Racism Stymies Unions in the South
SEGAL, BENJAMIN D.
Racism Stymies Unions in the South Stirring up latent anti-Negro feeling is a favorite employer weapon against labor By Benjamin D. Segal Forty hours before the 377 workers of the Bay Springs...
...Some reasons for this were indicated in recent findings of the Southern Regional Council, the leading Southern organization devoted to race harmony...
...delegate and that the young woman was a Nigerian union representative's wife...
...There is a combination of apathy and loyalty which holds them...
...Indeed, there is every reason to expect more difficulties for unions as tension over school integration increases...
...This is clear from the recent events in Arkansas...
...Obviously, they exchange information and use the same professional anti-union law firms...
...Russell also implied that union "outsiders" would foment violent strikes, shootings, killings and Communism...
...Ironically, Somersett's use of Klan meetings to promote his union and attack the Textile Workers Union of America resulted in the "near-collapse of the hooded order in York County" (in the Rock Hill area), according to one news report...
...The union has asked for a reconsideration of the case...
...The town, located in agricultural Jasper County in southeast Mississippi, has 1,800 inhabitants...
...The most active is probably the United Southern Employes Association (USEA), whose chief spokesman is Adell Somersett, Vice President and National Organizer...
...Dublin, Georgia demands payment of a $2,500 yearly license fee by organizers and compels them to sign oaths supporting compulsory segregation and guaranteeing that no funds obtained will be used for Communist or "integration" causes...
...Before the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools, many unions were quietly doing away with segregation in meetings, at conferences and even on some jobs...
...Most of the Klans-men belonged to the union, and when Somersett's diatribes nearly erupted in violence "membership is estimated to have dropped from 175 members to less than a dozen...
...While the race issue should not be emphasized to the exclusion of other factors impeding unions in the South, it is evident that it will be crucial so long as workers readily succumb to racist appeals...
...Just how he has managed to find funds for his operation is a mystery unplumbed by Southern editors...
...The UIU said the Council got members of the local high-school football team to distribute literature showing Negro activities in the union...
...There were also quotations from a speech by Thurgoed Marshall, counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, made at an IUE convention...
...Another incentive was a low wage structure...
...The union lost, 291 to 86...
...unions' anti-segregation policies and, in some instances, cause strategic retreats...
...This summer, Somersett moved back into the Charlotte, North Carolina area to recruit Negro and white garbage collectors belonging to the AFL-CIO Federation of State, County and Municipal Employes...
...This summer, a majority of Neco workers signed cards saying they were interested in forming an IUE local...
...Several local leaders from Birmingham, Alabama walked out of one session because of its open discussion of discrimination against Negroes...
...Such strategic spots as washrooms, too, were decorated with a by-lined "news" story from the Jackson paper which said in part: "Employes of the Vickers plant who favor whites and Negroes dancing cheek by jowl as 'Brother' Carey is doing should, of course, vote to let the IUE take over control of the Vickers plant and thereby give approval of 'Brother' Carey and the company he keeps...
...The IUE lost out at the Raleigh (North Carolina) Westing-house plant after a campaign which saw the plant manager tell white workers that Negroes would get their jobs if the union won...
...many realize there is not much place to go when they leave the existing mainstream of unionism...
...Now numerous employers throughout the South are finding it a handy and potent additional weapon against labor organizations...
...Neco makes electric blankets, heating pads and their component parts...
...In Bay Springs and at least one other IUE struggle, however, the union feels racism was the fatal factor...
...In the textile industry, there is a curious similarity of wording in letters which employers send to employes just before NLRB elections...
...This led the Charlotte Observer to editorialize that it doubted whether the history of trade-unionism had ever seen a "stranger bird" than Somersett's outfit...
...Arkansas labor once was ahead of most Southern states in doing away with compulsory segregation...
...The two "parent" Neco plants remain in Chicago with the sales headquarters...
...Beside the pictures, a crudely lettered poster asked: "Do you want niggers representing you...
...Illustrative of the diverse methods and the theme which Somerset...
...The American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO) is losing three or perhaps four locals because of a convention mandate calling for elimination of segregated locals...
...Russell didn't tell his listeners that the photo had been taken in Geneva during an official party given by the Swiss Government for delegates to the 1956 International Labor Organization conference...
...These same officers, however, also helped defeat a secession movement inside their local inspired by a White Citizens' Council...
...though, is to neutralize the...
...There were anti-union leaflets, phone calls and even house calls by business people suggesting that IUE adherents were poor credit risks...
