-504: The companies for extra benefits, which went mostly to the American members. The UAW saw a loss of membership after the 1970s. Membership topped 1.5 million in 1979, falling to 540,000 in 2006. With the late-2000s recession and automotive industry crisis of 2008–10 , GM and Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Membership fell to 390,000 active members in 2010, with more than 600,000 retired members covered by pension and medical care plans. UAW has been credited for aiding in
2760-401: The considerably higher labor costs, falling considerably behind in the sedan market segments to Japanese and European automakers. The UAW has tried to expand membership by organizing the employees outside of the Big Three. In 2010, Bob King hired Richard Bensinger to organize Japanese, Korean, and German transplant factories in the United States. In a representational election following
2829-496: The consumer with each contract, with limited success. An agreement on profit sharing with American Motors led nowhere, because profits were small at this minor player. The UAW expanded its scope to include workers in other major industries such as the aerospace and agricultural-implement industries. The UAW disaffiliated from the AFL–CIO on July 1, 1968, after Reuther and AFL–CIO President George Meany could not come to agreement on
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2898-639: The country and hit a peak membership of over a million members in 1944. That same year, Lillian Hatcher was appointed the first Black female international representative of the UAW. The UAW struck GM for 113 days, beginning in November 1945, demanding a greater voice in management. GM would pay higher wages but refused to consider power sharing; the union finally settled with an eighteen-and-a-half-cent wage increase but little more. The UAW went along with GM in return for an ever-increasing packages of wage and benefit hikes through collective bargaining, with no help from
2967-602: The deep theoretical differences between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and how those differences related to building the world communist movement. Yet after both the CLA and AWP had successfully led important strikes in 1934 James P. Cannon declared, “We, on our part, venture to say that the work of the League in the Minneapolis strikes helped convince the members of the AWP that we also are able to “speak American"; that our internationalism
3036-470: The factory across the entire supply chain: "just as a militant minority could stop production in an entire plant, so if the plant was a key link in an integrated corporate empire, its occupation could paralyze the corporation." After winning sitdown strikes at General Motors (GM) plants in Atlanta and Kansas City, the UAW began to demand to represent General Motors workers nationwide. Their efforts culminated in
3105-402: The famous Flint sit-down strike , which began on December 30, 1936. By January 25, strikes and the effects of production shutdowns idled 150,000 workers at fifty General Motors plants from California to New York. Strikers repelled the efforts of the police and National Guard to retake them. On February 11, 1937, General Motors agreed to bargain with the UAW, and eventually recognized the UAW as
3174-673: The first time in UAW history. After nearly a month and a half of strikes, UAW was able to reach an agreement with all three carmakers after securing record concessions from them. After the success of the strike, in November 2023, the UAW announced that it was launching a simultaneous campaign to unionize 150,000 workers at other automakers with plants in the United States: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla , Toyota, Volkswagen , and Volvo. The UAW represented 145,000 at GM, Ford & Stellantis. In April 2024, after two failed attempts, 73% of workers at
3243-506: The government. Walter Reuther won the election for president at the UAW's constitutional convention in 1946 and served until his death in an airplane accident in May 1970. Reuther led the union during one of the most prosperous periods for workers in U.S. history. Immediately after the war, left-wing elements demanded "30–40", which is a 30-hour week for 40 hours pay. Reuther rejected 30–40 and decided to concentrate on total annual wages, displaying
3312-455: The immediate creation of an automobile workers' union covering the entire industry . After the Toledo local led an unauthorized but successful strike against General Motors (GM), the AFL caved to pressure and called for a convention. The UAW's founding convention began on August 26, 1935 in Detroit. The total membership of its constituent unions was 25,769. The AFL attempted to keep control of
3381-462: The incident reached the press and helped turn public opinion against the company. However, Ford continued to refuse to sign a contract. The UAW's cause was hindered by its weakness with Black workers. Older Black workers felt loyalty to Henry Ford because he had hired and paid them well at a time when other auto companies would not. Furthermore, many feared that Black workers were being asked to risk their jobs but would be "pushed aside and ignored" once
3450-464: The lack of precisely this element, which only a Marxist party can supply, that condemned the insurgent labor movement of the past to futility and defeat. Lacking a class theory of its own, which can come into the labor movement in no other way than through the Marxist party, the American workers, with all their militancy and capacity for sacrifice, fell victim to all kinds of quackery and treason and landed in
3519-458: The legal office. Walter Reuther at times cooperated closely with the Communists, but he and his allies formed strategically an anticommunist current within the UAW. The UAW discovered that it had to be able to uphold its side of a bargain if it was to be a successful bargaining agency with a corporation, which meant that wildcat strikes and disruptive behavior by union members had to be stopped by
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#17328726934843588-509: The members, including a six-hour day and workers management of the industry, "Ziggy" quit the RWL. The group sent a man named Russel Blackwell (using the pseudonym Rosalio Negrete) to Spain during the early part of the Spanish Civil War , who made contacts to the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( POUM ) left wing. Later they sent Oehler, who was present during the May 1937 suppression of
3657-423: The mid-1940s and the 1960s. See also League of Revolutionary Black Workers and Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement for the history of Black workers who questioned the corrupt leadership of the UAW in the 1960s and the 1970s. The UAW was the most instrumental outside financial and operational supporter of the first Earth Day in 1970. According to Denis Hayes , Earth Day's first national coordinator, "Without
