The auto industry was notoriously one of the hardest for unions to crack. Detroit long being an open shop town before it became a citadel of unionism in the late 30s. Here is an early, and largely successful ,strike run by the Auto Workers Union against a major supplier, Murray Body in Detroit during the summer of 1929. Those strikes were part of a larger wave in 1929-30 of attempts to organize auto. Itself a ripple in the overall generations-long campaign to unionize the industry. The A.W.U. was a small independent union based in Detroit that had come under Communist leadership when Phil Raymond won the presidency in 1927. In 1929 it affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League, this being its largest test to date. The A.W.U. would continue to be a presence in the auto struggle until the formation of the U.A.W. in 1935.

‘Strike Spreads in Detroit, 3,000 Off Lines’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 117. July 23, 1929.

Murray Body Out; Strike at Fords; 1,400 Out at Buick, Flint.

DETROIT, July 22. — Three thousand workers of the Murray Body plant are now following the strike leadership of the Auto Workers’ Union, while savage attacks on the strikers by mounted police, company guards and mounted State troopers increase.

Men Can’t Be Fooled.

“Go to Hell!” was the jeering response of the strikers when a foreman from the plant sought to trick the men back to work by promising the 20 per cent wage cut would be rescinded. He appealed at a strike meeting.

Time to Frame “Evidence.”

Because police ask for time to enable them to “bring in evidence” to support their framed charges against union organizer Leon Thompson and Frank Rugers, trial of both was postponed till next Saturday. Bail was set at $500. Although Frank Oneskr was among the strikers brutally beaten during the picket demonstrations, he was found guilty of “striking a policeman.” His case was referred for investigation, bond being set at $500 in the meantime.

A sentence of thirty days in the House of Correction was given Frank Romasehoiski after a police lieutenant gave “evidence” against him.

Part of Strike Wave.

That the strikers express the mass discontent of the workers throughout the auto city against ruthless speed-up and wage slashes is indicated by the strikes at the Ford plant and at the Buick plant at Flint. Over 1,400 are off the line at the Buick plant. They are led by a strike committee of 20. The Ford walkout was called for two hours when workers on five lines refused to work on material for the Murray Body plant last Friday. While the lines are continually broken as workers join the strike, enthusiastic strike meetings are held daily at union headquarters at 55 Adelaide St. and at the New Workers Home at 1343 E Ferry Ave.

“Trimmers, molders, metal finishers and workers in the acid department got wage cuts amounting to 20 per cent,” one of the strike leaflets says. “The wage cuts are going to be put ever on you next because Murray Body has gotten Ford orders at less a price than Briggs. Now Murray Body wants to take it out on your wages.”

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n117-NY-jul-23-1929-DW-LOC.pdf