Reply #51: BiggJawn, my dad fought alongside Walter Reuther

[dmr]

and was badly beaten, in the "battle of the overpass" by William Bennett's "service department", while the Dearborn (Michigan) police department stood by watching. It wasn't just the union organizers who were beaten. Women, children, clergy, journalists and photographers were roughed up, some badly. This was the late 1930's (I think 1937, but could be wrong).

Dad said that William Bennett was probably the second most powerful man at Ford. Dad had been followed home and elsewhere, by these goons on many occassions - this was even before he joined the UAW. The intimidation factor Ford and Bennett placed on my dad had the opposite effect. Dad began organizing himself, and nearly died at the "battle of the overpass". They beat him to unconsiousness and threw his body down some stairs. Walter Reuther paid for my dad's hospital bills.

My dad only had good words for Walter. He said Walter believed that the automobile companies held an obligation beyond their stockholders to provide safe working conditions and a decent wage for their employees and for society as well.

I didn't learn of my dad's activities until I was grown, and complaining about having to pay union dues. Dad told me (as someone already mentioned in this thread) that the only thing worse than unions are the conditions that brought them to us. When we grow up 'soft' we need our elders to remind us of the why's and whatfors. Our educational system won't teach our children our history, it's up to us. (Re-writing history or re-dating history is a daily occurance in today's White House).

Walter Reuther and his wife, Mary, were killed, I think in 1970, in a plane crash in Michigan. My dad never believed it was an accident.