Not Automatic: Women and the Left in the Forging of the Auto Workers' Union - Softcover

Dollinger, Sol; Dollinger, Genora Johnson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1583670181 ISBN 13: 9781583670187

Publisher: Monthly Review Press, 2000

Synopsis

"Sol Dollinger's remembrance of UAW's early days are juicy and provocative. His recall of those goofy internecine political battles within the union is tragic-comic. Yet they, united, even though hollering at each other, made GM, Ford, et al,recognize the union. The sequence involving Genora Johnson Dollinger, the heroine of the 1937 sit-down strike, is deeply moving and inspiring."
--Studs Terkel

"Should be read by every labor person who takes the principles of trade union history seriously. . . . Brings the history of the UAW up for a new survey of the events to include the men and women who would otherwise be unsung heroes or written out of history totally."

--David Yettaw President, UAW Buick Local 599, 1987-1996

This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were not easy or inevitable-not automatic-but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action.

Sol Dollinger recounts how workers, especially activists on the political left, created an auto union and struggled with one another over what shape the union should take. In an oral history conducted by Susan Rosenthal, Genora Johnson Dollinger tells the gripping tale of her role in various struggles, both political and personal.

About this title

About the Author:

Sol Dollinger served in the merchant marines before and during the Second World War and worked in the 1940s and 1950s at the Hudson Motor Car Company, Budd Wheel Motor Products, and Briggs Manufacturing Company in Detroit, as well as the Chevrolet assembly plant in Flint, Michigan.

About this edition

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1583670181
• ISBN 13: 9781583670187
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220