...In rapid succession, Ed Russell then sent three letters to each employe and made speeches linking the IUE to activities on behalf of equal opportunities for Negros...
...Nor did he mention that Carey had been a U.S...
...Once, for example, 18 Rock Hill Negro recruits visited him to protest his open attendance at Ku Klux Klan meetings...
...Although the more active members may oppose their union's racial policy, they are likely to defend the same union in the face of direct attacks...
...The NLRB' s regional director overruled it, and on June 26 the full board upheld his action...
...Then, only a few hours after the violence which occurred when the Guardsmen withdrew, race hatred became the dominant factor governing union positions...
...The statement deplored talk of mobs and violence...
...Perhaps it wouldn't have made any difference...
...After a year's work, Somersett still hasn't obtained a contract from any employer, but he did get membership applications from Negroes and whites alike...
...Large-scale Southern defections are exceptional so far, however, despite earlier fears of widespread breakaways...
...For that matter, he continued, so was the IUE's Mississippi-born organizer, Joe Thornton...
...V. N. Williams, State AFL-CIO Executive Secretary, told me: "It will take a good many years to heal the wounds caused by a few hours of violence at Central High...
...Another incident suggesting the existence of a sort of schizophrenia in the South occurred last year, at a North Carolina educational institute of the auto workers' union...
...White Chattanooga teachers are also reorganizing on an independent basis to maintain segregation...
...This, he frankly states, would be "history-making...
...Bay Springs provides a typical illustration...
...As the election date neared, the Russells became active...
...there is another small plant in Jamestown, Kentucky...
...The vital question that must be answered, therefore, is: How can the national AFL-CIO and its affiliates reconcile the conflict between their anti-segregation policies and a predominantly pro-segregation membership in the South...
...While unions are forced to fight them, thev are powerless to recruit new members...
...Until then, the Neco campaign against the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE), an AFL-CIO affiliate, was merely typical of the Deep South's determined anti-unionism...
...Since then, Neco has added another five cents, possibly as a further addition to its anti-union arsenal...
...The IUE had sent native Mississippians quietly into the area to assist Neco's employes...
...Ed Russell uses it when he is in Mississippi...
...North Carolina division of M. Lowenstein & Sons, Inc...
...Past Supreme Court findings suggest that most such laws are unconstitutional, but they are quick to pass and slow to be removed...
...The letters included photostats of union newspapers showing Negroes participating in IUE meetings and conventions, and Carey's attendance at the Washington, D.C...
...Civil Rights Prayer Pilgrimage...
...In a growing number of Southern localities, employers have obtained passage of special ordinances outlawing unions, the NAACP and any other organization opposing compulsory segregation...
...In return for opening its plant in Bay Springs, Jasper County taxpayers gave Neco (1) a virtually rent-free building, (2) exemption from all county taxes, and (3) a newly-constructed $190,000 mansion as part of the corporation's tax-free property...
...A fourth letter containing the same sentiment was mailed to employes of the Wilmington...
...The election, under the National Labor Relations Board's auspices, was anti-climactic...
...One typical identical paragraph in three letters over a period of several months reads as follows: "The unions are not neutral on this matter...
...Neco owners Ed and Sam Russell, Chicagoans, saved the race theme for the final hours...
...Somersett's activities add up to a comedy of errors...
...Prior to the balloting, Ed Russell called the workers, mostly women, into the plant lobby...
...One white local of 1,500 members in Atlanta pulled out...
...The previous time was in Jackson itself...
...North Carolina...
...Georgia...
...Last year, Congress raised the minimum by 25 cents an hour...
...Rumors were rife that the plant would shut down if the IUE came in...
...Incorporated in 1956 in North Carolina, the USEA first went into action in the Rock Hill, South Carolina area...
...After Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus sent National Guardsmen to keep Negro children out of Little Rock's Central High School, the Arkansas AFL-CIO Council publicly pledged support to the elected school board's program of gradual integration...
...When the plant began operating in 1951, the pay was at the 75-cent hourly minimum required by the Federal Wage and Hour Law...
...Curiously, the mansion is in nearby Jones County...
...While signing up Negroes with one hand, it said, Somersett was doing his best with the other to "promote the Ku Klux Klan, John Kasper and the White Citizens' Councils...
...Following the Raleigh loss, the IUF, filed a complaint with the NLRB, accusing Westilighouse of using improper means to affect the election...
...The Upholsterers International Union (UIU), another AFL-CIO affiliate, recently attributed its defeat in a New Albany, Mississippi furniture plant in part to White Citizens' Council activity...
