1C honors the women behind the men

Region 1C’s women’s tribute was made possible with donations from sponsors and the purchase of memorial bricks. Donations are encouraged, and bricks may still be ordered. For information, call the region at (810) 767-0910.

Wearing the trademark red beret and Women’s Emergency Brigade armband, Geraldine Blankinship stood tall before the Labor Day crowd at Sit-Downers Memorial Park on the grounds of UAW Region 1C in Flint, Mich.

“I am the proudest woman you can imagine … so honored to be here today,” she said at the recent unveiling of a memorial tribute to women of labor.

More than 70 years ago General Motors’ sit-down strikers and the Women’s Emergency Brigade taught us an enduring lesson: Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things through the power of collective action and the strength of solidarity.

It was 1936 and a turbulent time for autoworkers, who had won sit-down strikes at Bendix in South Bend, Ind., and Detroit’s Kelsey-Hayes Wheel Co. Before year’s end, Flint workers learned that GM planned to move key dies from the Fisher Body complex to pre-empt an anticipated strike.

Blankinship, now 89, was a teen-ager and daughter of a sit-downer. She joined the Women’s Brigade after hearing about how they broke out windows to let fresh air into General Motors’ tear-gas filled Fisher Body No. 1 plant, where workers – including her father – caught the company off guard and sat down Dec. 30.

Before that she, her mother and sister slept in shifts to cook and do laundry for boarders who came from Ohio to help picket. Blankinship and her sister, Louise, helped picket and volunteered for secretarial work at UAW headquarters.

On Feb. 11, 1937, GM recognized the union and negotiated a first contract.

Blankinship and others in the UAW Women’s Brigade and Women’s Auxiliary are credited with making sure actions by police and the company didn’t deter the courageous sit-downers over those 44 long days.

“So many women have contributed not only to labor, but to society as a whole,” said Region 1C Director Duane Zuckschwerdt, on why he expanded the park to include the memorial tribute. “From the Women’s Brigade to the millions of Rosie the Riveters who helped build the arsenal of democracy that brought victory in World War II, women have always contributed to improving lives in all areas of American society: labor, politics, civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights and protecting our country by serving in the military, to name a few.”

With the addition, the memorial park comes to life: On the left is a monument of sit-downers waiting for the strike to end, with the smokestacks of GM’s Flint Assembly Truck plant in the background.

Just ahead there’s a factory wall façade – with actual bricks and windows from GM’s Fisher plants in Flint and Lansing – used as a backdrop against life-size bronze statues by artist Stan Watts from Atlas Bronze in Utah. You see a policeman dragging a women’s brigade member; a child holding a picket sign near a woman delivering strikers’ food from a picnic basket; a woman wielding a bat about to break out a factory window.

On the right is a fountain topped by a 6,000-pound granite ball engraved with a map of the world and the UAW logo. Biographies of women who have made a difference in the labor movement surround the fountain. Granite benches donated by local unions offer a place to sit and reflect.

GM sit-downer Arthur Lowell, 92, reminded the crowd why the UAW is so important: “When I hired in the plant at 18, General Motors had announced profits in the millions. We were paid so little that we could not afford to buy a car. After the strike, when the UAW was representing us, things got better and we could afford to buy cars. Then General Motors began announcing profits in the billions.”

Debi Kirchner

Kirchner is a member of UAW Local 598.