Chapter VIII: The Negro in Industry (2)

Closely connected with the question of labor turnover among Negroes is the question of "hope on the job," as one alert Negro expressed it. The desire to secure improved conditions of work and higher wages is shared by all workers irrespective of race. If Negro workers are not allowed to advance to better positions in a given plant, or if they are discriminated against by having their efficiency underrated by foremen, the turnover of Negro labor will naturally be high. The attitude of foremen largely determines whether Negro workers will succeed or fail. Superintendents of large plants realizing this fact have taken special care to educate foremen in the treatment of Negro labor.

For example, the superintendent of a tannery with 175 Negroes out of a total of 600 employees notified his foremen that he intended to use Negro labor, and that any foreman who felt that he could not teach colored workers would have to yield his place to someone who could. Frequent lectures to foremen were necessary to make them realize that fairness to Negro labor meant tolerance of a beginner's awkwardness and shortcomings and refraining from the use of insulting terms such as "nigger," etc.

Another company reported that when it attempted to fill skilled positions with Negroes the foremen said they would never be able to teach them as long as they lived. "It couldn't be done." The foremen were told they had to do it, and they now agree that it can be done and are "quite won over to the point of employing Negroes." The experience of this plant led the superintendent to the conclusion that no particular race is especially fitted for any given kind of work.

The superintendent of a foundry employing 2,500 men, of whom 427 are Negroes, said:

The foremen told me one time that they never could get a
colored man to grind because he was afraid of the wheel. I
thought we'd better try out a few of them. We found that was
not the fact at all. One of the best grinders we now have is
a colored man.

In discussing the attitude of foremen toward colored labor, the superintendent of another large foundry made this significant statement:

I think 50 per cent of what trouble we who employ Negro labor
have is due to inefficient foremen, and the failure is in
the foreman directly over the man to understand the Negro.
As I see it, the Negro must be handled differently from the
Pole whom we have usually had in the common labor capacity.
We cannot handle the Negro the same as we could the Pole. Our
foremen have not been accustomed here in Chicago in our shops
to handling Negroes, and at times I have a real fight to see
a Negro get an absolutely square deal.

The industrial secretary of the Chicago Urban League, referring to a large firm engaged in the manufacture of machinery, remarked:

I find the attitude of the company liberal. Negroes are
advanced to high-grade positions, although some foremen need
education in order to have them take the proper attitude toward
the employment of Negroes. One foreman set their efficiency
down to 75 per cent; the matter was taken to the efficiency
department and his statement was found to be untrue. This bears
out the point that Negroes will not succeed where foremen do
not intend them to succeed.

Despite occasional statements that the Negro is slow or shiftless, the volume of evidence before the Commission shows that Negroes are satisfactory employees and compare favorably with other racial groups.

4. NEGRO WOMEN IN INDUSTRY

Before the war created openings in industry for Negro women, they were even more definitely restricted in their choice of occupations than were Negro men. Restricted opportunity is evident from the fact that, in 1910, almost two-thirds of the gainfully occupied Negro women in Chicago were engaged in two occupational groups, "servants" and "laundresses not in laundries," these being included among those in domestic and personal service who numbered more than three-fourths. The enumeration of Negro women gainfully employed in Chicago in 1910 classified in the census according to industries is given in Table XXVII.

TABLE XXVII

NEGRO WOMEN GAINFULLY OCCUPIED IN CHICAGO IN 1910,
CLASSIFIED BY INDUSTRIES

========================================+=========+===========
| | Percentage
Industry | Number | of Total
----------------------------------------+---------+-----------
Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 998 | 11
Trade and transportation | 96 | 1
Professional service | 323 | 4
Clerical occupations | 163 | 2
Domestic and personal service: | |
Laundresses not in laundries | 2,115} |
Servants | 3,512} | 78
Other domestic and personal service | 1,336} |
General and unclassified occupations | 337 | 4
+---------+-----------
Total gainfully occupied | 8,880 | 100
----------------------------------------+---------+-----------

TABLE XXVIII

NEGRO WOMEN IN FIFTY ESTABLISHMENTS CLASSIFIED BY INDUSTRIES IN 1920[72]

==============================+==========+=========+=========|============
|Number of | | Total | Total
|Establish-| Total | Negro |Negro Women
Industry | ments |Employees|Employees| Employees
|Reporting | | |
------------------------------+----------+---------+---------+------------
Manufacturing: | | | |
Tanneries | 1 | 600 | 175 | 50
Iron and steel | 3 | 10,435 | 1,729 | 74
Slaughtering and packing | 3 | 20,990 | 4,818 | 437
Cooperage | 2 | 327 | 106 | 30
Clothing | 9 | 1,405 | 203 | 202
Other needle trades | 3 | 775 | 325 | 325
Box making (paper) | 3 | 995 | 143 | 104
Miscellaneous | 3 | 1,543 | 95 | 73
+----------+---------+---------+------------
Totals | 27 | 37,070 | 7,594 | 1,295
| | | |
Non-manufacturing:[73] | | | |
Hotels | 4 | 550 | 250 | 69
Taxicab upkeep | 1 | 1,600 | 250 | 100
Laundries | 16 | 1,511 | 664 | 543
Mail order | | | |
(clerical occupations)[74]| 2 | ... | 1,773 | 1,400
+----------+---------+---------+------------
Totals | 23 | ... | 2,937 | 2,112
------------------------------+----------+---------+---------+------------

