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Welcome to ElderwiseIn-person, online, and hybrid classes Fall Term 2025 Registration Coming in August... > History

The Kingsford Chemical Company Strike of 1953   

In 1951 the Ford Motor Company divested itself of extensive properties in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Local entrepreneurs assumed control of the chemical plant at Kingsford, Michigan, reorganizing it as the Kingsford Chemical Company. For the next 19 months, members of the United Auto Workers, working without a contract, negotiated with Kingsford Chemical in an effort to make UAW Local 952 the sole bargaining agent for the company. On July 1, 1953, the union members went on strike. The next four months brought violence, charges of bad faith bargaining, and intervention by state and federal mediators, religious leaders, a U. S. Congressman, the Governor of Michigan, and the State Police. The affair left a legacy of bitterness and division in the two towns of Iron Mountain and Kingsford. 

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