People got their heads busted in for something called the weekend, for the forty hour week, an end to child labour, the right to organize, to negotiate with owners about working conditions, work safety, and wages. Rich elites deployed the usual thugs to deny these rights; politicians, the Pinkertons, police, the military, and hired goons. Women and men in the labour movements struggled together to overcome that substantial force. They won concessions for some of the rest of us. Labour has had a harder time in the developing world (twenty assassinated union leaders in one year in Colombia alone). All those rights won are now being challenged once again, rolled back by the same reactionary forces. This documentary relates some of the history of the struggles of labour (most of us are labour). Most of our history is left out of the history books. It is wise to ask, why.
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Fascinating look back at a sit down strike and the efforts in support of that strike
llltdesq26 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary-Feature, losing to Scared Straight. There will be spoilers ahead:
This documentary covers the sit-down strike of GM's plant in Flint MI in late 1936 and early 1937, focusing foremost on the efforts of The Women's Emergency Brigade to support the men who were sitting in the factories.
It's a mix of archival footage and interviews conducted around the 40th anniversary of the strike with nine of the women who were prominent in the EB. While the archival footage and news coverage is itself fascinating, it's the interviews which are at the heart of the documentary, which is clearly and unabashedly pro-strike, pro-union and pro-EB.
The women are fascinating and quite matter-of-fact in discussing events, the lead up to the strike and the actions of themselves and the strikers. While there were women working at the plant in various divisions, the women tell of the decision made at the beginning to send the women who struck out so that no one could make insinuations of "improper" behavior going on inside the factory because the strikers were a mix of men and women.
Hearing a woman who looks like a grandmotherly type talk about having a homemade blackjack hidden up her sleeve was an eye-opener, yet, on reflection, it shouldn't have surprised me. The men and women who struck for better working conditions and treatment were largely part of the generation which fought World War II and took up the slack in the factories when so many men and women were in the military. They were a tough lot and most had to scrabble hard to survive. Compared to what they'd already been through and what most of them would later go through in the war years, the strike seems easy by comparison One of the women mentions that she and her husband had just bought a house prior to the strike, paying $25 down and $5 a month and were having difficulty managing to survive even with him working at the plant because the wages were so low. The working conditions she describes boggle the mind! I can understand perfectly well why they decided to strike. I probably would have too! This deserves to be more widely seen.
This documentary covers the sit-down strike of GM's plant in Flint MI in late 1936 and early 1937, focusing foremost on the efforts of The Women's Emergency Brigade to support the men who were sitting in the factories.
It's a mix of archival footage and interviews conducted around the 40th anniversary of the strike with nine of the women who were prominent in the EB. While the archival footage and news coverage is itself fascinating, it's the interviews which are at the heart of the documentary, which is clearly and unabashedly pro-strike, pro-union and pro-EB.
The women are fascinating and quite matter-of-fact in discussing events, the lead up to the strike and the actions of themselves and the strikers. While there were women working at the plant in various divisions, the women tell of the decision made at the beginning to send the women who struck out so that no one could make insinuations of "improper" behavior going on inside the factory because the strikers were a mix of men and women.
Hearing a woman who looks like a grandmotherly type talk about having a homemade blackjack hidden up her sleeve was an eye-opener, yet, on reflection, it shouldn't have surprised me. The men and women who struck for better working conditions and treatment were largely part of the generation which fought World War II and took up the slack in the factories when so many men and women were in the military. They were a tough lot and most had to scrabble hard to survive. Compared to what they'd already been through and what most of them would later go through in the war years, the strike seems easy by comparison One of the women mentions that she and her husband had just bought a house prior to the strike, paying $25 down and $5 a month and were having difficulty managing to survive even with him working at the plant because the wages were so low. The working conditions she describes boggle the mind! I can understand perfectly well why they decided to strike. I probably would have too! This deserves to be more widely seen.
A marvelous documentary on women and unionism
mgconlan-114 September 2006
"With Babies and Banners" pays tribute to the women -- some of them wives of strikers and some of them factory workers themselves -- who helped win one of the greatest victories of American labor unionism: the 1937 sit-down strike at the General Motors plants in Flint, Michigan. The film includes generous amounts of actual footage from 1937 as well as interviews with some of the leaders of the Women's Emergency Brigade 40 years later, and shows how issues of gender and racial equality still remain troublesome within the labor movement. "With Babies and Banners" was filmed in 1977 and released in 1979, but takes on even more poignancy now that the gains made by the labor movement in the 1930's -- relatively high wages, job security, social benefits like Social Security and unemployment compensation -- are being relentlessly attacked by Right-wingers in government and the media, and that many descendants of the white working-class people who were the greatest gainers from the 1930's union movements have joined the Right and are voting for the politicians and policies which are sending them back to the 1890's economically and socially.
Incidentally, the print I saw was in terrible shape -- there were scratches and black lines across the screen through much of the film -- and when the person who presented it announced that his copy was a VHS transfer of a print owned by one of the filmmakers it rather dashed my hopes that a better-quality version exists. This really underscores the importance of preserving not only silent and early-sound Hollywood classics but more recent so-called "orphan films" that have little commercial potential but are nonetheless invaluable historical documents and deserve to exist for the education of future generations.
Incidentally, the print I saw was in terrible shape -- there were scratches and black lines across the screen through much of the film -- and when the person who presented it announced that his copy was a VHS transfer of a print owned by one of the filmmakers it rather dashed my hopes that a better-quality version exists. This really underscores the importance of preserving not only silent and early-sound Hollywood classics but more recent so-called "orphan films" that have little commercial potential but are nonetheless invaluable historical documents and deserve to exist for the education of future generations.
stand with the unions
lee_eisenberg22 October 2022
I first learned of the General Motors sit-down strike when Michael Moore mentioned that his uncle participated in it. I've finally gotten around to watching a documentary about it. Lorraine Gray's Academy Award-nominated "With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women's Emergency Brigade" focuses on the strike, and about the role that Flint's women played therein, resisting GM's labor-suppressing tactics. A sad irony was that less that a decade after the documentary's release, GM closed its Flint factory, turning the once prosperous town into a dystopia (as Moore chronicled in "Roger & Me").
The documentary - like Moore's - shows the importance of organized labor, especially considering the decades-long attack on unions. If you don't know about labor's history, then it's because those in power don't want you to know. Definitely watch this documentary, as well as Moore's documentary and "Harlan County, USA".
The documentary - like Moore's - shows the importance of organized labor, especially considering the decades-long attack on unions. If you don't know about labor's history, then it's because those in power don't want you to know. Definitely watch this documentary, as well as Moore's documentary and "Harlan County, USA".
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