Chapter VIII: The Negro in Industry (5)

But the more we tried to help the colored worker the more
intense the opposition was, because there was a force working
against us, and we could not help but feel it. We got it from
the colored people themselves, and it is a fact that some of
the organizers were actually afraid to go around to some of
these saloons and poolrooms where they congregated because of
the agents of the packers, or whoever was responsible for that
propaganda, and they felt that their lives were in danger....
Out in the Stock Yards we could not win their support. It could
not be done. They were constitutionally opposed to unions,
and all our forces could not break down that opposition....
We tried to make our appeal quite general in scope. We got
the best organizers. A good colored organizer is very rare--a
man who is thoroughly qualified to represent the trade-union
point of view. We tried to find one and picked out a colored
member of the Engineers' Union, a man highly honored in all
the trade unions of Chicago.... The reason the colored man
gave for not joining you will find in the circular "Beware of
the White Man's Union," and that the only way that they can
ever make any headway in the industry is to stick in with the
boss and then when there is a strike to step in and take the
jobs that are left there....

Race prejudice has everything to do with it. It lies at the
bottom. The colored man as a blood race has been oppressed for
hundreds of years. The white man has enslaved him, and they
don't feel confidence in the trade unions. But there is more
real fraternal feeling among the black and white workers than
in any other grade of society.... As soon as the colored man
becomes a factor in industry, he is going to be organized,
providing he does not become a victim to the line of tactics
that are laid out by the employer. In the steel strike he
lined up with the bosses.

4. NEGRO WORKERS WITHIN THE UNIONS

Negro workers inside the ranks of such unions as the Stock Yards', Janitors', and Hodcarriers', types of the unions which accept Negroes with complete equality, feel, with very few exceptions, that they are being given a "square deal" by the unions. By coming into the unions they say they have been able to secure better working conditions and higher wages. They express satisfaction with the treatment accorded them by white unionists on the job and at meetings, where the grievances of Negro members are given the same attention as the complaints of white members. The situation in the unions mentioned has been so fully described already in this report that there is no need for further details on the friendly relationship which exists between white and colored members of these unions. Many Negro unionists look to labor organization as one of the most promising solutions of race problems.

VI. THE NEGRO AND STRIKES

The attitude of Negro workers during strikes is closely connected with the attitude of Negroes toward union organization. As stated before, there are many cross-currents at work, some tending to keep Negroes out of unions and others impelling them toward the unions. All the forces at work to prejudice the Negro against union organization are factors which help to explain his willingness to take the place of striking white workers. The loyalty of the Negro during strikes by white employees was referred to by a number of the representatives of large employers attending the industrial conferences held by the Commission.

Some of the most conspicuous cases coming to the attention of the Commission in which Negroes have taken the place of white strikers or have remained at work during strikes are the following:

The Stock Yards strike of 1904 lasted from July 4 to the middle
of September. The general superintendent of one of the plants in
the Yards, appearing before the Commission, said: "The strike
was called at 12:00 o'clock. Every employee practically that
we had went out. Within two or three days we had any number
of colored employees return to work.... I'd say Negroes helped
us to break the strike by coming to work. A number of Negroes
that we understand belonged to the union did not remain out
more than two or three days. Practically all the Negroes came
back before the strike was called off."

The strike in the Corn Products Refining Company plant at Argo,
where, in the summer of 1919, before the strike, 300 Negroes
were employed, during the strike 900, and when it was over
about 500.

The steel strike of 1919. Representatives of several of the
iron and steel plants stated that Negroes had helped to break
this strike. The _Inter-Church World Movement Report on the
Steel Strike of 1919_ (p. 177) lists the "successful use of
strike-breakers, principally Negroes, by the steel companies" as
the second cause of the failure of the steel strike. "'Niggers
did it' was a not uncommon remark among company officials."

The waiters' strike in 1920.

Less important cases were the following:

A clothing shop where Negro women broke a strike in 1916
and continued in the employ thereafter. A wool warehouse and
storage company which used Negroes at slightly higher wages
to replace striking Polish laborers in 1916, and have since
continued to employ Negroes.

The strike of Pullman-car cleaners about 1916. Negroes were
used as strike breakers and have since been employed in large
numbers, men cleaning the windows and outside of cars and
Negro women doing most of the inside cleaning.

Many other instances where Negroes have been used as strike
breakers could be cited.

During a strike, feeling runs high and the word "strike breaker" or "scab" carries with it a decided stigma among the strikers. White workers ordinarily do not try to understand why the Negro acts as he does. They do not reason that the Negro is often loyal to the employer because he feels that the employer, sometimes at considerable risk, has opened to him industrial opportunities which, translated into wages, mean better living conditions for himself and his family. If the white worker took into account the struggle of the Negro to gain entrance into the fields outside of personal service, the latter's eagerness to take advantage of any opening, however created, might be better understood and regarded with more tolerant spirit.

