Even with the declining pay rates, workers were required to work at a faster pace to make up for the loss from the Great Depression.

Creators of fortunes, incomparable benefactor to the chosen few, prize milch-cow of America's most patrician family, the du Ponts, whose 10,000,000 shares of GM stock assured them a one-fourth cut of the corporation's unabating profits, whatever happened in this central city of the corporation, in this non-descript over-size village, reverberated throughout the financial capitalists of the nation".

As explained by Henry Kraus, "The great concentration of autoworkers in Flint was not at the body plants but at Chevrolet and Buick which employed 14,000 and 16,000 men respectively – the largest of all general Motors' 60-odd factories".

As Wyndham Mortimer, the first UAW officer put in charge of organizing the campaign in Flint, entered the town, he was noticed.

The day after he entered Flint, in early June 1936, he was being followed by people who were probably from the General Motors Company, "When he went through the front door, the other put his paper down and followed him out into the street.

Events forced the union to accelerate its plans when the workers at Cleveland's Fisher Body plant went on strike on December 28, 1936, due to two brothers being fired from the assembly line.

The UAW immediately announced that it would not settle the Cleveland strike until it reached a national agreement with GM covering all of its plants.

[7] In a conventional strike, union members leave the plant and establish a picket line to discourage other employees from entering, thus preventing the employer from operating.

By remaining inside the factory rather than picketing outside of it, striking workers prevented owners from bringing strikebreakers to resume production.

Any person who broke the rules was given a trial, and punishments ranged from washing dishes to expulsion from the plant (in the most extreme cases).

It was important for the strikers to maintain order in the plant; if property damage occurred, the Governor would intervene with the National Guard.

In addition to maintaining order, the civic government also ensured a steady stream of supplies from friendly vendors outside the plant.

[12] The police, armed with guns and tear gas, attempted to enter the Fisher Body 2 plant on January 11, 1937.

The strikers inside the plant pelted them with hinges, bottles, and bolts, led by Bob Travis and Roy Reuther.

To avoid tipping its hand, the union let it be known in the hours before the move that it intended to go after another plant in the complex, changing directions only at the last minute.

GM's representatives refused to be in the same room as the UAW's, so Governor Frank Murphy acted as courier and intermediary between the two groups.

Governor Murphy sent in the Michigan National Guard, not to evict the strikers, but rather to protect them from the police and corporate strike-breakers.

Other notable participants in the sit-down strike were future D-Day hero and Greco-Roman wrestling champion Dean Rockwell, labor leader and future UAW president Walter Reuther, and the uncle of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, whose debut feature Roger & Me contains a clip from the strike.