...they were hardly outsiders...
...paying |25 a month rent...
...The procedure is usually necessary under the National Labor Relations Act...
...They tell the white man the Negro will get his job and they tell the Negro the white will take his job away, Gillman said, adding: "It's getting so that in some places the white man won't talk to the Negro and the Negro won't talk to the white man, though they are on the same job...
...Inside the plant, one company foreman posted pictures of Negroes at a union convention...
...Then vote 'No' today...
...The city fathers several years ago decided to attract industry...
...Race was a major factor, too...
...Direct wholesaling is done mainly to two national chain stores, Sears, Roebuck and Rexall Drugs, each of which has its own brand name...
...But it still might have no effect on the activities of White Citizens' Councils, many of which show a decided antagonism toward unions...
...But a majority of the Vickers plant workers, possibly more blase about the attentions of a big-city newspaper, voted for the IUE anyway...
...the Cherokee Textile Mills at Sevierville, Tennessee, and the Adams-Millis hosiery corporation of High Point...
...Further reports indicated that, in at least one area of the state containing a large proportion of Negroes, union members were joining White Citizens' Councils as never before...
...Not only is the race issue holding back union growth in the South: in some instances, it is causing a shrinkage...
...The Court decision brought the race issue to the headlines, arousing latent fears...
...When a number of community, church and civic leaders later called for a day of prayer, labor was silent...
...in the decision of the Textile Workers Union of America ( AFL-CIO) to call off its drive to organize the Burlington industries in Virginia...
...They offered incentives which appealed to the Russell brothers...
...He assured them that his organization opposed the violation of civil rights, while pointing to a clause in the USEA's constitution which provides for the expulsion of any member who fails to work for "legal segregation...
...uses to attract members is the following extract from a large ad he placed in the Rock Hill Evening Herald: "We feel we have more to offer Southern people than the AFL-CIO has as it seems they are more interested in creating a Mongolian South than they are in trying to secure decent wages and health and death benefits for the worker...
...He kept returning to race agitation, however, and brandished the "evidence" in front of his captive audience: a copy of the June 4 Jackson (Mississippi) Daily News— months old, but good as new...
...These suggest that, while most Southern members oppose the adoption of policies on segregation by national unions, they are not "riled up" unless outsiders interfere directly with their unions...
...Many local unions were integrated...
...IUE President Carey hopes such continuous public pressure on the NLRB will produce a test-case ruling restricting race threats as "unfair" employer activity...
...Centered at the top of page one was a Benjamin D. Segal is director of the Trade Union Program on Civil Liber-lies and Rights in Washington, B.C...
...The other case occurred in the fall of 1056...
...Charles Gillman, AFL-CIO director in the Alabama-Georgia-Florida area, reports that White Citizens' Councils try to get union members to serve on their executive boards and then attempt to sell them on the idea that union money is being spent on race integration...
...huge four-column photograph showing IUE President James Carey dancing with a young Negro woman...
...With few preliminaries, he began shouting that the union was "nigger-loving" and its president, James B. Carey, was a "nigger-lover...
...This was not an isolated incident...
...Racism Stymies Unions in the South Stirring up latent anti-Negro feeling is a favorite employer weapon against labor By Benjamin D. Segal Forty hours before the 377 workers of the Bay Springs (Mississippi) Northern Electric Products Corporation (Neco) plant were to vote on whether to form a union, their employer injected racist demagogy into the issue...
...The net result of such attacks...
...With cooperation from the local Chamber of Commerce, they got most of the town merchants behind their anti-union campaign...
...The letters were mailed out within the past year by the Charles H. Bacon Company, hosiery and yarn manufacturers of Lenoir City, Tennessee...
...A Negro was elected to the State AFL-CIO Executive Board...
...A number of new groups are trying to move into the breach...
...Instead, the unions are working day and night, and pouring out the money which they collect in dues, in an effort to eliminate segregation and to bring about integration in the schools and elsewhere between the white people and the colored people as rapidly and completely as possible...
...As is clear from this, the Bay Springs campaign was not the first time the Jackson newspaper was used against the IUE...
...It also filed charges against Neco after the Bay Springs episode...
...There are no signs that the turbulence hobbling Southern labor movements will ease in the near future...
...One organizer had been born within 20 miles of the plant...
...Tennessee and the Carolina...
...The charge was made that the IUE was fronting for the NAACP and gave it financial support...
Vol. 40 • November 1957 • No. 45
