But he didn't extend this policy beyond River Rouge.įord assembly plants in the South only employed Black workers as janitors and porters. He placed Black workers in all departments and occupations at the plant. Ford is then said to have changed his hiring policy at river Rouge. the story goes that at the beginning of the 1921 depression, Black workers employed at river Rouge and Black middle-class leaders from Detroit approached Ford and talked about his racist bias in layoffs. Of the auto manufacturers, Ford developed a policy of hiring ten per cent Blacks in his work force at the River Rouge plant. 70 in Flint, Pontiac foundry in Pontiac, Chevrolet forge in Detroit and Chevrolet Grey- Iron Foundry in Saginaw - all of General Motors and Main Dodge of Chrysler in a Detroit suburb, Few Negroes were employed in automobile plants outside of Detroit. The Negro employees of General Motors and Chrysler were also concentrated in a few plants: Buick No. Except in the Rouge plant, they were barred from skilled work.Īpproximately one half of the Negroes in the iundustry were employed by the Ford Motor industry and 99 percent of these in the huge River Rouge plant. Until 1935 only the Ford River Rouge plant hired Black workers in large numbers, Black workers who did work in auto plants were confined to janitorial work or to the unpleasant back-breaking foundry jobs that white men did not want. Blacks were excluded from regular jobs in most auto plants. The auto industry was one of the last major industries in the United states to hire large numbers of Black workers.
The large Polish minority who made up a large proportion of the work force in the auto plants began to display the same prejudice against Black workers after the southerners came. The southern whites who migrated to Detroit brought with them racist attitudes. During the war, thousands of southerners, both Black and white migrated to Detroit in search of work, By 1930, there were 25,895 Blacks among the industry's 640.474 workers. In 1910, there were only 569 Blacks out of 105,759 auto workers. In order to adequately address the LRBW as an organizational development within the broader context of the Black liberation movement, it is necessary to make a few preliminary remarks concerning Black workers in unions, particularly the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the automobileindustry.īlack workers involvement in large numbers began during the first imperialist war, when there was a shortage of laborers and Detroit was becoming the center of the auto industry. The purpose here is to present an objective analysis of the historical factors leading to the development and demise of the League. Also, is there any particular phenomenon that contributed to the League emerging in Detroit rather than in any other city? While the scope of this paper is too short to address itself directly to these questions, it is hoped that some underlying factors tracing the development of the League are answered.
To approach a study of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, an independent Black radical workers' formation in Detroit, as a consequence of the Black liberation movement, several questions should be answered in the research We should ask ourselves the history of Black workers' relations in white unions.
0 kommentar(er)
