Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement

Last updated
Dodge Revolutionary Movement
AbbreviationDRUM
FoundedMay 1968
Headquarters Detroit, Michigan
Ideology Communism
Civil Rights
Trade Unionism
Black Power

The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) was an organization of African-American workers formed in May 1968 in the Chrysler Corporation's Dodge Main assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan.

Contents

History

Detroit labor activist Martin Glaberman estimated at the time that the Hamtramck plant was 70 per cent black while the union local (UAW Local 3), the plant management and lower supervision, and the Hamtramck city administration was dominated by older Polish-American workers. [1]

DRUM sought to organize black workers to obtain concessions not only from the Chrysler management, but also from the United Auto Workers. Walter Reuther and the senior leadership had been early supporters of the American Civil Rights Movement; yet in spite of their growing presence in the auto-industry African-Americans rarely rose to positions of leadership within the union. On July 8, 1968 DRUM led a wildcat strike against conditions in the Hamtramck plant. The strike was observed by some 4,000 workers, lasted 2.5 days and prevented the production of 3,000 cars. In the subsequent Local 3 election, DRUM ran as an alternative slate. Although it did not win, the new organization drew notice for its militancy and willingness to challenge the UAW hierarchy.

The "Revolutionary Union Movement" form of organization spread to other Detroit plants: including FRUM (Ford Revolutionary Union Movement) at the Ford River Rouge Plant, and ELRUM (Eldon Avenue Revolutionary Union Movement) at the Chrysler Eldon Avenue plant. These organizations were brought together in the League of Revolutionary Black Workers which formed in June 1969.

As it grew, DRUM faced a crisis of expectations. Auto workers had created an independent organization, but opinions differed about DRUM's future mission. Debates concerned whether DRUM should continue as a reform movement within the UAW or a dual-union which would seek to replace the UAW. The League of Revolutionary Black Workers eventually split between those who wanted to remain focused on the auto industry and those who wished to expand the League into a national political organization. The nationally oriented movement, led by General Baker, retained the organizational name the League and DRUM and was associated with the New Communist Movement. [2] By 1975, however, the plant-level organization was largely defunct. Many members had been fired, and those who stayed often joined other currents in the union reform movement, such as the United National Caucus.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Reuther</span> Labor union leader and progressive activist (1907–1970)

Walter Philip Reuther was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He considered labor movements not as narrow special interest groups but as instruments to advance social justice and human rights in democratic societies. He leveraged the UAW's resources and influence to advocate for workers' rights, civil rights, women's rights, universal health care, public education, affordable housing, environmental stewardship and nuclear nonproliferation around the world. He believed in Swedish-style social democracy and societal change through nonviolent civil disobedience. He cofounded the AFL-CIO in 1955 with George Meany. He survived two attempted assassinations, including one at home where he was struck by a 12-gauge shotgun blast fired through his kitchen window. He was the fourth and longest serving president of the UAW, serving from 1946 until his death in 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flint sit-down strike</span> 1936–37 labor strike at the General Motors plant in Michigan

The 1936–1937 Flint sit-down strike, also known as the General Motors sit-down strike, or the great GM sit-down strike, was a sitdown strike at the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, United States. It changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from a collection of isolated local unions on the fringes of the industry into a major labor union, and led to the unionization of the domestic automobile industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Auto Workers</span> American labor union

The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther. It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for automotive manufacturing workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, mismanagement, movements of manufacturing, and increased globalization. After a successful strike at the Big Three in 2023, the union organized its first foreign plant (VW) in 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communist Party USA and American labor movement (1937–1950)</span>

The Communist Party (CP) and its allies played a role in the United States labor movement, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, but largely wasn't successful either in bringing the labor movement around to its agenda or in converting their influence in any particular union into membership gains for the Party. The CP has had only negligible influence in labor since its supporters' defeat in internal union political battles in the aftermath of World War II and the Congress of Industrial Organizations's (CIO) expulsion of unions in which the party held the most influence in 1950. The expelled parties were often raided by stronger unions, and most withered away.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Fraser</span>

Douglas Andrew Fraser was a Scottish–American union leader. He was president of the United Auto Workers from 1977 to 1983 and an adjunct professor of labor relations at Wayne State University for many years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Overpass</span> 1937 violence against union organizers in Dearborn, Michigan, USA

The Battle of the Overpass was an attack by Ford Motor Company against the United Auto Workers (UAW) on May 26, 1937, at the River Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. The UAW had recently organized workers at Ford's competitors, and planned to hand out leaflets at an overpass leading to the plant's main gate in view of many of the 90,000 employees. Before the UAW organizers could begin, they were attacked by Ford's "quasi-military" security service and the Dearborn police.

