December 30: Sit-down strike against GM begins in Flint, Mich., on this date in 1936

For 44 days, GM workers fought the corporation by initiating a sit-down strike, centered in Flint, Mich., to create an environment within General Motors where a union could exist. From December 30, 1936, to February 11, 1937, workers battled a company with immense political power, brawled with police, and seized control of a key plant that effectively shutdown GM's entire operation, forcing the company's submission.

At the time, General Motors employed 55-percent of all U.S. autoworkers. While its top executives lived handsomely, the average worker took home just $900 per year; in 1935, the government declared that the average family of four needed $1,600 a year to live reasonably. More than low incomes, employees on the assembly lines were grossly overworked; wives later revealed stories of their husband's extreme dizziness, inability to walk up the stairs after a day's work, and general distress.

Finally, with the pressure for mass organization mounting, the United Auto Workers (UAW) initiated sit-down strikes in a few small GM plants, beginning on November 16, 1936. But things became serious when its attention turned to the Fisher Body Plant Number One, in Flint, Mich. There, GM housed one of its two body dies needed to stamp out practically every car the company made. This was the decisive move that would effectively close General Motors indefinitely.