Before the U.A.W., Detroit was a notorious open-shop city. Here, a look at the rotten reality behind Ford’s much-hyped five dollars a day and the work of the I.W.W. in the Motor City.

‘Trials and Triumphs in Automobile Center’ by B.F. Boyle from Industrial Worker. Vol 1 (new). No. 14. July 15, 1916.

It may be of interest to readers of the Worker to have some reliable information of the industrial affairs of the much vaunted centre of automobile manufacturing. The prospects and conditions of the toilers here at present are not to be taken as a gauge of ordinary conditions which have confronted the slaves in the past, but, an extraordinary one, due to several causes, of which of is shortage labor caused by the decreased immigration from Europe, which has furnished a large percentage of the slaves and has always been a great factor in giving exploiters of labor a point of vantage in their war against labor unions. Another is the large orders for manufactures, among which are armoured motor cars and other munitions, which are highly civilized exports to Europe, to add to the gayety of the warring nations there. Owing to the general prosperity (?) which manifests itself by new buildings and in many other forms, there is a constant demand here for all kinds of mechanics and laborers. The wages vary, common labor at present is paid an average of thirty cents per hour.

The wages in the automobile factories range from 22 1⁄2c per hour up to the now famous five dollars per day to all, in the Ford Motor Company. This pay in the Ford Motor Co., depends upon many other things, besides being a hard working slave during the eight hours in the factory.

The wages per hour to those who do the first six months in the company’s employ are different in the several departments.

The Ford System.

A machinist, or properly speaking a machine hand, as most of the machinery is automatic, is paid 34c per hour and eight hours work per day. A state of things resembling feudalism exists here under the arbitrary rules of the company. An applicant for employment must fill in an employment blank, giving his pedigree in full. Then he sends it in by mail, and the investigators look him up, and inquire closely into his habits for the past three years, Should he been one of those who have been a faithful slave for some other master, and does not drink intoxicating liquors, or smoke cigarettes, and have a bank account, showing systematic savings, he stands a chance of being notified to come to work in the near future.

Those who get the jobs are subjected to many humiliations, such as being followed after working hours by detectives to see if they go in saloons or other places under the ban of the company.

Those investigators, or snitches, have gone into their employees’ houses and looked at their clothing and furniture, demanded their grocer and butcher accounts and then asked the members of their household many embarrassing questions.

When an applicant has been accepted and fulfilled, all of the obligations expected of him for six months, his wages are fixed at five dollars per day, and the difference between that figure and what he has received during the past six months is given to him in a lump sum, that is, it is deposited in the Ford Bank to his credit, if he is not married, the intimation is conveyed to him that he should be. And the real estate and house connections are not hidden from him.

The other auto factories here, while not sharing the profits like the Ford Motor Company, have the same system of speeding up their employees, and sending them home each day in an exhausted condition.

Why Unlooked For?

In regard to union labor, the city has made but small progress, the cause of which is the determination of all the large employers of labor to prevent any organizing of their slaves, the “spring drives” (it is difficult to avoid using some of the phrases we are constantly reading in the European war news) of Local 16 against unorganized labor has met with much resistence, an unlooked for enemy was brought to the front in the form of the great A.F. of L.

The organizing of the shoe workers number 177, which was largely conducted by Fellow Worker Bromberg (now delegate A.W.O.) and was meeting with success as the shoe workers went out on strike for a ten-hour a day, instead of a twelve to eighteen-hour day, which they were forced to labor.

I.W.W. Terms.

The terms they offered the bosses were a ten-hour day at regular pay, and not more than two hours over time a week, at the rate of fifty cents per hour, each employer was charged one dollar for an I.W.W. union shop card, which was posted in the window of each shop. These terms were acceded to by all the employers with the exceptions of four large shops. The bosses of those, in order to keep their men and disrupt the formation of the I.W.W. Local Union, secured for their employes an A.F. of L. charter, and displayed in their window a large red placard with the notice that their employees were members of the only labor union that was recognized by the public. The strikers won in all but those shops and went back to work, all their demands granted by the bosses.

But the poison of the American Separation of Labor was inoculated into them and they lapsed back into their former condition of disorganization. Now after a lapse of several months about twenty-five of them came back and claimed their charter, have been paying up their back dues, and have started to organize their fellow-workers again in the Industrial Workers of the World.

Other Struggles.

The first star of the emblem of the I.W.W., education; is in the ascendent. The next open battle took place when the Solvay Process Co. men went on strike. This strike involved thirty-five hundred men; a fellow worker was sent out to do what he could with them, the result was the formation of Alkali and Chemical Workers Industrial Union Number 464. Those workers were mostly Hungarians and understood English imperfectly. The strike was a success in about a week’s time, and they went back to work at an increase of eight cents per hour. The majority of them are still unorganized, but the work of education is still going on.

Another crash took place when the Kelsey wheel workers struck for an eight: hour day and more wages. General Executive Board member Christ went among them and organized branch 4 of Local 16, getting about one hundred and sixty members from a total of between eleven and twelve-hundred.

After being out for several days, the company granted their demands for more pay and eight hours a day, while the members of the A.F. of L. were to work nine hours a day, the company refused to recognize the I.W.W., and as soon as the men went back to work they commenced to weed out the members of the I.W.W. and discharge them.

A strenuous effort was made to call another strike, but it was a failure, as the workers were discouraged, and being Polish were difficult to educate, as we have no means to quickly bring to their attention the benefits of organization, and consequently the newly formed branch disintegrated.

At present Local 16 is something like Micaber, “waiting for something to turn up.” Many of the members have, or are getting ready to answer “The call of the wild,” and are going towards the harvest fields.

The Local has moved from 337 Gratiot Ave., and is now located temporarily on the main business thoroughfare overlooking the beautiful Detroit River, in the centre of the business district at 52 Woodward Ave.

B.F. Boyle.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”

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