November 16, 1978 Session

Introduction

Causes of the 1950-1952 Internal Fight
Scope and Content Note: The primary factor was personalities. Baldanzi had personal differences with other high officials, and Bishop, who was impatient to get ahead, took advantage of these personal differences to form an alliance to displace Baldanzi.

Perkel and the Research Department During the Fight
Scope and Content Note: Perkel felt it was a battle among officials that did not directly involve him. He regarded himself as a professional working to advance the Union; and, since there appeared to be no differences of philosophy or schools of thought between the warring factions, the outcome of the political fight was of no concern to him. Barkin ordered the Research staff to remain neutral in the fight, and Perkel agreed with that. Although Barkin may have met with the Rieve forces and discussed the situation, the rest of the Research staff did not get pulled into the fight. Even though Barkin and Baldanzi had had some personal differences, Perkel doubts that a Baldanzi victory would have meant a housecleaning in the Research Department.

Effects of the 1952 Fight on the Union
Scope and Content Note: It was seriously debilitating for obvious reasons - secession; the energy, time, and resources spent on the fight weakened the Union during that three to four-year period; reports of the fight in the public press and the charges levelled by each side fed the employers and anti-union forces to make organizing more difficult.

More on the 1951 Southern Cotton Strike
Scope and Content Note: The Research Department prepared economic analyses of profitability and trends in the industry, and the officers had this information when the decision to strike was made; but it is unlikely that any special information was requested before launching this strike. The perceptions of the officials involved were always more important than analyses of the Research Department, and certainly in this case political advantage was the major factor in determining to strike. The Union's position in the South was recognized as being weak and, in that context, the decision to conduct a strike of such magnitude would not have been made had the political situation not existed.

The Southern Situation Was Not Necessarily a Defeat Waiting to Happen
Scope and Content Note: That was Barkin's opinion, but Perkel disagrees. The realization of its weakness in the South had led the Union to pursue a strategy of avoiding strikes in the South. There is no reason to believe that a divergence from that strategy would ever have taken place, and, since 1951, the no-strike strategy has been maintained. The wage gap grew in 1950-51, but it had not been growing prior to that and has definitely shrunk since then; hence, a strike at some point to prevent continued widening of the gap was not inevitable.

The Research Department Did Not Predict the Lengthy Textile Depression of the 1950s
Scope and Content Note: The 1947-1948 period saw a postwar boom with all indicators moving up. The 1949 recession was a shock, but there was a rebound in 1950, accentuated by the Korean War. With indicators moving up again in 1950, there was no indication of the prolonged decline to come.

The Two-Year Economic Cycle in the Textile Industry
Scope and Content Note: Because of the unusual economic circumstances following World War II, there was speculation about whether the two-year cycle would continue or not. The recession in 1949, the upturn in 1950, and the recession in 1951, however, led people to think the two-year cycle had returned. The long recession, 1951-56, however, virtually ended the two-year cycle; the cycle did not return after recovery in the late 1950s. There are two basic reasons for this: 1) The merger period, 1946-48, changed the structure of the industry; the marketing function was no longer separated from the production function; thus textile manufacturers gained more control over the market. 2) The change in lifestyles and consumer patterns (informal suburban living, sportswear, diverse wardrobes, synthetics, plastics, etc.) produced a more constant demand for textiles.

The 1962-1964 Internal Fight - Causes
Scope and Content Note: Perkel was not working for the Union during the formative years of this fight, 1961-62, but he saw it, like the 1952 fight, as largely a matter of personalities. The chief personalities were Pollock, Victor Canzano, Wesley Cook, and Bill Belanger. The latter three found it difficult to get along with Pollock; so, in order to oust him, they sought to build up enough forces to overcome both the power of the incumbency and Pollock's support amongst the rank and file.

Perkel During the 1962-1964 Fight
Scope and Content Note: He was aware of the problems when he left the Union and aware of the fight when he returned. He assumed, however, that there would be a need for research no matter who won the fight; so he came back to the Union. He had the respect of the leaders of both sides and thus had no concern about the outcome affecting him.

Organizing Climate in the Early 1960s
Scope and Content Note: The Union was optimistic because of the large Democratic majority in Congress and the aura of progress engendered by John F. Kennedy. There was a feeling that Kennedy and the Democrats would improve both the climate and also the legal framework for organizing and collective bargaining. Thus there was genuine hope for a breakthrough.

Effect of the 1962-1964 Fight
Scope and Content Note: It had nowhere near the impact of the 1952 fight. “Aside from...drawing attention of people away from organizing for a couple years, I don't think it had much effect.”

