Why Did American Auto Workers During WWII Vote 'YES' for a No-Strike Pledge WHILE They Were On Strike at the Same Time They Voted?
The answer tells us what truly unites the working class against the ruling class
During World War II the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) had more than a million members, and Detroit was where many of them worked. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did everything he could to persuade American workers, especially the UAW workers, not to go on strike. For this purpose, FDR called on the UAW to sign a NO STRIKE PLEDGE. What happened surprised everybody!
The UAW leadership decided to put the question to a vote for the membership to decide, either YES (sign the no strike pledge) or NO (don’t sign it). The vote was conducted by sending postcard ballots to the UAW members and the voting by mail took place over the winter and spring of 1944 and 1945.
Of course the mass media did everything it could to ensure that the workers would be “patriotic” and vote YES, i.e., pledge not to go on any strikes. Newspapers and radio made sure that the workers were fully aware that the enemy was evil incarnate and that only a terrible person would even think about impeding the war effort by going on strike instead of increasing production of planes and tanks to the maximum.
So it was not surprising that the vote was 178,824 for “YES” and 97,620 for “NO.”
But here is what WAS surprising.
While the voting was going on during the winter and spring of 1944 and 1945 this is what happened (as written by Martin Glaberman in his book, Wartime Strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II, Bewick Editions, Detroit, MI (pg. 119-20):
At the same time, in the period that the vote was taking place, the winter and spring of 1944 and 1945, a majority of the auto workers went out on wildcat strikes. “Business Week noted that the votes were being counted when there were more workers on strike in Detroit than at any time since the start of the war.” [42] And Art Preis also notes that, “When the war came to a close on August 14, 1945, the American workers had chalked up more strikes and strikers during the period from December 7 1941, to the day of Japanese surrender three years and eight months later, than in any similar period of time in American labor history.” [42] …[A] majority of workers went out on strike in a period when a referendum was indicating close to a two-to-one opposition to wartime strikes…
Part of the contradiction is illuminated by the following:
“We tackled Jimmy on this apparent conflict of views—asking him why it was that he could support an Act which intended to curb the use of union power while, in his own work situation, he advocated the greater use of that power. He then made it clear that he didn’t think all strikes were a bad thing ‘because some do have a good foundation, you know the workers have got reasons to strike—but some I believe are Communist inspired and so if the Act can stop that sort of strike then I’m all in favour of it.’ It becomes clear that it is not working-class action that is being rejected but working-class action as it is projected by the mass media. Not militancy but ‘mindless militancy,’ Jimmy and his mates are told that strikes are bad, that workers are led by Communists and they believe it. to an extent, that is. Certainly they believe it to the point of arguing it in a pub or of answering a public opinion pollster. But when it comes to daily activity at work they know that strikes can be justified. Maybe they won’t go on strike but they won’t decide not to strike because ‘strikes are bad for the country’ or because ‘strikes are the results of agitators.’ Their decision to strike, or not, will be geared to their own particular situation. It is this tension between generally propagated abstract ideas and practical necessity which explains why—even at a time when wider and wider sections of the workforce were involved in strike action—public opinion polls continued to find so many workers who considered stikes ‘a bad thing.’”[2]
What this illustrates is, among other things, that people will take action against an injustice when a) they know for sure, because of first hand up-close experience, that it is indeed an injustice AND b) when they know for sure that they are joined by many others who feel the same way. These are the conditions that pertained when the auto workers went on WILDCAT strikes—strikes unauthorized by the union, strikes led by the rank-and-file workers because of a grievance or grievances that they all knew about from personal experience and that they KNEW that they ALL knew about. This is totally different from an abstract assertion made by a newspaper or radio station about something far from one’s personal experience, such as the importance of not going on strike to win the war.
Thus, when the workers received a postcard ballot at their home, where they were away from the shop floor and away from their co-workers and in the place where they read the newspaper and listened to the radio, the abstract notion that it was wrong to go on strike because that would impede the war effort caused most of the auto workers to vote ‘YES’ for the NO STRIKE PLEDGE. But when they were on the shop floor with their co-workers they saw with their own eyes that there was a grievance requiring wildcat strike action and knew they were not alone in knowing so, so they went on a wildcat strike.
Why Is This Important?
If we are going to build the massively large egalitarian revolutionary movement that is required to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor, in other words to truly solve the most serious problems in our society, then we need to understand why American auto workers would go on strike while at the very same time voting not to go on strike.
We need to build a revolutionary movement based on the very same things that led the auto workers to go on their wildcat strikes despite so much effort by the rulers to prevent that.
We need the American (and elsewhere too!) have-nots to have in regards to the goal of making our society egalitarian the kind of confidence that the wildcat striking auto workers had.
This confidence requires two things.
#1. The have-nots must be absolutely sure that their anger at the rich—the ruling billionaire plutocracy (not a physician with a nice car)—is 100% justified; this means they must know from first hand undeniable experience that the rich are indeed treating them like dirt and that this is morally reprehensible because society can and ought to be much different without rich people and without have-nots treated like dirt by rich people or anybody else.
#2. The have-nots must know that they are in the vast majority in feeling this righteous anger.
For this to happen the egalitarian revolutionary movement must talk to people about what people already know from their own direct personal experience, what they already are very angry at—how the rich treat people like dirt routinely, everyday, openly, nothing secret about it, no question about “Is it really true?” or “Are the rich really doing THAT?” (Examples of this are here.) Thus, when I talked to my zip code neighbors about the lack of affordable housing, something which they were already very angry about, then they eagerly agreed to pose for a photo holding a sign that that said, “We the People want affordable housing for all. To get it we aim to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with nor rich and no poor.” View these photos here.
The egalitarian revolutionary movement must also talk to people about how society can and ought to be very different, so there will be no rich people and no have-nots treated like dirt by anybody. Otherwise, anger at being treated like dirt will no more lead to efforts to change things than anger at the law of gravity or at the changing of the seasons does so.
And the egalitarian revolutionary movement must do things to enable the have-nots to know with confidence that they are in the great majority in wanting an egalitarian revolution.
It is in fact possible to do all of these things if we explicitly aim to do them.
How to do this?
Read here how YOU can help build this egalitarian revolutionary movement.
Theo Nichols and Huw Beynon, Living with Capitalism, London-Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, page 131. Emphasis in original
Preis, Labor’s Giant Step, pg 236