To learn the special problems concerning Negro women in industry, one conference was devoted to the industries recently opened to them. Representatives of four establishments employing a total of 1,713 Negro women attended the conference. The investigation of the 101 establishments (employing five or more Negroes) disclosed the presence of women in a large majority of cases, but in a number of instances the management was unable to tell the sex of workers from the records kept and gave the investigator the total number of Negroes employed without classification by sex. Of the 137 establishments reporting, forty-two had no Negro women employees; forty-five kept no separate sex records; fifty reported separately the number of Negro women workers.

Comparing the industries in which Negro women were employed in 1910 with the figures quoted for 1920, a striking increase is seen in the total engaged in manufacturing, 998 being the total Negro women reported for all manufacturing establishments in Chicago in 1910, as compared with 1,295 Negro women reported by twenty-seven establishments in 1920.

Comparisons for special industries and occupations show the contrasts between 1910 and 1920 in Table XXIX.

TABLE XXIX

=================================================+======+=======+==========
| | |Number of
Industry | 1910 | 1920 |Establish-
| | | ments
-------------------------------------------------+------+-------+----------
Sewers and sewing-machine operators in factories | 25 | 527 | 12
Slaughtering and packing-house operatives | 8 | 437 | 3
Box making (paper) | 3 | 104 | 3
Tanneries | 0 | 50 | 1
Clerical occupations | 163 | 1,400 | 2
Laundry operatives | 184 | 543 | 16
Taxicab cleaning | 0 | 100 | 1
-------------------------------------------------+------+-------+----------

Labor shortage was given as the reason for employing Negro women and girls by all of the firms employing them in large numbers. The outlook for Negro women in industry when there is a labor surplus is uncertain. Employers employing 1,713 Negro women represented at a conference, May 18, 1920, agreed that there were no indications of a reduction of employment. This question is considered at length hereafter in "Future of the Negro in Chicago Industries."

EXPERIMENTS WITH NEGRO WOMEN WORKERS

Employers' opinions regarding the character of Negro labor without reference to sex were considered above. Particular comments concerning male workers were quoted there, comments upon women workers are now given. Four employers of Negro women in large numbers within the past two years gave the Commission the benefit of their experience. They were two mail-order concerns, a manufacturer of automobile spring cushions, and a wholesale millinery shop.

The mail-order house which established a large office for Negro entry clerks in September, 1918, was the first to try the experiment. It had no precedent to guide it and "did not know how the colored girl would act in business." The unit was opened with ninety girls, and increased in the fall of 1919 to 650 girls, who were given the promise of advancement and Negro supervision. In the early summer of 1920, when the investigator visited this office, there were 311 girls at work, as follows:

Operators on Elliott-Fisher machines 30
Mail-order workers 76
Instructing new girls 9
Checkers 138
Supervisors 5
Mail opening, sorting, etc. 27
Posting 26

They were above the average in education, 75 per cent being high-school graduates and 12 per cent having had two or more years in college.

The employment manager said that misunderstandings had arisen occasionally, due to the colored girl being oversensitive and suspicious. "The colored girl seems to suspect that her employer is going to put something over on her. She is suspicious of any whites that come in her vicinity and is ready to believe that any white person is prejudiced against her on account of race."

The Negro welfare worker for this unit suggested that what might seem supersensitiveness was often overzealousness on the part of girls who have not had experience enough to judge their limitations or qualifications. Being eager to succeed, they are very much disappointed when advancement does not reward their efforts: "I think the best type of colored girl we have in business is very ambitious. This is her first opportunity, and she feels that she is really a pioneer making history for her race. She is possibly a little overzealous, but can be made to get the right attitude and accept it all very gracefully."

Another characteristic of Negro girls, in the opinion of the employment manager, was an "excitable nature" which made it possible for a good leader to influence them readily:

They complain of a change of supervisors, for instance. You
attempt to shift supervisors from one point of the office to
another and you immediately receive a petition signed by all
the girls, saying, "We love So-and-So, and please don't change
her." This is not to be criticized too harshly, but it does
represent something that does go on. It shows inexperience. The
white girl would expect that those things would take place.
The colored girl, not having been in the office very long,
would feel that the fact that the supervisor was changed was
something derogatory to the supervisor.

The whites didn't want to act as instructors, and the colored
girls didn't want to receive instructions from the whites. By
being very careful in the girls that were selected, and showing
the white girls where they were wrong, and then attempting to
show the colored people that these girls were not to exercise
supervision, but were merely to be instructors, both sides
came to an understanding on it, and we had pretty good results.
The white girls that we had over there became very used to it
and usually hated to leave, but we have always insisted that
they leave as soon as the girls learned the work.