Introduction

The Long-Term Impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on TWUA
Scope and Content Note: The primary impact was to prohibit union shop agreements in those states where textiles are important. This has resulted in the Union having to put much time and resources into trying to build membership in its organized shops. A less concrete way in which the Act has hampered union growth is in the attitude changes it has effected. While the Wagner Act viewed unions as good things, the Taft-Hartley Act viewed them as merely another narrow, special-interest group which was dangerous to the public welfare and had to be restricted and controlled. This has affected middle class attitudes toward unions, and the middle class sets the moral tone for society and also has substantial influence in schools. “This is an important factor that has ended...the ability of unionism to crusade and capture the imagination of working people. I think that is probably the biggest impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on the Textile Union, among others.”

Taft-Hartley Provisions That Hindered Organizing
Scope and Content Note: More complicated election procedures and pre-election hearings that delay elections, coupled with more freedom given to employers in what they can say and do during an organizing drive have been the main provisions that thwart organizing.

The Law Has Had a Greater Impact on TWUA Than Other Unions
Scope and Content Note: Because the textile industry was not organized and because it is located largely in the South, where right-to-work legislation and other organizing impediments permitted by Taft-Hartley are more common, TWUA has suffered more than other unions from the Act. However, as more and more light industries move South, more and more unions are suffering as much from the Act as TWUA.

Other Unions Have Not Found It Any Easier to Organize in the South

Promotion of Southern Migration by Northern Capital
Scope and Content Note: In the late 1940s and in the 1950s, textiles were losing ground rapidly in the North, and the financial community decided the North was no longer suitable for textile manufacturing and began to invest only in southern mills. “That was strictly a kind of a hard-nosed, business attitude that the chances of a good return on investment are better in the South than in the North.”

Southern Agitational Wage Drives
Scope and Content Note: They began in earnest in early 1959. Because southern textile workers had received their last wage increase in October, 1956, and the country was beginning to pull out of the 1958 recession, the Union decided it was an opportune time to press for an increase in the South. A massive leafleting campaign was begun and Cannon mills, in response, granted a wage increase. Originally the agitational drive was designed to spark interest in organization, but it proved more successful as a means to move wages.

How Unorganized Mills Recoup Wage Increases
Scope and Content Note: Unorganized mills, after granting a wage increase due to the Union's agitational drive, would often manipulate piece rates so that an increase in production, roughly corresponding to the increase in wages, would result. Workers would thus get a raise, but would have to work harder. Although they were unhappy with this, usually the presence of a larger paycheck would keep them from doing much about it. In organized mills the Union often put the increase into “side money,” rather than piece rates, in order to avoid a similar manipulation.

Why TWUA Organized Fewer Workers in the 1970s Than in the 1960s
Scope and Content Note: This was partly because the 1960s was a time of emergence from the textile depression of the 1950s. It was a time when more new people entered textile employment. More blacks entered textile employment. Better standards of living prevailed throughout the country. In the 1970s there was less expansion of the industry, and there was more turnover in workers. The dissatisfied workers would leave the industry to take employment with the various other industries opening up in the South. The workers who remained were willing to settle for less and were thus harder to organize.

Less Than Ten Percent of the Southern Textile Industry Is Organized Today

Fifteen to Twenty Percent of TWUA Membership Is Employed in Non-Textile Jobs
Scope and Content Note: As time went on and it became more and more evident that textile workers were harder to organize than other workers, the Union got into more and more non-textile organizing, especially in the North where the Union had a base of operations and needed new organization to replace its declining membership.

Conglomeratization Effects on TWUA
Scope and Content Note: Conglomerates take a more hard-nosed look at the balance sheet than family-owned companies; hence, they are more likely to liquidate than to ride out the rough periods. Also, conglomerates are often tougher in bargaining because they have no interest in building a cooperative relationship with the Union. “A conglomerate doesn't care about relationships....It cares about productivity and costs.”

Introduction

An Example of a Conglomerate Liquidating a Textile Company: FMC Purchase of American Viscose
Scope and Content Note: FMC squeezed all the liquid assets out of Viscose. “So they got what they were interested in...and then, when it proved to be not as profitable as they liked, they weren't concerned to try to solve the problem through cooperative activity or improving relationships or anything of that sort. They simply got rid of it. And that's a common practice” amongst conglomerates. This phenomenon is related to the old absentee ownership problem, but it was accentuated by conglomerate mergers in the 1960s.

