VICKI SAPORTA IS OUT TO WIN
Drogin, Bob
Vicki Saporta is out to win Organizing North Carolina for the Teamsters Bob Drogin North Carolina has the dubious distinction of being home to the nation's lowest paid and least unionized...
...Much of the success is due to Vicki Saporta, a twenty-six-year-old organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who is probably the best — and most unconventional — organizer in the state...
...with about 3,500 workers, a fourth of the local work force around Lexington...
...She dresses herself and her supporters in bright yellow "Go Teamsters" T-shirts, and sticks phosphorescent "Teamsters Are Beautiful" daisies everywhere...
...The plant, located near Salisbury, produces polyester fiber for clothing, furnishings, and tires...
...These people have the ability above and beyond the normal person...
...People want to join unions...
...We could be a major political force there...
...We get better wages, better working conditions____But they're not going to give you anything unless you stand up and demand it...
...Last summer, Vicki Saporta organized five union affiliates Bob Drogin is a reporter for The Charlotte Observer...
...I'm just a little girl on a white horse leading a crusade," she says with a grin...
...North Carolina's workers are also the lowest-paid in the nation, earning an average manufacturing wage of $4.74 an hour compared with $6.56 nationally...
...They've got rising expectations, they've been exposed to television, they're smarter and have had more education...
...The national union rate was 24.8 per cent...
...The right-to-work state has fought to keep organized labor out of its low-paying textile mills, farms, furniture factories, and other industries...
...Then get off your ass and do something...
...There's no other place where the need is as great as it is here," she says, "When you organize Davidson County overnight, you have an impact...
...in the central part of the state...
...The next most active union, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, won two and lost five elections last year...
...Saporta's success has not gone unnoticed by employers and industry groups...
...We do more for working people than any other union in the country," Saporta shouted to about sixty workers at a recent meeting, her fingers stabbing the air like an evangelist...
...Only 141,000 North Carolina workers were union members in 1976 — 6.8 per cent of the work force, according to the U.S...
...Union leaders say their victories also forced some local employers to increase wages and benefits to try to keep the Teamsters out...
...And I make them work____I want to help them get something better...
...A National Labor Relations Board hearing officer investigated the complaint, and several others, then ruled in favor of the Teamsters...
...She has lost only two elections...
...Employers and business groups frequently cite the Teamsters' negative image, passing out pamphlets and telling workers of Teamsters' pension fund fraud, corruption, and brutality elsewhere...
...Vicki can show us how to do it but she can't do it," she shouted...
...It's charisma, the art of persuasion, the use of language and body language, an understanding of human nature," he says...
...I come armed with the facts," she says...
...We could elect people____When you organize 200 workers in California or New York, who cares...
...I care...
...Local business groups have discouraged high-wage, unionized companies from opening plants in their areas, afraid they would force up local wages and bring in unions...
...Since joining the Teamsters, Saporta has organized rent-a-car employes in Florida, Blue Cross-Blue Shield workers in Chicago, flight attendants in Seattle, and public employes in Southern California...
...But at least one union is successfully challenging the state's anti-union attitude...
...I make them care...
...Do you want to go back on welfare, or if not, do you want to be introduced to Mr...
...She leads cheers, holds picnics, and organizes midnight pick-up truck parades...
...The victories ranged from a Coble Dairy to a large fiberglass plant owned by PPG Industries, Inc...
...Shirley Davidson, a drawer-frame operator who earns $6.07 an hour, stood up and faced the smoke-filled room...
...Labor experts differ on the reasons for the Teamsters' success...
...In a telephone interview, Fiber plant manager Gene LeGrand said he is "very confident" the company would win a union election, saying his employes have heard "horror stories" about the Teamsters...
...The daughter of a Rochester, New York, custom tailor and homemaker, Saporta joined the Teamsters five years ago after graduating from Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations...
...The case is now before the NLRB in Washington...
...She is the International's only woman organizer, and earns $33,250 a year...
...They [PPG] went out and said Mafia and violence and Teamsters...
...The Teamsters are holding and winning more elections than any other union, and doing it in ways no one ever tried...
...The union won 698 to 639...
...Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law and labor expert, says the "ground is ripe for unions...
...We 'I come armed with the facts . . . I live with my people twenty-four hours a day' went up and down the line with 'em for thirty seconds and laughed and then some kid ran off with 'em...
...They are now running a highly publicized campaign to organize police and public employes in Winston-Salem...
...Whatever the reason, last year the Teamsters won fourteen elections and lost eighteen in the state...
...As you see more of the labor force involved in skilled industry, you'll see more union organization," predicts Thomas Kaniesner, a labor economics professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...
...One sure factor is the Teamsters' emphasis on organizing skilled workers of Northern-based companies with union plants elsewhere, instead of trying to organize the state's traditionally unskilled furniture and textile industries...
...Pollitt said the work force has more women, more blacks, and more young people than in the past...
...She is accused of using mass hypnosis and intimidation...
...It's a problem organized labor has no matter how they try to wash it down the drain," says Andy Anderson, director of management development for the Central Piedmont Employers Association, a Charlotte-based anti-union group of about 375 employers...
...And I'm out to win...
...Vicki Saporta is out to win Organizing North Carolina for the Teamsters Bob Drogin North Carolina has the dubious distinction of being home to the nation's lowest paid and least unionized workers...
...And she wins...
...She lives in San Francisco, but spends most of her time on the road...
...A self-described "Yankee and carpetbagger," she sings, dances, and leads rallies that resemble old-time religious revivals...
...She also helped win four other Piedmont area elections, taking on about 1,200 new workers in a sixteen-month period, including a large Miller Brewery in Eden...
...Labor Department...
...Welfare...
...It's almost a compliment," Saporta says...
...If the ground is ripe, it doesn't matter how good you are...
...We had little toy blue guns that went 'Errrrrr,' " she explained...
...I live with my people twenty-four hours a day...
...She is attacked in handbills, called a con-artist, skunk, communist, member of the Mafia, and worse...
...Batson, of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce, agrees the Teamsters have had an impact there, saying he is certain the union will scare other companies from locating in the area...
...Traditionally, North Carolina is full of workers that never needed unions...
...Vicki Saporta gets angry about the charges, angry that PPG Industries accused her of intimidating PPG employes with a toy gun during last summer's election...
...If they didn't think I was being effective, they wouldn't bother.'' Rhodes Batson, vice president of Lexington's Chamber of Commerce, compares Saporta's organizing ability to that of Adolf Hitler and the Reverend Jim Jones, head of the ill-fated People's Temple...
...Vicki Saporta is now trying to organize about 2,200 workers at Fiber Industries, Inc., a partially owned division of Celanese Corp...
...She says she prefers North Carolina, however...
...Saporta attributes her success to worker involvement and education...
Vol. 43 • August 1979 • No. 8