What bearing this use of Negro labor has on the attitude of white workers toward Negroes depends upon whether the subject is approached from the point of view of the employer or of the trade unionist. Representatives of the packing companies emphasized the employers' appreciation of the Negro's loyalty and discounted the antagonism caused by Negroes serving as strike breakers, while trade-union leaders and others having the workers' point of view emphasized the seeds of dissension that were sown by such action and contended that the good will of the employer gained at such a cost was in reality a handicap to the Negro. White workers feel that Negroes who serve as strike breakers are helping to earn for their race the stigma of being a "scab" race. This is especially serious in the case of Negroes, because color identification makes it easy to focus hatred for the "scab."

Union leaders and social workers who participated in the conferences held by the Commission condemned the practice of some private employment agencies in sending Negroes to plants as strike breakers without informing them that a strike was in progress. Investigations in several states have disclosed such practices of some private employment agencies, "misrepresentation of terms and conditions of employment" being the most frequent abuse, according to the report of the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations: "Men are not informed about strikes that may be on at places to which they are sent, nor about other important facts which they ought to know."[77]

Private employment agencies following such practices try to do so against colored as well as white workers, although with probably less success because of the ability of the Negro to speak English. However, the part played by private employment agencies in supplying Negro strike breakers in Chicago appears to be of relatively little importance. Ordinarily agents of employers find Negro strike breakers directly by going into the Negro residence section with autos or trucks and recruiting the number of men desired. The industrial secretary of the Urban League made the following statement regarding Negro strike breakers:

According to all information available to the Chicago Urban
League, it does not appear that any of the private employment
agencies except the one conducted by R. G. Parker, editor of
the _Chicago Advocate_, who advertised for cooks and waiters
to break the strike of the Cooks and Waiters' Alliance during
the National Republican Convention in June, 1920, have been
instrumental in strike breaking.

The method used in the organization of strike breakers among
colored people is not well defined. Generally labor scouts
work directly for companies affected by strikes. These scouts
have frequently applied to our office for workers, but we
have refused assistance. The men are usually gathered from the
streets, poolrooms, or wherever they can be found. It is the
policy of the Chicago Urban League not to interfere in strikes
unless the striking unions have refused to admit colored workers
to their membership. The League is not opposed to unionism,
but is interested primarily in the welfare of colored workers.

VII. ATTITUDE AND OPINIONS OF LABOR LEADERS

From the eleven representative labor leaders attending the trade-union conferences held by the Commission, from the various interviews by the investigators with these and other union officials and members, and from letters received from labor officials from various parts of the United States, it was apparent that there were certain definite views held by most of these leaders as to the relationship of organized labor to the Negro. These views are summarized and set forth in the following pages:

1. GENERAL PUBLIC HAS RACE PREJUDICE

Race prejudice exists generally in all groups of the white race and only changes slowly. The worker is just as much subject to it in the beginning as are the members of all other groups.

2. UNIONS FAIRER TO NEGRO THAN ARE OTHER GROUPS

The unions have given the Negro a fairer deal than other social institutions or groups, such as department stores, clubs, churches, theaters, fraternal organizations, hotels, and railways.

3. UNIONS BLAMED FOR CONDITIONS THEY CANNOT CONTROL

Unions are many times blamed for situations in which Negroes are not admitted to an occupation or industry over which the unions have no control, the exclusion existing because the attitude of either the public or the employer prevents the entrance of Negroes into the industry. For example, Negroes are not employed in Chicago as motormen or conductors on surface or elevated transportation lines, as telephone operators by the telephone company, as sales clerks in department stores, as chauffeurs by taxicab companies, nor as upholsterers and drapers by firms sending such employees to work in private homes.

The position taken by the unions is that they cannot organize a miscellaneous public, but that they can only organize those that have the jobs, that as long as street and elevated lines do not employ Negroes as motormen and conductors the unions cannot take them in. True, there might be objection on the part of the members in these unions, but the question has never come up. Also the traction companies are not in business to reform public opinion and so, because the public might object, do not engage Negroes in these jobs. In this their position is similar to that of the large taxicab companies, which, however, employ non-union workers. They have Negroes in the garages but not as chauffeurs, probably because they believe that the general public would object if Negroes were employed as chauffeurs. In such cases the unions feel that they are not responsible, any more than they are accountable for the policy of the telephone company which engages no Negro operators. Among other large businesses must be listed the department stores, which have no Negroes as sales clerks.

