Here’s a remarkable fact: In 1980 the median income for young workers in Flint, Mich., was higher than in San Francisco. Flint was a company town, and as Edward McClelland says in “Midnight in Vehicle City”: “There was never a better time to work for General Motors.”
Who could disagree? Employees at GM and the other big auto makers had cost-of-living adjustments, two cars in their driveways, lifetime health care and a pension. In Michigan, they had summer cottages and deer hunting trips Up North.
It all arose, so Mr. McClelland posits, from a 1936-37 sit-down strike when auto workers in Flint struck GM and demanded bargaining recognition for the fledgling United Auto Workers of America.
The strike lasted 44 days. It was violent on both sides but turned into a standoff in which the UAW refused to call an end until it won exclusive bargaining rights, and GM refused to talk until the workers left its premises.
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