Firestone Sit-Down Strike (1936)

Wed Jan 29, 1936

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Image: Akron police clash with strikers from the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Akron, Summit County, 1938. [ohiohistorycentral.org]

On this day in 1936, tire builders at the Firestone plant in Akron, Ohio engaged in a sit-down strike to protest a reduction in rates and the firing of a union worker, one of the earliest sit-down strikes in U.S. history.

Sit-down strikes were effective because the workers would occupy the factory and stand by their machines, not allowing production to continue with strikebreakers. They were also often spontaneous, not easily controlled or planned for by union or factory management.

The workers began the strike by sending one committee around the plant to call out other departments, another to talk with the boss, and a third to police the shop. Within a day, the entire Plant No. 1 was struck, and after fifty-three hours the workers at Plant No. 2 announced they had voted to sit down in sympathy.

Management gave in completely, and, over the next few weeks, waves of strikes rocked other plants in Akron, most dramatically at Goodyear, where as many as 10,000 workers, including people from all trades in Akron, picketed around the gates of the Goodyear factory.

  • @hark
    2•1 year ago

    We need more of this.