Mike Miller: Freedom Summer and Beyond, Part 3
By Mike Miller
This is the 3rd of a 3 part Q&A between Mike Miller and Peter Olney on Mike’s experience in the Movement and his recent return to the area for the 50th anniversary.
Peter Olney (P): Why isn’t the California model of Latino empowerment a guidepost for the Southern states?
Mike Miller (M): What makes you think we have Latino empowerment? We have more Latino politicians. But, for example, farm workers are now in many ways worse off than they were in the 1960s when the United Farm Workers (UFW) was at its peak strength. It got its power by organizing workers and boycotting growers. Electoral and legislative engagement were expressions of that power. The strike and boycott were more important. I don’t see Latino power in California with that kind of capacity.
(P): Can you tell us about the state of the labor movement in the South under “right to work” laws? Do you see any positive organizing going on?
(M): The successor to Delta cotton as a major employer of Delta blacks was catfish farming. The mechanical cotton picker and chemical fertilizers eliminated many, many jobs in cotton. About 175 cotton plantation owners flooded their land and turned it into catfish farms. At the peak, they employed more than 5,000 people, 90% of them black.
The work was difficult and dangerous. Rapid hand movement on the assembly line led to carpal tunnel problems. Speed-up led to bad knife cuts and, at the worst, lost fingers. Indignities in the workplace (no doors on the stalls in the women’s bathroom, asking permission from a supervisor to take a bathroom break, workers called derogatory names) were reminders of the worst period of second-class citizenship. Workers were forced to show up and then hang around waiting for a shipment to arrive. During the wait-time, they weren’t allowed to clock in, so they didn’t get paid. Poor pay and no benefits were standard.
Between 1985-90 there was an extended organizing drive and strike that finally led to a contract that increased pay, defined work hours, overtime, and created a pension—which hadn’t previously existed. Most important to the workers we met, they now had a voice. The arbitrary and capricious behavior to which they’d earlier been exposed was no longer possible because they had a union.
We met with nine of the women who’d been through the ’85-’90 organizing, including Sarah White, one of the original two organizers, at the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1529 in Indianola. Mary Young, the first person to step up as pro-union, was married to a member of the Steelworkers Union. From him, she learned about authorization cards and the benefits of having a union. Sarah White tells her story in a rich contralto voice. She now speaks in behalf of the union at various places; we reconnected at a panel at the reunion.
Eddie Steel, the UFCW field rep, is an inspiring guy; he joined the women and was a gracious host. It was an incredible afternoon; I was on the edge of tears from some of their stories. Here are some of the things they said; I wish I’d had a tape-recorder!
–“we stood together, we were in a bond together, and by the grace of God we made it.”
–“I just had that fear in me. That fear had me going. I had the fear about talking to people at work. I talk to anyone now.”
–“We had to fight ‘em tooth and toenail; we was out there for months in the cold 1990 first big strike. They was surprised; they didn’t think we was going to do it when we struck. But we was family; we have to stick together…I seriously don’t know where we’d be without the union.”
–“No one can do you any of the old way; you have a chance to speak up for you; you have that respect; [the union] does make a whole lot of difference.”
–“I used to snap at people and I had to learn how to treat my brothers and sisters…you come up under a good leader and you just watch your leader some; just have to be a follower [for a while] and we have to learn how to give each other respect.”
–“I’ve been fired three times; I was young at the time. The work was hard; you didn’t know when to come in; [if] they didn’t have the product you had to sit and wait; they didn’t put on the clock. [When I was approached about the union] I said Okay. Respect—it mean the world to people who been treated so bad.”
–“You got to read your contract, and I learned knowledge is power and if you know you’re right, then you’re right…I had to put that fear to the side and speak out.”
–“If I had to work at a place where there wasn’t a union, I’d be organizing one. [With a union] we have issues and problems, but we get it fixed because of the strength within us. Together we stand; divided we fall. With us being union, we have a voice; without a union we have no voice.”
–“Everybody is not a leader; everybody’s not going to come out, but you as a follower, you look at that leader to come out of your fearness. I’m not going to remain a coward because the strong leader is someone I’ll come up under. So much has to do with the strength of your leader.”