During the conference on Negro women in industry the representative of this mail-order establishment was asked why the Negro workers were put into a separate unit instead of being intermingled with white girls. He answered:

The first reason is that we haven't any room. The second is,
I imagine, because the officials who started the office and
who have carried it on since felt that it wouldn't be policy.
We haven't discussed the question because we've never had
occasion to consider such a move seriously. Our main office
is not large enough to accommodate any more employees than
we have white employees in the house. We keep that office
constantly recruited up to its present strength, and there has
never been any necessity or any reason to seriously consider
bringing colored girls in with the white girls....

Another thing to consider there would be the type of girl that
we employ. They are all young girls, mostly under twenty-five
years, and they don't think for themselves; they are influenced
very easily by what other girls say. You take one girl in an
office of that size who was very anti-colored, and it wouldn't
be very long until her sentiment would spread and pretty soon
you'd have a strong sentiment against the colored girls.

If a colored girl should want to obtain employment in that
part of our concern where we now employ all white girls, even
if she were very competent she would undoubtedly have some
trouble in securing employment in that department.

The result of the experiment with the colored unit, he said, was highly satisfactory: "We have been very favorably impressed.... The girls have made very rapid progress, in fact they surprised all of us. Their progress along lines of leadership, as supervisors, etc., has been remarkable."

About six weeks after this conference the colored unit was closed. The reasons given were lack of business, trouble with the lessor of the office, and failure to find another convenient location. A letter of recommendation was given to each employee showing that her service had been satisfactory, and a letter was also sent to the Urban League, through which the women had been employed, explaining why it had been necessary to close the office and emphasizing the fact that this action should not be considered in any sense a reflection upon the Negro workers employed.

The other mail-order house opened a unit for Negro women in the fall of 1918, with 650 women who worked until the end of the "fall rush" in January, 1919. In the following fall the unit was again opened, with 1,050 Negro women; and the office was still in operation in 1920. This office was just outside the "Loop" district. The sudden influx of Negro girls there caused complaints by the local restaurants, fearing the loss of old patrons in handling this new business. The company then installed an "at cost" cafeteria service. The work of these girls was clerical, billing, labeling, addressing, etc. Considering their inexperience, their service has been highly satisfactory. The employment manager said: "It's not a defect in their minds, it's a defect in the country. They haven't had the opportunity to gain the education and experience needed for responsibility; the Negro girl is equal to the Italian or Bohemian in working ability and superior for executive work, such as instructing or supervising." Among 143 girls interviewed in the entry offices of these two mail-order houses only three expressed dissatisfaction with the conditions of work. The girls seemed to take pride in the fact that they had succeeded in "making good" in a new and attractive field of work.

The experiment of the establishment manufacturing automobile spring cushions had a very modest beginning. A factory was rented in the Negro residential area on the South Side, and twenty machines were installed to test out Negro women as sewing-machine operators. Gradually the number increased to 120 in this plant, and a second plant was opened in the same vicinity with about the same number of operators. During the year 1919-20 there were 250 Negro women employed as machine operators in these two plants. The superintendent considered that they required less supervision than the white workers in the company's other shops and rated them equal to white workers in efficiency. "We could take our best white girl and our best colored girl, and they earn about the same amount of money on piecework rates, in the same number of hours."

The superintendent of the wholesale millinery establishment represented in conference considered that the employment of Negro women in that industry had outgrown the experimental stage. Although a long period of training is necessary in order to become a skilled milliner (four years for hand sewers, eight years for machine operators), Negro women were keen to learn the trade and willing to accept the low wages paid to beginners. Of the forty-seven Negro women employed on the day of the investigator's visit, thirty-three received less than $12.00 a week and forty-two received less than $15.00 a week. These women were all employed as hand sewers, and in the opinion of the superintendent they had done "just as well as the white. They learn as quickly and are as persevering, and in every respect equal to the whites as far as their work is concerned. We are absolutely satisfied with their work."

Other industries in which Negro women are engaged in considerable numbers include laundering, the manufacture of clothing, lamp shades, gas mantles, paper boxes, barrels, and cheese making. An investigator from the Commission visited establishments employing Negro women in each of these industries.

_Laundry operatives._--The fact that 543 Negro women laundry operatives were reported by sixteen laundries, as contrasted with 184 in all Chicago laundries in 1910, gives evidence of an increase in the number of Negro women in this field proportionately much greater than the increase in Negro population in Chicago in the same decade. The opportunity to work in a laundry was practically denied to Negro women until labor shortage forced laundry owners to tap this reserve labor supply. Negro women were eager to desert work as domestic servants and "family washer-women," with the social stigma and restricted human contact involved, to enter laundries where more independence was possible, hours were better standardized, and association with fellow-workers enlivened the work day. The employment department of the Urban League experienced great difficulty in supplying the demand for domestic servants and laundresses in the home, but had no difficulty in filling openings in laundries.

The work of Negro women in this field has proved satisfactory except in a few establishments. Of the twenty laundries which reported Negro labor satisfactory or unsatisfactory (included in Table XXVI), four failed to report separate figures covering male and female employees. Of the remaining sixteen establishments, twelve, with a total of 409 Negro women, reported Negro labor satisfactory, and four with a total of 134 Negro women, reported Negro labor unsatisfactory. The complaint in two instances was unwillingness to work overtime and on Sundays. In both these instances the employees interviewed complained that hours were long (nine-hour day) and the treatment by the management harsh and inconsiderate.

