Detroit History: Ford Motor Company Joins The UAW
Seventy years ago, workers at the last "Big Three" car-making holdout voted overwhelmingly for United Auto Workers representation. Then they got a big surprise at the contract bargaining table.
After a pro forma denunciation of a "Communist victory", Ford offered a better economic package than the UAW requested. But Henry Ford had a hidden agenda.
He hoped that success would spoil the workers' militancy. He also wrote a check for a "consolation farm" to the unionist who came out a voting-day loser.
Get the whole story in Joe Donovan's Detroit History Report:
