New Union in the South

...Poor whites saw their cause being assisted by black organizations like the NAACP and heard their interests being represented by black leaders like Mayor Charles Evers of Fayette, Mississippi, while the predominantly white trade unions of the country gave only token support or even opposed their struggle...

...Considered agricultural workers by the government and independent businessmen by the companies, they are not covered by Workmen's Compensation, Social Security benefits, company insurance, or the minimum wage, nor do they have the right to voice their grievances through a representative bargaining agent...

...Similarly, when a hauler needs a new truck or tires, he has to depend on his dealer for credit...

...The women, they stopped in a place to eat, but the restaurant wouldn't serve no black folks, so the white ladies got up and said, 'too damn bad, you won't serve us neither then.' And they left...

...Evers arranged meetings with liberal Senators, too, including Edward Kennedy, George McGovern and Edmund Muskie, all of whom expressed sympathy with the strike...

...Most dealers for the other companies closely followed Masonite's terms in granting increases averaging about $2 per unit??a substantial monetary gain for the haulers??and in agreeing to switch to a cord system or reduce the weight of their unit measure...

...When Evers, in his unsuccessful campaign for governor, addressed a group of black and white woodhaulers in Mc-Lain, Mississippi, he said: "I don't give a damn if you guys out there call me 'nigger.' I been called that all my life...

...Previously, woodsmen had been paid $20 per "unit," defined as 168 cubic feet, an amount that weighed about 5,700 pounds...

...In addition, his $30 saw chain wears out in a week of heavy cutting, and he probably has to make a payment on either a $300 saw that lasts three months or a tire that cost $120, and then there is gas and oil...

...Just don't try to steal my money...

...Now that the strike is over, the GPA is undertaking an intensive local leadership development program that it hopes to combine with the organization of cooperative woodyards in several counties...

...Army personnel in Alabama, student organizations in North and South, New York foundations, the Delta Ministry, the Congressional Black Caucus, Local 12 of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, and others...

...In many cases, he is also the insurance agent for the hauler, and he usually sells saws, saw chains, and tires at a 70-100 per cent markup...

...The paper companies, except where they have their own yards as in Laurel, designate certain dealers as their purchasers in different counties...

...As he works himself further into debt, he becomes increasingly dependent on his dealer, in a relationship that resembles the old sharecropper system...

...William T. Lundberg, a new contributor to these pages, is a former member of VISTA and now works among the Mississippi woodcutters...

...A white hauler who joined the NAACP and voted for Evers in the last election said, "Changin...

...In January, GPA representatives visited New York to solicit funds for its co-op project from interested foundations and churches...

...Besides speaking at rallies and raising funds for the strike, Evers accompanied a group of woodcutters to Washington, where they persuaded Federal officials to ease regulations for them to obtain low-cost food stamps...

...Under the new system, the unit was set at 7,100 pounds??in effect, a 20-25 per cent pay cut for men whose income averages $2,000 a year...

...As the strike dragged on, the woodcutters began to take a hard look at the dealer system itself...

...Inevitably, the Red-baiting was combined with race-baiting in an effort to split the strikers' ranks...

...For the most part, his expenses are limited to the property, one or two fork lifts, and the salaries of the men who work for him...

...The same thing happened four times until they got up to Jackson, where they could eat together...

...When the first 200 workers went on strike against Masonite, a company official told them, "You're all just like a bunch of little puppy dogs...

...Some, however, declined to bargain with GPA members until well into December...

...Regis, International Paper, and Richton Tie & Timber as well...

...Hell yeah, things are changing...

...Contributions came from the Appalachian Relief Committee of Tennessee, U.S...

...If they fall ill, they have to borrow money from a dealer to meet expenses...

...The local press came to the paper companies' defense by charging that Communists were behind the walkout...

...The strike soon spread across the state, affecting 42 other yards that supply not only Masonite, but Scott, St...

...The GPA, whose membership is roughly 60 per cent black and 40 per cent white, focused on two points: First, it insisted that wood-dealers adopt the standard cord measure used in most other states (a cord is defined by the Bureau of Weights and Standards as 128 cubic feet, or 4,800-5,200 pounds) instead of the 7,100-8,200 pound unit employed at different yards involved in the strike, and that the woodsmen have the choice of selling by weight or by volume...

...The issue arose last fall when the Masonite Corporation's Laurel plant stopped measuring deliveries by volume and installed scales to weigh each load...

...Surprisingly, Masonite, after having rejected an increase for its dealers, was the first to settle...

...With luck, he may have $75 left after expenses, from which he still must pay the two cutters on his crew...

...The woodcutters' reaction, however, was summed up by one white worker who said, "The only way we can get anywhere is for all the poor people to stick together, white people and colored people...

...Somebody slaps you, and you run off with your tail between your legs...

...Back home, white woodcutters gave Evers a sizable vote in last fall's election, even in counties with long histories of Ku Klux Klan activity...