Existence of Large Textile Companies in the 1930s and 1940s Would Not Have Made It Any Easier to Organize the Industry
Scope and Content Note: If Stevens or Burlington existed then as they are today and if the Union had organized them, it would have been extremely helpful because the Union could have concentrated on the unorganized mills in those chains, and because the Union could have used them as standards to point to when trying to organize other textile mills. However, dominance of the industry by large companies then would not have made it easier to organize the industry - as it did in the auto and steel industries - because of the ruthlessness of the companies, the level of development of the workers and their attitudes, and the general cultural attitudes towards organizing. The Union did make major efforts in the 1930s and 1940s to organize Burlington and had a number of successes, but the company closed those plants.

In the Past, Migration of the Industry South Has Been More of a Problem in Textiles Than in Other Industries; But, as Time Goes On, Other Light Industries Are Beginning to Suffer Just as Much

The Automation Threat Is Overplayed
Scope and Content Note: “I don't see any tremendous impact of automation on jobs in the textile industry or many other industries.” While automation may have serious effects on employment in particular localities, it has not had much effect on textile employment as a whole.

Liquidation of Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company in Connecticut
Scope and Content Note: This was the result of a technological change - the shift from woven carpets to tufted carpets. Because the manufacture of tufted carpets required much less skill, the company no longer needed the skilled work force it had in the North and decided to build new tufted mills in the South.

Causes of TWUA Membership Decline Between the Late 1950s and the Early 1970s
Scope and Content Note: Dues-paying membership went from about 200,000 to about 100,000 in that period. 1) The largest single factor was the continuing geographic shift of the industry; with the older northern centers declining and the newer southern centers growing without being organized. 2) In synthetics the marked contraction of the rayon industry because of the growth of the non-cellulosic (polyester, etc.) branch of synthetics. 3) The appreciable growth of imports in the 1960s. 4) Carpet mill liquidations as described above. 5) The growth of textile employment in the early 1960s stopped in the late 1960s. This resulted, in part, from a shift in consumer tastes whereby a larger portion of the consumer dollar went for recreation and other things indicative of a high standard of living and a lesser portion to clothing.

Why It Is So Difficult to Organize in the South
Scope and Content Note: 1) The overriding factor “is the cultural and psychological nature of the southern textile worker and the southern textile community.” Southern textile workers are close to the bottom of the poor-white social structure. They are largely people who, from birth, have experienced a sense of powerlessness vis-a-vis the employers, the church, and the schools; and this has created a dependency. They do not see themselves as having the power to run their lives and alter circumstances they do not like. 2) “The mill owners are very autocratic, anti-union people who see the union not only as a problem economically, but as a threat to their status as autocrats; a potential political threat, and a real emotional anathema....It's not just an economic contest; it's a life and death struggle for them.” Coupled with that is the tremendous power they have in the community and in the society as a whole through political connections. 3) Also, as mentioned earlier when discussing the Taft-Hartley Act, the change in attitudes toward unions by people who are not owners or workers has been an important factor.

These Factors Are Not Confined to the South
Scope and Content Note: Some backward areas of New England, for instance, are similar. “Wherever you have a combination of extreme power on the part of the employer and extreme dependence on the part of workers and ignorance of their ability to change things and lack of confidence in themselves, you have that kind of configuration that is conducive to this condition.” the only difference is that in the South this is the prevailing mode.

How to Change This Configuration of Employer Power and Worker Dependence
Scope and Content Note: Whether it can be changed or not, it does not make sense to assume it cannot be changed. There are indications that it can be changed simply in the way society evolves. Historically, feudalism has given way, and there are signs that it is giving way in the South, and at a fairly rapid rate.

Perkel's Hindsight Regarding What Might Have Been Done to Stem the Decline of TWUA
Scope and Content Note: He has always had nagging doubts, as described earlier (tape 3), whether the Union was doing enough to develop the capability to organize people. The amount of work and experimentation in this area has been only a small fraction of what it could have been. It never got very far because of the cost involved. TWUA leadership has rarely given this area much more than lip service. The situation is similar to research and development in industry; the companies that invest in it are the more prosperous firms. Unions generally invest nothing in the union equivalent of research and development.

More on Perkel's Opinion of the Merger with ACW
Scope and Content Note: TWUA gained some assets in its ability to organize J.P. Stevens, but the merger has caused many problems by providing a more bureaucratic structure. The new organization has the potential for doing a better job for textile workers than the TWUA could have done on its own.