Laundries which did not make a practice of requiring overtime and Sunday work found Negro women workers cheerful, loyal, and industrious. The employees interviewed in these establishments expressed satisfaction with working conditions and with hours.

One efficiently managed laundry, employing seventy-six Negro women and six Negro men, out of a total of 110 employees, reported: "We have a number of exceptionally good and loyal Negro employees. These men and women need very little supervision. We got some who have never worked in industries. They require more supervision and are not very steady. On the whole, we are well pleased with our Negro employees."

_Sewing-machine operators and sewers._--Denial of opportunity to enter the sewing trades is evidenced by the small number of Negro women listed in the 1910 census as sewers and sewing-machine operators in factories, the number being twenty-five. That this exclusion was not because of any natural inaptitude for sewing is indicated by the fact that the 1910 census listed 867 Negro women as seamstresses not in factories. Negro women have entered millinery work and proved apt hand workers; they have also proved efficient sewing-machine operators in the manufacture of automobile cushions. The lampshade manufacturers employed Negro women as hand sewers and found them to be efficient workers. The clothing establishments which reported Negro women workers found them satisfactory machine and hand workers, with the exception of one apron factory which complained that they are shiftless, often unreasonable, and do not stick to the job. An investigation of this establishment by the Urban League disclosed the following facts: The shop was located in a shabby-looking, unclean store, inadequately heated by a coal stove. The work day was nine and one-half hours, and piece rates on several operations were so low that it was impossible to earn a decent wage. In this case the large labor turnover was evidently a healthy protest against poor working conditions.

_Other industries._--Three paper-box-making plants employing Negro women were investigated. They reported that Negro women had proved unsatisfactory, either slow or lazy. The experience of a cheese factory is worth noting in this connection. Because Negro women appeared to be slow at their work it was decided to measure their tasks. It was then found that many were doing as well as and some better than the white girls in whose places they were working.

Whether such tests had ever been made in the box-making plants does not appear. The employees interviewed in one box factory complained of low wages and no chance for advancement. Negro women in this plant were averaging only $2.40 a day. A cooperage company reported fifteen women stave carriers and fifteen machine operators. Negro labor in this plant was reported satisfactory. Negro women in the garage of a taxicab company, cleaning automobiles, have shown themselves not afraid of hard work; 100 Negro women were reported working in this capacity. Negro women as Pullman-car cleaners have also proved satisfactory.

Before the war Negro women were popularly thought of as a class of servants unfitted by nature for work calling for higher qualifications. It is difficult to say how long this popular misconception might have survived had it not been for the labor shortage which forced employers to experiment with Negro women workers and to learn with surprise that they were as teachable as white women and became as efficient workers after receiving the necessary training.

IV. INDUSTRY AS THE NEGRO SEES IT

1. ATTITUDE TOWARD INDUSTRIAL OPPORTUNITIES

In order to learn the attitude of the Negro toward his work, and his special problems, including the treatment accorded him by foremen and by fellow-workers, 865 Negro employees were interviewed by a Negro investigator at their work or at home. Less than 1 per cent of those interviewed complained of disagreeable treatment by white workers. Approximately one-half had no complaints to make about conditions of work. On the contrary, they expressed themselves as being glad of the opportunity to work and earn good wages.

The attitude of a large number of the workers interviewed is illustrated by the following:

C---- W---- was referred to in one of the industrial conferences
before the Commission. The superintendent of the foundry said
he was the "star molder" in the plant. When interviewed C----
W---- said he had come to Chicago in 1910 from Kentucky because
he was tired of being a flunkey. He had been in the high school
for two years, but could only get work as janitor in a public
building in his home town. After coming here he worked in a
foundry as a molder's helper until he learned the trade. "I
was getting 38 cents an hour then, but I got on piecework and
my wages have steadily gone up. I'm an expert now and make as
much as any man in the place. I can quit any time I want to,
but the longer I work the more money it is for me, so I usually
work eight or nine hours a day. I am planning to educate my
girl with the best of them, buy a home before I'm too old,
and make life comfortable for my family. There is more chance
here to learn a trade than in the South. I live better, can
save more, and I feel more like a man."

R---- N----, who is working as a helper in the same foundry,
says he has just gone from one job to another. In the South
he worked on a section gang on the railroad most of the time.
"Didn't have to know much to get a job on the section gang--just
able to lift." Friends here wrote him of the chances to make
money, so he came because he was just drifting anyway. When he
got here he thought Chicago was "full of life." Every night
for a month he went to cabarets. He likes his work and his
wages. "My wife can have her clothes fitted here; she can try
on a hat and if she don't want it she don't have to buy it.
I can go anywhere I please on the cars after I pay my fare,
and I can do any sort of work I know how to do."

When M---- G---- came to Chicago in 1900 he thought it "the
biggest place in the world and the world didn't reach much
further. Life is easier here because you can make more money.
Working conditions are better than in the South, but they could
be better still." He worked as a butler in the South, but when
he came to Chicago he got out of personal service and became
a laborer in the Stock Yards. Later he went to Gary, Indiana,
to the steel works, where he is earning about $40.00 a week.
His wife is doing clerical work in a mail-order house and is
going to night school three nights a week to learn typing.