...The United Farm Workers (UFW), for example, began in the same way, without formal recognition as a bargaining agent and with very little backing from organized labor...

...Meanwhile, the GPA plans to continue organizing in the South with the goal of uniting the quarter-million woodcutters who work there...

...With 15-20 haulers delivering to his yard each day, the typical dealer does pretty well...

...James Simmons, the blunt-spoken, balding ex-woodhauler who is now president of the GPA, points out that "the unions know that if they get involved in organizing in the South, they will have a long, expensive struggle that they don't want...

...In November, upon learning that most companies had given their dealers a $2 per cord raise, GPA members began negotiating in earnest with the yards they were boycotting...

...Though very much involved with their own problems, groups like the newly formed Miners for Democracy that is challenging the leadership of the United Mine Workers, the workers cooperative that grew out of the Levi-Strauss strike in north Georgia, the UFW, and the GPA are starting to make contact and establish alliances with each other...

...These middlemen buy pulp-wood brought to them by the haulers who, in turn, have to pay a stumpage fee to private landowners for the right to cut in their forests...

...Three months later, after Southern Mississippi's woodcutters had won their demands, a worker summed up the power of their new unity: "We found out that when a bunch a' little puppy dogs run off with their tails between their legs, sometimes they get together in a pack an' chase hell outa whoever slapped 'em...

...One black cutter told of a group of women, black and white, who went to Canton, Mississippi, to receive clothes and financial aid for the strikers: "Well, my aunt came home as happy as could be...

...This shift from racial to class consciousness played an important part in the strike's success...

...The GPA seems to represent a new type of unionism that is emerging in many areas as both a political and economic response to the conditions of the truly "forgotten Americans...

...After the workers emerged from Masonite's pay office on September 1 and discovered the difference this change made in their earnings, they put down their saws and picked up picket signs...

...Eventually they may become a force in national politics and the labor movement...

...So, on his best days, he goes home with about $25, and many days??particularly in the winter months when heavy rains make the forests impassible??he ends up with nothing or runs a loss...

...And many increase their margin of profit by short-sticking (the wide-spread practice of underestimating the size of deliveries) and overcharging on loans (most haulers never see a balance on the receipts they are given for truck and loan payments...

...Although it may seem a trivial matter to most people, to the 3,900 woodcutters and haulers who recently won a three-month-long strike against dealers for five major paper companies it represents the first official recognition of their rights as workers in the state's largest industry...

...His credit is good because of the standing of the companies he supplies...

...A significant, if unintended, effect of the strike involved the relationship between blacks and whites...

...The spirit of black-white solidarity was bolstered by the donations of money, food and clothing the strikers received from diverse groups across the country...

...I guess with me and my boys and the other cutters manning the picket line with black fellas, and my wife and daughter goin' down to Canton to get them clothes with them black ladies, it's brought us a lot closer together...

...On a good day, when he doesn't tear up a tire or get stuck in the mud, when his truck doesn't break down and he doesn't lose time waiting for a company man to come out and check the cutting site, a hauler can bring in three loads of wood, measuring from seven to seven-and-a-half units, for which he receives about $150...

...Said she'd had a fine time...

...This was a significant victory for the strikers and, despite Ma-sonite's refusal to recognize the GPA as a bargaining agent, it gave the association validity in the woodcutters' eyes and showed them what they could achieve by being organized...

...Secondly, it demanded that the haulers be paid as much per cord as they had been receiving for the old unit...

...As one hauler sarcastically commented, after wrestling a log onto the floor of his truck bed, "I don't make much money, but I sure have a lot of fun...

...Out of that he has to pay $35-50 in stumpage fees, $15 for trucking rights, and $9 in insurance for his crew...

...The company agreed to pay the haulers who supplied its Laurel plant $18 for a cord weighing 5,400 pounds or $23 for the 7,100-pound unit, rates roughly equivalent to the former system...

...BLACK AND WHITE WOODSMEN FORM New Union in the South By William T. Lundberg Laurel, Mississippi Sometime this spring a bill will be introduced in the Mississippi Legislature calling for the enforcement of a standard cord measure in the buying and selling of bulk pulpwood...

...The work stoppage was supported by the Gulfcoast Pulpwood Association (GPA), an organization of some 6,000 woodcutters that originated in Alabama, where it won a pay increase from the industry in 1968, and by the Southern Conference Education Fund's Project grow, (Grassroots Organizing Work), an old-line civil rights group with much experience in the South...

...The dealer, on the other hand, merely has to measure the wood, pay the hauler, and transfer the logs to a railroad spur that runs through his yard...

...Indeed, the International Woodworkers of America turned down the GPA's appeal for help...

...He may also finance loans and truck sales at considerable profit...

...He generally receives $23-25 per cord of pine and, since he was buying by the unit and selling by the cord, he used to get payment for 10 cords from every seven units he purchased...