Car industry: reading guide
- League of Revolutionary Black Workers – Organisation of African-American radicals from the late-1960s/early-1970s, largely organised into various ‘Revolutionary Union Movements based in the Detroit car industry.
- Solidarity Motor Bulletins - Series of bulletins from UK libertarian socialist group, Solidarity, from the 1970s about the global car manufacturing industry, produced largely by and for car workers themselves.
- Mechanics Educational Society of America - Union which pioneered the organisation of skilled autoworkers, refused to sign the no-strike pledge and fought against CIO incursions into their organized shops.
- United Auto Workers - American labour union representing car industry workers.
- Martin Glaberman - American Marxist and Detroit car factory worker associated with the Johnson-Forest Tendency. Wrote extensively on Detroit struggles, including criticisms of the unions and racism in the car industry.
- Ken Weller - British libertarian socialist, member of Solidarity and car factory worker. He was heavily involved in producing the Solidarity Motor Bulletins and wrote many important texts on car industry workers’ struggles.
- The US industrial workers’ movement - Chapter 3 of the brilliant Poor Peoples' Movements: Why They Succeed, How they Fail analyses the movement of industrial workers in depression-era America, particularly in the car industry, and the role of the unions from the sitdown strikes to the union no strike deals of World War II.
- The Flint sit-down strike, 1936-1937 - Jeremy Brecher – Excellent history of the legendary General Motors sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, where workers occupied the factories and won big concessions.
- Wartime strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II - Martin Glaberman - Glaberman’s brilliant examination of the American car industry workers’ wildcat strike wave, despite their own union's no strike pledge, during World War 2.
- 1968: Ford female employees win strike for equal pay in Dagenham - a short account of the largely successful strike by female Ford workers in the UK against pay inequality.
- 'Clasismo' and the workers: 'Sindicalismo de Liberacion' in the Cordoban automobile industry, 1970-1975 - James P. Brennan - In-depth study of radicalism in the Cordoban car manufacturing industry, with focus on the activities and fortunes on the revolutionary clasismo movement.
- Against the state as boss - Autonomous Assembly of Alfa Romeo - A fascinating and detailed first-person account of workers struggles at Italian state-owned auto manufacturer, Alfa Romeo from 1971-1972.
- The Lordstown struggle and the real crisis in production - Ken Weller - Fascinating pamphlet on workers’ informal resistance to the frenetic pace of work at a General Motors plant, and the later co-optation of the struggle by the auto workers union.
- Wildcat: Dodge Truck June 1974 - Detailed article by participants and eyewitnesses about the wildcat strike at the Chrysler truck plant in Michigan, 1974, and the roles of the workers, the union and the left.
- Autoworkers and the working class in Brazil - John Humphrey - Analysis of the strike waves of the late-1970s Brazilian working-class movement, and the important role which car factory workers played in it.
- Strike and police brutality at Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, 2005 – A look at the violent, month-long strike/lockout of HMSI workers in India in 2005, which ended with the employers giving into many of the workers' demands.
- Report and reflections on the UK Ford-Visteon dispute 2009: a post-Fordist struggle - A detailed account and analysis of the struggle of Ford-Visteon car manufacturing workers who occupied and picketed their plants after being sacked when their employers declared themselves bankrupt.
- Ssangyong motors strike in South Korea ends in defeat and heavy repression - Loren Goldner - Analysis and overview of the dramatic 2009 struggle at the Ssangyong Motors plant, which saw almost a thousand workers occupy the plant for 77 days.
- Auto industry strikes in China - Lance Carter – Excellent account and analysis of the hugely successful wildcat strike wave at mostly Japanese-owned auto factories in China, 2010.
- Struggles ‘Made in India’: on the series of factory riots, occupations and (wildcat) strikes in Delhi’s industrial south, 2014 - Article documenting material concerning eighteen factory struggles in Delhi’s industrial belt between early 2014 and mid-2015.
- Rivethead - Ben Hamper – Novel written by an American car factory worker during shifts on the shop floor, Rivethead details the down and out memoirs of a line assembly worker for GM Motors over the 1980s.
- We Want Everything: A Novel - Nanni Balestrini - Nanni Balestrini’s fictionalized account of the Hot Autumn, in which a young worker from Italy’s impoverished south arrives at Fiat’s Mirafiori factory in Turin, where he finds himself in conflict with the bosses and the entire capitalist system.
- Images from 1934 Autolite strike – Photo gallery of one of the most important and dramatic strikes in US history.
- 1932: the Ford Hunger March massacre – Photo gallery of an autoworkers’ demonstration in Detroit, where police and Ford security guards killed 4 and injured 60 when they opened fire on a protest organized by the Communist Party USA's Unemployed Council.
- Blue Collar – American crime drama starring Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor as two Detroit autoworkers who rob their corrupt union, finding themselves in conflict with both union and management.
- The Working Class Goes to Heaven (La Classe Operaio Va in Paradiso) – Fantastic Italian film from 1971 depicting a car factory worker’s radicalisation after an injury at work, resisting his condition as a tool in the production process and, as a result, the politics of the trade unions.
- Made in Dagenham – Film about the 1968 Ford sewing machinists’ strike by women workers in protest at the company’s sexual discrimination and demanding equal pay.