H---- B---- with his family left Mississippi in 1916 and came
to Chicago, where he found work as a coal heaver at $3.20 a day.
His wife sorted paper in a junk house at $10.00 a week, and his
daughter entered a canning department at the Stock Yards at
$18.00 a week. When Mr. B---- was interviewed in June, 1920,
he was working in the Stock Yards and earning $27.00 a week
for an eight-hour day. He said he didn't have to work nearly
as hard here as in the South and was earning enough money so
his wife could stay at home. "In the South you had to work
whether you wanted to or not unless you were very sick. White
people did not work there as they do here. They made the Negro
do the work. Men and women had to work in the fields. A woman
was not permitted to remain at home if she felt like it. If
she was found at home some of the white people would come to
ask why she was not in the field and tell her she had better
get to the field or else abide by the consequences. After the
summer crops were all in, any of the white people could send
for any Negro woman to come and do the family washing at 75
cents to $1.00 a day. If she sent word she could not come she
had to send an excuse why she could not come. They were never
allowed to stay at home as long as they were able to go. Had
to take whatever they paid you for your work."

M---- H---- "likes the air of doing things here." He is able to
earn enough to keep the family without having his wife go out
to work. There are four "youngsters," the oldest being eight
years old. Mr. H---- came to Chicago in 1918 from Tennessee.
He complained that there was not much work for a man in his
home town. He did whatever odd jobs turned up. People there
were talking about the chances in Chicago, so he came here and
went to work as a monument setter on the West Side. Later he
found a better-paying job in a mattress factory and was able
to send for his family. He is now working in a foundry and
makes $35.00 a week but finds it hard to live on this. If he
can go to night school he feels he will be able to earn more
money.

Mrs. L---- works as an entry clerk in a mail-order house and
likes everything connected with the place. She used to be a
maid in a private family but says she wouldn't work in service
again "for any money. I can save more when I'm in service, for
of course you get room and board, but the other things you have
to take--no place to entertain your friends but the kitchen,
and going in and out the back doors. I hated all that. Then,
no matter how early you got through work you could only go
out one night a week--they almost make you a slave. You can
do other work in Chicago and you don't have to work in such
places."

Mrs. L---- had taught school in Atlanta, Georgia. After her
husband died she had tried to get back in the school but
could not. Friends here advised her to move to Chicago, so she
sold her property in 1915 and came here. She got work in the
Stock Yards but gave music lessons on the side to help keep
up expenses. "I hated the surroundings at the Yards and the
class of people who worked there, so when I had a chance to
work in a mail-order house I changed. The first work here was
filing. I learned it very quickly and tried so hard to make
good that they made me a supervisor." She likes the freedom
of the North and the opportunities to advance in work. Her
ambition is to get into the public schools as a teacher.

Miss T---- S----, twenty-two years old, started to work when
she was fourteen, helping her mother cook for a large family
in Lexington, Georgia. Her mother died when she was about
seventeen, and she continued to work in the same family about
three years. Then some relatives persuaded her to come north
with them in 1919. She worked as a waitress in Chicago until
her cousin got her a job in a box factory. "I'll never work in
nobody's kitchen but my own any more. No, indeed! That's the
one thing that makes me stick to this job. You do have some
time to call your own, but when you're working in anybody's
kitchen, well, you're out of luck. You almost have to eat on
the run; you never get any time off, and you have to work half
the night, usually. I make more money here than I did down
South, but I can't save anything out of it--there are so many
places to go here, but down South you work, work, work, and
you have to save your money because you haven't any place to
spend it."

Many of those interviewed were grateful for the opportunity to work overtime at overtime rates. A number complained that they were able to spend but little time with their families, or in recreation, because they were compelled to live in districts far from the plants in which they worked, so that two, and often three, hours a day were wasted on the cars. The Negroes who had come to Chicago within the past two or three years as a rule were satisfied with conditions of work, including hours, wages, and treatment.

2. COMPLAINTS ABOUT CONDITIONS OF WORK

Among the Negroes who had lived in Chicago for a longer period the most insistent complaint was lack of opportunity for advancement or promotion. This was occasionally coupled with the complaint that foremen discriminated in favor of the white workers. In certain industries no complaint of treatment by foremen was made, while approximately 10 per cent of those interviewed in three industries (mentioned below) complained of discrimination in favor of white workers, in the distribution of work, in recognition of efficiency, or in permitting the earning of overtime rates. The industries registering the greatest percentage of complaints were: (1) foundry and iron and steel mills, (2) Stock Yards, and (3) railroad dining-car and Pullman service. The common complaints in each of these fields are considered briefly below.

_Foundries and iron and steel manufacturing._--The ninety-three Negro employees interviewed in fourteen establishments in this field were of different grades of skill: fifty-nine unskilled, twelve semi-skilled, nineteen skilled, and three apprentices to skilled trades. The length of time in the plant varied from a week to twenty years (forty-one employees less than one year, and eighty less than five years). To the inquiry, "Is anything wrong with your conditions of work?" fifty answered, "No"; sixteen complained that hours were too long (in these cases the men were working a twelve-hour day and a seven-day week); ten complained of low wages; six that foremen or straw bosses were not fair in the distribution of work or of "heats"; four complained that straight-time pay only was allowed for overtime, three that working gangs were reduced without decreasing the work demanded or increasing the pay of the men who remained; one thought that Negroes were paid lower wages than white workers; one said the work in his plant was much dirtier than it need be; and two were dissatisfied because shower or locker accommodations were insufficient.

