My daughter posted this on FB today:

[ashling]

On this day in 1936 the Flint Sit-Down Strike began... lots of brave people struggled to make the world we live in better... we've been given so much, but it's all too easy for it to get taken away if we don't pay attention... Today i feel a sense of gratitude, but also responsibility. To whom much is given, much is required.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. And it was not easy. Here's some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_Strike

The UAW had only been formed in 1935 and held its first convention in 1936. Shortly thereafter the union decided that it could not survive by piecemeal organizing campaigns at smaller plants, as it had in the past, but that it could organize the automobile industry only by going after its biggest and most powerful employer, General Motors Corporation, focusing on GM's production complex in Flint, Michigan.

Organizing Flint was a difficult and dangerous plan. GM controlled city politics in Flint and kept a close eye on outsiders. As Wyndham Mortimer, the UAW officer put in charge of the organizing campaign in Flint, recalled, when he visited Flint in 1936 he received a telephone call within a few minutes of checking into his hotel from an anonymous caller telling him to get back where he came from if he didn't "want to be carried out in a wooden box."

GM also maintained an extensive network of spies throughout its plants. Mortimer concluded after talking to Flint autoworkers that the existing locals, which had only 122 members out of 45,000 autoworkers in Flint, were riddled with spies. Accordingly, he decided that the only safe way to organize Flint was simply to bypass those locals. Mortimer, Eric Branoff, Roy Reuther, Henry Kraus and Ralph Dale began meeting with Flint autoworkers in their homes, keeping the names of new members a closely guarded secret from others in Flint and in UAW headquarters.

As the UAW studied its target it discovered that GM had only two factories that produced the dies from which car body components were stamped: one in Flint that produced the parts for Buicks, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles and another in Cleveland that produced Chevrolet parts. The union planned to strike these plants after the New Year, when Frank Murphy would become Governor of Michigan.

[lastlib]

2. If we take our rights lightly, our rights will be taken lightly.

What we have been dearly given must be guarded jealously.

[mbperrin]

3. Very smart woman.

Yes, people have actually been killed.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Please tell your daughter "THANK YOU!!!"

K&R!

[smccarter]

5. Very smart young woman....

But... collectively, I'm afraid, Americans are so consumed with American Idol, Honey Boo Boo, etc, etc... that they can't see the lion in their living room. We have an epidemic of Adult Deficit Disorder in this country.

[hopemountain]

6. your daughter is a

smart, courageous and wise woman! please thank her for remembering those who sacrificed their safety for millions of us in the future. seems many things today are "upside down" when it comes to justice for the common people - the workers and toilers who really did build this country with their sweat and tears and blood. let us never forget them and take courage from them now as everything they fought for is threatened.