Exclusion of Negroes from a trade or industry results in inability to join the unions in such trades. This fact is well illustrated by the Upholsterers' Union, which has three branches--furniture upholsterers, drapers, and mattress makers. Upholsterers and drapers are frequently sent out by the large stores to residences of customers, and the stores will not risk offending customers by sending a Negro into their homes. Consequently there are no Negroes in these branches of the union. The mattress makers' local, on the other hand, has more Negro than white members, and the secretary of the union is a Negro. This situation would not be possible if Negroes were excluded from employment in mattress factories. In view of the fact that the Upholsterers' Union freely admits Negroes into the mattress makers' local, Negroes would also, no doubt, be admitted into the locals of the upholsterers and the drapers if employers hired Negroes for such work.

4. EXCLUSION POLICY CONDEMNED

The policy, wherever it exists, of excluding Negroes from unions, whether by direct or indirect means, is considered wrong and shortsighted by the great majority of labor leaders. They believe that the small group of "aristocratic and conservative" unions cannot long withstand the American Federation of Labor policy of organizing Negroes in local and federal unions, nor the policy of the more progressive national and international unions. As the number of Negroes increases in the unions now admitting them, as the number of Negro delegates to city centrals, like the Chicago Federation of Labor, increases, and as the number of delegates to conventions of the State Federation of Labor and to the American Federation of Labor increases each year, more and more pressure is being brought to bear on these unions from without and also by the progressive leaders from within, so that gradually all barriers will be swept aside. That a gradual change is taking place in the policy of many unions is evidenced by the following instances:

_International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers._--"In 1902 a local union of Negro stationary firemen in Chicago could not be chartered because the white local union would not give its consent."[78] In 1920 the president of Local 7, Chicago, reported as follows:

The symbol of our organization is, "We shall not discriminate
against creed, color or nationality." The membership of our
organization is open to the Negro as much as to any other
man who earns his living by the sweat of his brow. I should
say, offhand, that we have approximately about 100 Negroes
who are members of our Chicago local and who take an active
part in all of our deliberations. So far as has come under my
observation the feeling towards these men has always been of
the most cordial nature.

I am, however, free to say that we have found that a great many
of the employers, who do not desire to play fair, use the Negro
to offset any high standard of wages which the organization
may deem proper and just, and I have found, in my experience,
an endeavor on the part of some of the employers to only use
the Negro when he would want to maintain a lower standard of
wages, but when compelled by force of circumstances to pay a
living rate of wages, immediately a request would be made on
the organization that the Negro be removed and a white man
furnished. This we emphatically refuse to do. If the Negro
was efficient and competent to perform his duties prior to
the establishment of a living wage he certainly should be
competent enough to perform the same duties afterwards.

_Metal Polishers' International Union._--The general secretary informed the Commission:

At the last international convention held, the question of
Negroes entering our trade was taken up, and the delegates
anticipated that, at some future time, Negroes would be
employed, and we felt that, if the manufacturers were left under
the impression that we would refuse to accept them into the
organization, it would be an incentive to the Manufacturers'
Association to import Negroes or hire them, so a resolution
was passed that any skilled polisher, buffer, or plater, even
though a Negro, should be admitted to our organization.

_International Association of Machinists._--Although at its convention at Rochester, New York, in 1920, this union again voted down the proposition to strike out the word "white" from its ritual, there was significance in the fact that seven resolutions were introduced at the convention to remove the excluding provision. These resolutions came from unions in the following cities: two from different locals in Chicago; one from Columbia, South Carolina; one from Akron, Ohio; one from New Haven, Connecticut; one from Tucson, Arizona. Resolutions opposing came from Bakersfield, California; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Whistler, Alabama; and Savannah, Georgia. As an instance of enthusiastic appreciation of the mutual advantage to whites and Negroes of joint effort in union organization with no discrimination the following comment from an office of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees' National Alliance was received by the Commission:

We have one local union composed of white and colored
workers--that union is located in the city of Boston,
Massachusetts; roughly speaking, there are approximately 400
in a total membership of about 2,000; at our convention held
at Providence, Rhode Island, last August, one of the delegates
from that union was a colored man. Six years ago Boston colored
waiters woke up, and so did the whites, to the fact that for
decades they had been used one against the other by their
employers; they got together, and they affirm with considerable
emphasis that amalgamation has proved beneficial.

5. UNIONS INSTRUMENTAL IN REMOVING RACE PREJUDICE

Labor leaders emphasize the influence of contact in union meetings in promoting a friendly understanding between white and colored members. They point out the fact that the Negro ceases to be a stranger or an object of prejudice when once he has identified himself with the union. A common interest in common problems binds the members together, and a spirit of loyalty to the union develops in the effort to realize the aims of the group. White members come to have a more kindly feeling for a Negro within the union group than they have toward a white man who remains outside the union ranks. Said one union leader:

Some day the white worker is going to coax the black man to
line up with him; all that he needs is a crusader's heart
and a genuine desire to make the black man and himself free,
and when he succeeds there won't be, in the economic field at
least, the differences which now exist, due to this pitting
of one race against the other and both being walloped by the
action.