A foundry company employing twenty Negroes out of a total of eighty employees was one of the establishments reporting Negro labor unsatisfactory. Negroes interviewed there complained of harsh and unfair treatment by bosses and said that Negroes usually did not stay longer than thirty days. The employment manager of a large foundry employing 427 Negroes out of a total of 2,488 employees told the investigator that the foremen in the plant would refuse to use Negroes if white labor could be obtained, and if such a time should come the foremen would have their way, because it took years to make a foreman, but a laborer could be picked up any day. The investigator was not permitted to interview any of the employees at this plant, but he visited some of them at their homes. They complained of harsh treatment by foremen, reduction in piece rates without notice, and discrimination in favor of white workers. The labor turnover reported by this plant was 70 per cent for Negro as compared with 14 per cent for white workers. This contrast is readily accounted for when the attitude of foremen toward Negroes is known.

Negroes interviewed at one of the plants of another foundry company employing seventy-five Negroes out of a total of 300 employees complained that the foreman in one department established conditions discouraging to Negro workers. He had an even number of Negro and white workers employed as partners on a certain process of piecework rates, each doing one-half of a joint task. When a man was absent, partners would be shifted about so that a Negro worker would be left without a partner instead of a white man. This handicapped the single worker by slowing down the process so he could not earn a full day's pay. Complaint was also made that the same foreman allowed white workers to accumulate a supply of material for their work, although he ordered Negro workers to stop this practice, thus forcing them to lose time in making frequent trips for material.

In a large iron and steel plant a few of the workers interviewed complained of unfair and abusive treatment by foremen. Numerous complaints had likewise come to the attention of the industrial secretary of the Urban League, who took the matter up with the chief of the industrial-relations department of the company. An investigation was ordered, and it was found that a certain foreman had made a threat to drive all the "niggers" from the department. This foreman, who had been employed by the company for more than sixteen years, was discharged as a result of the investigation. The company states that considerable pressure has been brought to bear for the foreman's reinstatement, but that it will not reinstate him because it wants his case to be a warning to others in the plant who may be prejudiced against Negro workers. The discharged foreman has been told that he may seek employment with the company in some other capacity, with the loss of his seniority rights.

In contrast with conditions in the preceding cases, the investigator found no complaints of mistreatment by foremen or other causes for dissatisfaction among Negro workers at another foundry which employs 125 Negroes out of a total force of 466 employees. Negro labor in this foundry was reported "satisfactory" and as efficient as white labor. The attitude of foremen evidently contributed to the contentment and success of Negroes in this plant.

_Stock Yards._--Interviews with seventy-four Negroes employed in the Stock Yards disclosed much dissatisfaction with treatment by foremen. Specific instances of discrimination were cited in great detail, leaving no doubt in the mind of the investigator that these workers felt that they did not have an equal chance with white workers in many departments in the Yards. Some of those interviewed were well pleased with the treatment of present foremen, but had worked in other departments in the same plants where they said foremen had been unfair and insulting to Negroes. The Negroes interviewed, with one exception, considered their treatment by white fellow-workers good or "O.K." The following are typical of the complaints made by the men interviewed in three of the large establishments in the Yards:

G---- R---- had worked in one plant in the Yards for four
years. He said that he was not given a chance to make overtime,
while Poles who had not been with the company as long as he
had were given this privilege.

Another worker had been dismissed by a foreman when a white
worker in the boiler room had shut off the supply of water
for washing hogs. No blame was attached to the real offender,
but the Negro worker was discharged. He wrote a letter to
the general superintendent, who investigated and ordered his
reinstatement. The foreman then tried to reinstate him as a
new hand, which would deprive him of his seniority rights.

Another worker interviewed said that one assistant foreman had
openly made the statement that he would not work with "niggers."

The foreman over pipe fitters was accused of placing new
Negroes on the hardest work, with no one to give assistance.
He permitted white men to work as helpers for two or three
months, and then to quit for a month or two and return as pipe
fitters, advancing them over Negroes who had more training
for the work.

The foreman in the sheep-killing department of one of the plants
was said by one worker to make advancement difficult, if not
impossible, for Negroes. Another worker complained that this
foreman had recently taken one man off the jaw-trimming machine
but ran the chain just as fast, with the evident intention of
overtaxing the remaining Negroes and reporting that they were
not equal to the job.

The foreman in the hog-killing department was charged with
showing preference to the Poles in shoulder sawing. If a Negro
made complaint to the superintendent and was sent back with
instructions to the foreman, the latter would try to "burn"
the Negro out with work.

