Biography
On December 12, 1977, U.S. District Judge John Feikens sentenced seven auto workers — "the Trenton 7" — to a week in federal prison for criminal contempt of a restraining order barring picketing at Chrysler's Trenton Engine Plant (UAW Local 372) in Trenton, Michigan. During the brutal heat wave of the summer of 1977, thousands of Detroit-area auto workers had walked out of plants where temperatures reached 120–130°F; at the Trenton plant, the firing of several union stewards over one such heat walkout triggered a week-long wildcat strike. Of the hundreds of workers who picketed, seven were singled out for prosecution. Although nearly 60 workers fired for heat walkouts at other Detroit-area plants were rehired in a Chrysler–UAW deal, the Trenton 7 were not reinstated and were instead tried without a jury and convicted. Supporters denounced the case as a frame-up and an assault on the right to strike.
Al Larcinese was one of the seven defendants, who likened the prosecution to the labor repression of the 1930s.
