by Sol Dollinger and Genora Johnson Dollinger

This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were neither easy nor inevitable—not automatic—but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action.

Sol Dollinger recounts how workers, especially activists on the political left, created an auto union and struggled with one another over what shape the union should take. In an oral history conducted by Susan Rosenthal, Genora Johnson Dollinger tells the gripping tale of her role in various struggles, both political and personal.

Sol Dollinger’s remembrance of UAW’s early days are juicy and provocative. His recall of those goofy internecine political battles within the union is tragic-comic. Yet they, united, even though hollering at each other, made GM, Ford, et al, recognize the union. The sequence involving Genora Johnson Dollinger, the heroine of the 1937 sit-down strike, is deeply moving and inspiring.

—Studs Terkel

Should be read by every labor person who takes the principles of trade union history seriously. [Not Automatic] brings the history of the UAW up for a new survey of the events to include the men and women who would otherwise be unsung heroes or written out of history totally.

—David Yettaw, President, UAW Buick Local 599 (1987-1996)