It would seem from the discussion of the representatives of the packing companies before the Commission that the Negro in reality has little opportunity for promotion in the Yards. There are no Negro foremen over mixed gangs. The highest position a Negro is able to reach is that of subforeman over a group of Negro workmen. The general superintendent of one of the packing companies admitted that he had never tried out a Negro as foreman over a mixed gang because he wouldn't want to work under a Negro himself. Such an attitude on the part of a general superintendent closes the door to experimentation and limits the opportunities of even the most capable Negroes. It was this same official who said, as previously noted, that Negro labor required more supervision than white labor, and that the turnover of Negro labor was greater. Lack of "hope on the job" would seem an adequate explanation of both conditions.

_Railroad dining-car and Pullman service._--Negroes are used as dining-car waiters on all roads running out of Chicago which carry such accommodations. Certain of the roads also use Negro cooks and kitchen help. The dining-cars on all roads are in charge of white stewards. The source of greatest complaint among the 204 Negro waiters interviewed was the arbitrary use of authority by the stewards and the fact that color bars Negro waiters from becoming stewards. They say that when stewards are needed, intelligent and experienced Negroes are passed over and white men, often entirely ignorant of the work, are taught their duties by these Negroes and are then placed in authority over them. One road carrying seven dining-cars uses white stewards on two cars and the remaining five cars are in charge of Negroes called "waiters in charge." Negroes complained that these men get little more than the wages of a waiter, and in many cases do all that is required of steward and waiter.

The outstanding complaint concerned the drawing of the color line in promotion. In view of the fact that many college graduates are serving as waiters, it would seem absurd to say that Negro waiters are incapable of performing a steward's duties, which consist of receiving and checking supplies for the car, seating dining patrons and issuing checks to them, having general supervision of the other employees on the dining-car, and making daily reports to the car superintendent of business transacted. Race prejudice on the part of administrative officials of railroads seems to be the only explanation for barring Negroes from becoming stewards, in view of the fact that Negro waiters have been used in dining-cars for over forty years and have been accepted by the white traveling public as a matter of course, though some contend that some patrons who accept Negroes as waiters would object to seeing them in positions of stewards, particularly if that brought white employees under them.

Negroes are employed in large numbers in Pullman cars as porters, cleaners, cooks, and mechanics. The main complaint made by the sixty porters interviewed was poor wages and necessity of dependency on tips to make a decent living. The wages of porters, as stated by a representative of the Pullman Company before the Commission, are:

The minimum rate for a porter on a standard sleeping or parlor
car is $60.00 per month; when running in charge of one car the
rate is $70.00 per month; when running in charge of a private
car the rate is $75.00 per month; but when operating in charge
of two or more cars the rate is $155.00 per month.

In 1914 the minimum was either $27.50 or $30.00 per month. Asked whether the Government Railroad Administration had anything to do with the increase granted by the Pullman Company, he indicated that the Pullman Company was under the direction of the Railroad Administration.

Another complaint by Pullman porters was that no promotion was possible for them, since only white men are used as Pullman-car conductors. The explanation of the company, given by one of its representatives at a conference with the Commission, was: "It is merely carrying out an ancient and honorable custom--we started out with white conductors and colored porters and have always continued that way."

Interviews with Negro workers revealed individual differences in attitude and temperament, but the more ambitious and thoughtful Negroes expressed the conviction that they were barred by color from positions for which they were better qualified than the white men who held them. Their complaints were largely variations of the same theme--race discrimination.

V. INDUSTRIES EXCLUDING THE NEGRO

Several important industries in Chicago have not yet employed Negroes. The traction companies (both elevated and surface) do not employ them as conductors, motormen, guards, or ticket agents. The large State Street department stores have no Negro clerks, and taxicab companies do not employ colored drivers. In these industries, which depend directly upon the public for patronage, it is to be expected that the employing of Negro help will be determined by the employer's views of the wishes of his patrons. If there is any fear that they are unfavorable, any individual employer in a competitive industry will hesitate to try the experiment alone. The employment managers of five State Street department stores made the following statements:

1. Our customers would object to colored salespeople, I am sure.

2. We have never employed any Negroes in our Chicago
establishments. I don't care to go into the matter. It will
not do you any good and will not do us any good.

3. Customers and white employees would object if they were
used as clerks.

4. No Negroes are ever employed because we have sufficient
white applicants.

5. If we ever tried using Negroes as clerks the white workers
would make trouble, I am sure of that. Our customers would
object. A good many are from the South and would make trouble
even if Chicago people did not.

One large taxicab company, employing 250 Negroes for repair work and upkeep of automobiles, does not employ Negroes as drivers. A representative of this company stated that the company had gone as far as many employers, and often farther, in the employment of Negro labor; that it had done this in a progressive way, one step after another, but had "not yet got as far as employing Negro chauffeurs," although this might come in time. When asked whether he thought such action would affect the company's business unfavorably he said, "I do not know. It is a matter that I have never thought about."

The Chicago Telephone Company does not employ Negro telephone operators. Its only Negro employees are porters, window washers, and maids. A representative stated that it has always had sufficient white applicants for positions as telephone operators and has not considered taking on Negro girls, although the suggestion has often been made that Negro operators be used at the Douglas Exchange (located in the Negro area of the South Side). This official thought there was very little possibility that they would employ Negro operators in the future. He feared objection from white employees.

In connection with the foregoing it may be borne in mind that the company has answered complaints of poor telephone service within the past few years with the statement that it is difficult to secure capable girls, and that the Telephone Company is continually advertising for girls as operators.

