Labor / Politics / Civil rights & activism
Stanley Nowak
1903–1994 · UAW organizer, Michigan state senator
Polish-American organizer who brought Detroit's Polish autoworkers into the UAW in the 1930s and served as a pro-labor Michigan state senator.
- Born
- Died
aged 91- Detroit years
- 1930s–1994
- Field
- Labor, Politics, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Stanley Nowak, a Polish-born immigrant and gifted speaker in both Polish and English, first spoke in Detroit at a May Day celebration in 1924 and later became one of the UAW's most effective organizers among the city's Central and Eastern European workers. Founder of the union's Polish Trade Union Committee, he led the December 1936 strike at the American Aluminum (ALCOA) plant in Hamtramck, supported the January 1937 sit-down at a General Motors plant in Detroit and in 1938 organized the Federal Screw Works on the west side, forming the Detroit Screw Council at West Side Local 174. Elected to the Michigan Senate as a Democrat, he pressed for welfare relief for Detroit's jobless, investigated the city's slum housing and demanded that Black Detroiters be admitted to public housing in white neighborhoods, linking racism and anti-labor politics as twin threats. His left-wing ties later made him a target of Cold War deportation efforts. With his wife Margaret, who wrote his biography, he lived in Detroit until his death in 1994.
Highlights
- Founded the UAW's Polish Trade Union Committee
- Led the 1936 strike at the ALCOA plant in Hamtramck
- Organized the Detroit Screw Council at UAW Local 174 in 1938
- Pro-labor, pro-civil-rights Michigan state senator