–“I associated with bold people and stick around those bold people and some of that will rub off on you.”
Steel emphasized his accountability to the membership because they elect him and pay his salary. It was a refreshing contrast to the world of unaccountable nonprofits that depend for their money on foundations.
The industry has shrunk due to foreign competition and increased costs of feed. In 2003, domestic producers accounted for 80% of the market; today, only 20%. While down to a little over 700 members in the catfish plants (of a 1,600 potential), the union still has an industry-wide impact because non-union places want to keep it out. And in the unionized places they are still in constant struggle with their employers. The UFCW local has also expanded to organize nursing homes, chain grocery stores and other establishments.
I hope this local grows. It is addressing what I believe to be the central issues now facing black and other working people in Mississippi—whether or not they will have union representation.
On the critical side, my perhaps over-sensitive ear caught a little bit of the “do for” mind-set that I think is a central problem facing the American labor movement. When I asked how members reacted when their grievances took as long as three and four years before resolution, several people talked about the difficulties that arose. While they keep the members informed, it is “the union”—in some ways a third party—that is representing them. Eddie Steele’s strength as an advocate may also be a weakness because they depend too much upon him.
A labor panel at the reunion included Sanchioni Butler, a lively African-American woman organizer for the United Auto Workers (UAW), which now has an organizing campaign at the union-hostile Canton Nissan plant whose work force is largely black. UAW is moving carefully after their recent loss at a VW plant in Chattanooga, TN. Hopefully, they learned some lessons from that defeat. The major one is that you build power through relationships, and you can’t build relationships when you give up the right to meet people in their homes—something they did in Tennessee as part of a deal they cut with Volkswagen to insure employer neutrality in the organizing drive.
Busses took reunion participants to a site demonstration one afternoon. Community support is a strategic part of the campaign, and this was an example of it. Because of such support, a fired worker was recently reinstated in his job.
Danny Glover, who participated in the reunion, was part of the rally at Nissan. (By the way, he makes a major contribution in many settings.)
In a recent UFCW campaign in North Carolina, organizer Gene Bruskin got Latino and Black workers to overcome past tension and achieve a major victory at a Smithfield pork plant.
Right-to-Work makes organizing difficult. You can piss-and-moan about it, or look for ways around it and positives in the negative. A big positive is that people have to want to pay dues to the union. If you can get a free insurance policy with the same benefits as those who pay for it, why not take a free ride? So you need something different from “insurance policy unionism.” You have to return to the days when members were co-creators of their union, and people spoke of the union as “What are we going to do about ‘x’?” rather than “What’s the union going to do about ‘x’?”
As always John Bowman weighs in with important questions. Many of the employment practices he decries as illegal maybe illegal, but without a strong worker organization in place these practices are rarely challenged and redressed because of fear of retaliation and ignorance. Many practices that workers often feel must be illegal like discharge without cause are only addressed with a union contract.
There is a whole body of scholarship and law on the issue you raise of “minority unionism” A retired law professor named Charles Morris has long advocated for this approach arguing that based on the original intent of the Wagner Act, the National Labor Relations Act, that an employer would be compelled to recognize such a union and bargain with it. This thesis was tested by the United Steelworkers, I believe at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Pittsburgh. I believe that the National Labor Relations Board dismissed that petition for recognition arguing that the petitioner must seek to represent all the workers. The idea makes sense and certainly could be a breakthrough as you point out, but as with all good ideas the law thru precedent and administrative procedures usually closes off those “new” options.
As someone outside the labor/union movement but with a longtime interest in and sympathy for it, I find myself wondering–after reading Miller’s account of working conditions–why some of what takes place is not simply illegal under our nation’s laws. Specifically, expecting workers to show up and hang around yet not get paid until they are actually assigned work; denying the proper toilet facilities and breaks; and presumably other in-humane working conditions. As to “right-to-work” laws–has anyone ever suggested or indeed tried to institute a contract with a large employer where only the union members get the newly agreed-upon and improved wages, insurance, pension, etc. Both sides would gain. Well,probably only for a few minutes, while everyone would in fact rush to join the union!