_Social waste involved._--The industrial secretary of the Urban League has called attention to the large number of educated Negro girls who are unable to secure industrial openings where education is required. It is impossible to estimate how great a social waste is involved in relegating trained and educated Negroes to inferior positions, and there is evidence that such waste is considerable. Negroes with college training are found working as waiters; young women college graduates are frequently forced to serve as ladies' maids, theater ushers, or in some other capacity where they are unable to use their educational training. The fact that it was not difficult to find over 1,500 Negro women of more than average education for clerical positions in two Chicago mail-order houses when the opportunity offered is some indication of the extent of the social waste when Negroes are not used in other positions which require training.

VI. RELATIONS OF WHITE AND COLORED WORKERS

The entrance of Negroes into new industries and occupations means that the workers already in these fields will meet increased competition. The self-interest of white workers in a given shop may therefore cause them to resent the presence of Negro workers. On the other hand, through contact and association with Negroes during working hours, white workers may come to look upon Negroes, not as members of a strange group with colored skin, but as individuals with the same feelings, hopes, and disappointments as other people. Whether the hostile attitude prompted by self-interest or the friendly attitude born of understanding, acquaintance, and daily association will prevail in any given shop depends on many factors, over some of which the workers involved have no control. Some of these are:

1. The attitude of the management when Negro labor is first introduced.

2. Circumstances under which Negroes are hired, whether because of recognized labor shortage, or as strike breakers, or to reduce labor costs.

3. The attitude and characteristics of the particular Negroes employed.

4. The attitude of the white workers toward Negroes as a result of previous contacts with Negroes.

The spirit displayed in the shop is likely to spread beyond it and affect relations between the races on the streets and in cars and other public places. It is therefore important to know what the relations between white and Negro workers are, both because of their importance to the Negro in industry and their bearing on the broader social aspect of race problems.

1. RACE FRICTION AMONG WORKERS

Information concerning race relations in industry was received from employers through questionnaires returned by 137 establishments employing a total of 22,337 Negroes, through interviews at places of business with representatives of 101 employers, through industrial conferences held by the Commission, and through interviews with 865 Negro workers. Since the best judges of the existence of race friction would be the Negro workers themselves, who would bear the brunt of any ill-treatment resulting from such friction, it was considered that any extended canvass of opinion among white workers beyond the inquiries made in connection with the trade-union investigation was unnecessary.

Race friction between white and Negro workers sufficient to interfere with output would militate against the use of Negro labor. The fact that Negro labor has proved satisfactory in the great majority of cases where it has been used is therefore indirect evidence that race friction is not pronounced in Chicago industries. Direct evidence from employers on this subject was also secured in answer to a specific question on the point. Out of 137 establishments employing Negroes, which returned questionnaires, only two reported that race friction was a disturbing factor in their plants. The facts in these two cases were as follows:

In a steel-manufacturing plant there was a total of 1,300 employees, of whom seventeen were Negroes, eleven men and six women. During the steel strike of 1919 Negroes were employed in this plant in large numbers. Feeling was antagonistic on the part of the whites, "particularly Austrians and Slavonians." The total number of Negroes employed during the strike and the turnover were reported as "an average force of 175."

Friction in the foregoing case was probably due to the heritage of bitterness over the use of Negroes as strike breakers and to irritation caused by the low grade of workers employed more than to difference in color. They were described by the manager as "irresponsible and shiftless."

In the other case fear of Negroes' competition rather than race prejudice was apparently the cause of friction. The manager of a wholesale millinery house employing forty-three girls in one department, out of a total of 700 employees, said:

We decided to take on colored help in June, 1919. Our white
people resented very much the fact of employing colored people
in our business, and I believe the blame, if there is any, lies
as much with the whites as with the blacks in the difficulties
we have had. I find a great resentment among all our white
people. I couldn't overcome the prejudice enough to bring the
people in the same building, and had to engage outside quarters
for the blacks. We had a meeting of our colored operators
after employing the hand workers. We thought it would be nice
if we would start a school for machine operators. It was, of
course, rumored that we were going to do this, and I received
a delegation from our sewing hall who said they resented the
idea. They wouldn't listen to it at all, and I had to abandon
the project. Their argument was: "If you let them in it won't
be long until we are out entirely." The attitude against the
colored is only the same as it was against the Slavs or the
foreign races when they first intruded in the field. There
was no prejudice, particularly against the color. In millinery
establishments in New York City colored girls and white girls
work together and do not seem to have any trouble, but, we
can't do it here.

The resentment felt by the white girls in this shop may be accounted for in part by a fact to which the manager apparently attached no importance. In speaking of the loyalty and good spirit of the Negro girls, he said casually:

In a few instances, where we have had difficulty in getting
work done by the whites, we have been able to use the colored
workroom as a level. We have sent it over to them and gotten it
out. The white girls have refused either through stubbornness
or some condition to get the work out.

Friction was also reported between women employees in a plant where relations between the men of both races were reported harmonious. This plant which manufactures machinery, has a total of 6,647 employees, including 1,225 Negro men and sixty Negro women. A representative of the company said: