DETROIT – The 1913 Studebaker strike stands as Detroit’s first major labor strike in automaking.
And while the strike failed, fear of further strikes led to improved conditions for other automakers.
Recommended Videos
It started with a change in how the company did payroll.
Studebaker shifted its pay schedule from weekly to biweekly, a change that quickly drew sharp criticism from workers already stretched thin.
When the company fired Dale Schlosser, who voiced opposition to the new policy, workers took to the streets.
On June 17, 1913, an estimated 3,500 workers walked out of Studebaker’s #3 plant, located near the intersection of Clark Street and West Jefferson Avenue.
They demanded a return to weekly pay, better working conditions, and an eight-hour workday.
The thousands of workers began to march, picking up auto workers at other plants. The crowd reportedly grew to nearly 6,000 people.
“It was one of the most splendid demonstrations of solidarity for a common cause in the history of the labor movement in the United States,” wrote Matilda Rabinowitz, a labor organizer for the IWW.
After police attacked the striking workers on June 19 outside the Packard, Detroit banned large marches and parades, causing the strike to lose steam.
“Police, both on foot and on horseback, charged the marchers, scattering them in all directions, and using their clubs freely,” wrote August Walquist. “One of the marchers carried an American flag which was torn from his hands, the staff broken over his head and shoulders and the flag trampled.”
Studebaker offered employees access to 70% of their pay at the midpoint of the biweekly pay period and the workers voted to end the strike on June 23, after six days.
Despite the concession, the strike was widely seen as a failure.
However, fear of more strikes and more unions is believed to be the reason Henry Ford introduced the $5-a-day wage for his workers.
Studebaker eventually went defunct in 1968.