 In response, 25,000 whites walked off the job in a "hate" or wildcat strike at Packard, effectively slowing down the critical war production.Although whites had long worked with blacks in the same plant, many wanted control of certain jobs, and did not want to work right next to blacks.Harold Zeck remembers seeing a group of white women workers coming into the assembly line to convince the white men workers to walk out of work to protest black women using the white woman's bathroom.