The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1941-04-02
FORD. STRIKE

Union headquarters announced
that the strike was 400 per cent
effective The union said only
maintenance crews, to man steel
and glass furnaces requiring con.
slant attention, were being permit.
ted to enter.
Violence Flares
With picket lines and automobile
barbados thrown around the heart
OF the Ford Industrial empire, VOL
ence flared within an hour after the
union members took their stand at
5 o'clock this morning, little less
than five hours after the strike call
was issued. The strike order came
after an estimated 10000 to $4,000
workers left the plant after engag-
ing in a "sit-down."
Rocks and pop bottles flew and
heads and shoulders of pickets
were beaten when about rs workers
emerged from the plant carrying
three-foot metal bars and set upon
an approximately equal number OF
pickets at Gate 4.
For a few minutes, Wild melee
took place and finally Dearborn
police charged the group with
drawn night sticks. The pickets
fled. However, for the most part.
the police took no part in the many
encounters between pickets and
men who came out from the plant.
Some 200 men came out on an
oyerpass after entering the plant
the same way and showered pick
cts with pop bottles and sections of
lead pipe. When they entered, there !
we're about 1000 in the group most
ly negroes.
The pickets laid. large planks |
studded with spikes across one |
road so that the tires of entering |
cars would be punctured. One auto
mobile, driven by a negro, managed |
to go through two picket lines. 1t |
was followed onto company prop |
erty and the windows smashed. |
Ford service men came to the as |
sistance of the driver who was I'M
injured.
Conciliator To Arrive
The assistance of the federal |
in the dispute will be |
given with the arrival sometime /
today OF Labor Conciliator James .
F. Dewey. who has been Ill at his /
Chester, Pa, home with arthritis. |
II was Dewey who has shuttled |
back and forth between company |
and union officials seeking to settle
their differences.
Editors Note; Last February %. 1
the union filed a S0-day strike no.
tice with the state labor mediation [
board in Lansing that a strike was
impending" at the Ford Rouge,
Lincoln and Highland Park plants.
In the interim. the union charged
that some Of its members were be-
ing discharged. Last week, the /
NLRB concluded hearings in De- |
troit. on a UAW-CIO petition for a
collective bargaining election in the
plants for this Saturday in Wash
ington)
ington. The Ford River Rouge fac
tory is the largest industrial plant
in the world.
The latest rapid-fire develop |
ments in the situation were as fol, /
lows:
Harry Bennett. personnel d.
rector OF the Ford Company,
said he talked to Henry Ford
and the multi-millionaire an
nounced that the men who had
caused this disturbance will
never again work at the Ford
Motor Company" Bennett said
There will be no violence as
far as the company is con-
cerned.'
Violence flared at gate 4 where I
approximately $50 non-striking |
Ford workers engaged in a pitched |
battle with strikers.
At least 20 persons were injured I
in fights at gate 4 and other points /
where the JAW massed pickets 1
in the thousands.
Between 200 and $50 non-striking
Ford employees applied at Dearborn |
police headquarters to serve as
volunteer" officers and it was an
nounced the men would be depu.
tized II necessary.
In one vicious battle at Airport |
Drive near the factory, the strikers |
totaled at least 5000 men and fist |
fights were spontaneous and bricks |
were hurled with utter abandon at /
non-strikers
At the gate 4 battle. the union |
asserted the men who came out of 4