3726-415: The nature of the UAW's organizing. The UAW's executive board voted to make a "no strike" pledge to ensure that the war effort would not be hindered by strikes. A vehement minority opposed the decision, but the pledge was later reaffirmed by the membership. As war production ramped up and auto factories converted to tank building, the UAW organized new locals in these factories and airplane manufacturers across
3795-447: The new Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The UAW's fortunes began to improve after it began organizing on an industrial basis. The union found rapid success with the sitdown strike , a tactic where workers "sit down" at their work stations to occupy a factory. Sitdown strikes enabled small numbers of workers to interrupt the assembly line and stop production across an entire plant. Likewise, it projected power outwards from
3864-446: The other two absorb its sales. Besides high hourly wage rates and paid vacations, in 1950, Reuther negotiated an industry first contract with General Motors known as Reuther's Treaty of Detroit . The UAW negotiated employer-funded pensions at Chrysler, medical insurance at GM, and in 1955 supplementary unemployment benefits at Ford. Many smaller suppliers followed suit with benefits. Reuther tried to negotiate lower automobile prices for
3933-561: The passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. AFL president William Green decided to begin an organizing drive among unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Green planned to recruit workers at each factory into a temporary "federal labor union" (FLU), whose members would then be divided up amongst the AFL's various craft unions. He sent William Collins to Detroit to organize automobile workers. Collins' efforts were hampered by an insufficiently militant program,
4002-484: The right-to-work legislation that passed over the objection of organized labor in December 2012. The UAW also remains a major player in the state Democratic Party. In March 2020, the Detroit United Auto Workers union announced that after discussion with the leaders of General Motors , Ford , and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles , the carmakers would partially shut down factories on a "rotating" basis to combat
4071-578: The same manner as Trotskyism originally conceived of itself as the "Left Opposition" within the Comintern. They focused, in their early years, to recruiting within the Trotskyist ranks, and may have created the "Marxist Policy Committee" within the Trotskyists' Socialist Appeal Association for that purpose. The group went through a number of splits, both of organized factions and individuals. A small Marxist Workers League left early in 1936 and quickly rejoined
4140-596: The socialists, a struggle did apparent take place, Muste, Oehler, and Martin Abern against joining the Socialist, with Cannon and Shachtman favoring the proposal. The group led by Oehler and Tom Stamm were not entirely opposed to work among the left wing members of the Socialist party, but wanted to bring them into the WP as a group, rather than have the Workers Party dissolve into the Socialist Party. To that end they began negotiations with
4209-408: The split included questions over democratic centralism as well as a supposed tendency to focus too much on European events, but Sidney Lens stated that Stamm's motivation was more personal: he simply did not wish to relocate from New York to Chicago, where the RWL's headquarters was being transferred to become closer to the heart of America industry. The Stammites set up another organization, also called
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#17328726934844278-476: The ten campuses of the University of California , who, combined, account for 10% of the postdocs in the US, voted to affiliate with the UAW, creating the largest union for postdoctoral scholars in the country: UAW Local 5810 . The expansion of UAW to academic circles, postdoctoral researchers in particular, was significant in that the move helped secure advances in pay that made unionized academic researchers among
4347-462: The union by pushing through a charter that denied the rank-and-file the right to elect their own officers. Militant local unions quickly managed to overturn that situation, and the struggle alienated the UAW from the AFL leadership. The UAW joined John L. Lewis 's caucus of industrial unions, the Committee for Industrial Organization, in 1936. When the AFL expelled the industrial unions in 1938, it joined
4416-461: The union had secured their votes. It took four years of organizing efforts for the UAW to win the right to represent Ford employees. On May 21, 1941, following a strike at Ford's Rouge plant , a decisive majority of employees, including most Black employees, voted to join the UAW. The UAW extracted a better deal from Ford than from other automakers, including pay increases, a closed shop , and rehiring of pro-union workers. The agreement also included
4485-440: The union itself. According to one writer, many UAW members were extreme individualists who did not like being bossed around by company foremen or by union agents. Leaders of the UAW realized that they had to control the shop floor, as Reuther explained in 1939: "We must demonstrate that we are a disciplined, responsible organization; we not only have power, but that we have power under control.". World War II dramatically changed
4554-515: The workforce to participate in meetings, with higher access tiers for groups representing 30% and 45% of employees. This prompted anti-UAW workers who opposed the first vote to form a rival union, the American Council of Employees. In December 2014 the UAW was certified as representing more than 45% of employees. The union engages in Michigan state politics. President King was a vocal opponent of
4623-425: Was not. The Alliance's initial program was ambitious. Reuther's death in a plane crash on May 9, 1970, near Black Lake, Michigan , dealt a serious blow to the Alliance, and the group halted operations in July 1971 after the Auto Workers (almost bankrupt from a lengthy strike at General Motors ) was unable to continue to fund its operations. In 1948, the UAW founded the radio station WDET 101.9 FM in Detroit. It
4692-481: Was sold to Wayne State University for $ 1 in 1952. The UAW leadership supported the programs of the New Deal Coalition , strongly supported civil rights, and strongly supported Lyndon Johnson's Great Society . The UAW became strongly anti-communist after it expelled its Communist leaders in the late 1940s following the Taft–Hartley Act , and supported the Vietnam War and opposed the antiwar Democratic candidates. According to political scientist Charles Williams,
4761-417: Was the last of the "Big Three" automakers to recognize the UAW. Henry Ford and his security manager, Harry Bennett , used brute force to keep the union out of Ford. They set up the Ford Service Department to spy on and intimidate workers. At the Battle of the Overpass , Ford Service Department personnel beat union organizers in front of news photographers. Despite Ford's attempts to destroy them, photographs of
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