Martin Glaberman was an American Marxist writer on labor, historian, academic, and autoworker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. J. Thomas</span> American trade unionist

Roland Jay Thomas, also known as R. J. Thomas, was a left-wing leader of the United Auto Workers in the 1930s and 1940s. He grew up in eastern Ohio and attended the College of Wooster for two years. The need to help support his family caused him to leave college and go to work. In 1923, he moved to Detroit, where he worked in a number of automobile plants.

The League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) formed in 1969 in Detroit, Michigan. The League united a number of different Revolutionary Union Movements (RUMs) that were growing rapidly across the auto industry and other industrial sectors—industries in which Black workers were concentrated in Detroit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The formation of the League was an attempt to form a more cohesive political organ guided by the principles of Black liberation and Marxism-Leninism in order to gain political power and articulate the specific concerns of Black workers through political action. While the League was only active for a short period of time, it was a significant development in a time of increasing militancy and political action by Black workers and in the context of both the Black liberation and Marxist-Leninist movements in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Frankensteen</span> American labor leader

Richard Frankensteen was an American labor union leader and politician who served as the first president of the "Automotive Industrial Workers Association" which merged into the United Auto Workers (UAW). He was elected vice president of the UAW, where he played a major role until he was ousted in 1947 for his alleged communist ties. In actuality, Frankensteen was a leader of the left wing coalition led by R. J. Thomas and George Addes. It opposed to Walter Reuther, who defeated them in 1947.

The Alliance for Labor Action (ALA) was an American and Canadian national trade union center which existed from July 1968 until January 1972. Its two main members were the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, although it had some smaller affiliates.

Olga M. Madar was the first woman to serve on the United Auto Workers (UAW) International Executive Board.

B. J. Widick was an American labor activist in the United Auto Workers union and socialist movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wyndham Mortimer</span> 20th century American labor leader

Wyndham Mortimer was an American trade union organizer and functionary active in the United Auto Workers union (UAW). Mortimer is best remembered as a key union organizer in the 1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike. Mortimer was the First Vice President of the UAW from 1936 to 1939. A member of the Communist Party USA from about 1932, Mortimer was a critic of the efforts of the conservative American Federation of Labor to control the union and was a leader of a so-called "Unity Caucus" which led the UAW to join forces with the more aggressive Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

The tool and die strike of 1939, also known as the "strategy strike", was an ultimately successful attempt by the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) to be recognized as the sole representative for General Motors workers. In addition to representation rights, the UAW, working jointly with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), sought to resolve existing grievances of skilled workers.

General Gordon Baker Jr. was an American labor organizer and activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter P. Reuther Library</span> Library at Wayne State University

The Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, located on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, contains millions of primary source documents related to the labor history of the United States, urban affairs, and the Wayne State University Archives. The building is named for UAW President and Congress of Industrial Organizations President Walter Reuther.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chrysler Auto Strike</span> 1939 labor action in the US

The Chrysler Auto Strike began in October 1939 at the Dodge Main Plant in Detroit, Michigan, as a struggle between the Chrysler Auto manufacturer and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Cockrel Sr.</span> American politician and activist

Kenneth Vern "Ken" Cockrel Sr. was an American politician, prominent attorney, and revolutionary, community organizer, from the city of Detroit. Cockrel served as a member of Detroit's Common Council, from his swearing-in in 1978 until 1982. In addition to winning major cases representing poor and working class Detroiters, Cockrel rose to political prominence as he helped organize social and political movements, including the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and other radical black, Marxist formations.

Nat Ganley, or Nat Kaplan, was a socialist and later communist journalist who became a union organizer in the 1930s, particularly for the United Auto Workers of America. He was tried and convicted in 1954 for violating the Smith Act, but his conviction was later overturned.

References

  1. Glaberman, Martin (1969). "The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement". International Socialism. 1st series (36). Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  2. "Dodge Revolution Union Movement Finding Aid".

Further reading