Summary Information
Textile Workers Union of America Oral History Project: George Perkel Interview
1978
Tape 722A
5 tape recordings
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
One of a series of tape-recorded oral interviews conducted with Textile Workers Union of America leaders by James A. Cavanaugh of the Historical Society staff, documenting the origins, growth, and decline of the TWUA, internal disputes, relations with other unions, and organizing drives. The interviews document textile unionism prior to the formation of the TWUA, as well as discussing major strikes and gains made through collective bargaining. Specific references are made to organizing activities in Illinois, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The George Perkel interview is part of the Textile Workers Union of America Oral History Project.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-tape00722a ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Born in 1919, George Perkel, except for a few years in the early 1940s in Washington, D.C., has spent his entire life in New York City. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1939 and received a Master's Degree in economics from New York University in 1952. He worked for the United States Department of Commerce, the War Labor Board, and the Edo Aircraft Corporation before joining the TWUA in 1947 as senior economist in the Research Department. He left TWUA in 1961 to become the Research Director for New York City's Department of Labor. When Sol Barkin resigned as TWUA Research Director in 1962, Perkel was hired to replace him. Perkel remained as TWUA Research Director until the merger with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in 1976. In the new organization - the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union - Perkel is Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Department, a position for which he was well prepared because of a shift in emphasis in the TWUA Research Department during its last several years of existence.
Scope and Content Note
Interview
Perkel is a soft-spoken, patient, and idealistic man of slight build. I interviewed him at the 1978 ACTWU convention in Los Angeles for two hours on September 25 and for one hour on September 28, and in his New York City office for an hour-and-a-half on November 16, 1978. Before the interview I told Perkel I would like him to play the role of the intellectual for the recent history of TWUA as Department Directors Larry Rogin, Ken Fiester, and Sol Barkin had for the earlier years of TWUA history. He agreed and gave a thoughtful and thought-provoking interview.
While the interview contains discussions of the Union's internal fights, the 1951 southern cotton strike, and other topics considered by most other interviewees, Perkel's real contribution was in his discussions of the Union's problems and of the economics of the textile industry. He offered particularly useful information and insights on the following topics: imports, occupational safety and health, the difficulties of a labor union dealing with a highly bureaucratized government, reasons for TWUA's decline and ways it might have been stemmed, the South and the mentality of the southern employer and the southern worker, approaches to organizing, the structure of TWUA, and the relationship between union professional staff and union field staff.
Abstract
The tapes for this interview have two tracks: a voice track containing the discussion and a time track containing time announcements at intervals of approximately five seconds. The abstract lists, in order of discussion, the topics covered on each tape, and indicates the time-marking at which point the beginning of the particular discussion appears.
Thus, the researcher by using a tape recorder's fast-forward button may find expeditiously and listen to discrete segments without listening to all of the taped discussion. For instance, the user who wishes to listen to the topic on “Duties When He First Joined TWUA” should locate the place on the second track of side one, tape one, where the voice announces the 02:05 time-marking (the voice says at this point, “Two minutes, five seconds”), and at this point switch to the first track to hear the discussion. The discussion on “Duties When He First Joined TWUA” continues until approximately 02:55 at which point discussion of the next topic (“Working for Sol Barkin”) begins.
Notice that in most cases sentences beneath each headline explain more about the contents of the topic. For example, the sentences underneath “Duties When He First Joined TWUA” give further details on what appears on the tape between 02:05 and 02:55.
The abstract is designed to provide only a brief outline of the content of the tapes and cannot serve as a substitute for listening to them. However, the abstract when used with the index will help the researcher easily locate distinct topics and discussions among the many minutes of commentary.
Index
There is a master index for most of the TWUA Oral History Project interviews in the collection-level finding aid.
Related Material
The Research Department files constitute the largest single series in the TWUA collection, and those files, from 1947 forward, reflect George Perkel's work at least in part.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Finding aid prepared by James A. Cavanaugh, Madison, Wisconsin, January 31, 1979.
Contents List
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September 25, 1978 Session
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
00:30
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Biographical Background
: Born in New York City, November, 1919. Grew up in New York. Received a B.A. from Brooklyn College and an M.A. in economics from New York University. Worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce, for the War Labor Board, and for a private company before joining TWUA as a senior economist in 1947. Married, two children.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
02:05
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Duties When He First Joined TWUA
: Under Director Sol Barkin, he was responsible for supervising the work of the economists and statisticians in the Research Department and for preparing reports and analyses. The Department had at the time, in addition to Barkin and Perkel, two economists and two industrial engineers.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
02:55
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Working for Sol Barkin
: Initially Barkin was “quite troublesome” to work for because his speech was not as communicative as it should have been, and he usually wanted his staff to do more than he actually asked them to do. He was impatient. After a month or two, however, Barkin came to show Perkel a lot of respect, and they actually progressed to a friendly basis; at least they were friendlier than Barkin was with most people who worked for him. Barkin's vanity and volubility at times created problems.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
05:00
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Barkin's Image as a Maverick Economist
: “He liked to push the frontiers.” He was always looking for fresh viewpoints, and to that extent he was a maverick. He impressed people with his freshness and his articulateness, being much more articulate in public speaking than in private conversation.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
06:05
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The Role of the Research Department
: Perkel and Barkin had similar views of the role of the Department, but Barkin was affected by his experience in an administrative capacity during TWOC. “He never got over that experience.” Perkel, on the other hand, never had any experience with, or desire for, a top administrative position in the Union. Both conceived their mission as trying to think about the Union and its problems with more depth, more complex analysis, and more intellectual vigor than the officers and to come up with analyses and recommendations to meet the Union's problems. Both viewed the Research Department more as a think tank than a service department.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
08:35
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The Import Problem
: TWUA identified this problem long before other unions. The industry usually cooperated with the Union in government presentations, etc. The United Textile Workers (UTW), however, did not have a research department and did not have the resources to make any economic analyses that would help the industry's case; hence, it did not participate much in the effort to put controls on textile imports. The UTW did have representatives in the 1960s on the Labor-Management Textile Advisory Committee which dealt with imports.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
12:35
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Perception of the Import Problem by Other Unions
: Other soft-goods unions began to see the problem in the early 1960s and became active with TWUA in trying to do something about it. Today, of course, even heavy industries are affected. The reason why other unions did not support TWUA's concern over imports was because heavy industry was experiencing full employment, more or less, and they simply did not perceive the problem as being real. Only when it affected them personally did they react.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
14:20
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Relief from Textile Imports
: The International Cotton Textile Agreement - part of President Kennedy's seven-point program for textiles - was helpful, but only for cotton; and cotton was becoming a less and less important part of the textile picture with the rapid growth of synthetics. Relief for synthetics and wool was not forthcoming from the government until about 1974, when those fabrics were added to the International Trade Control Program. It took this long for synthetics to be added to the Trade Control list because the market for synthetics was expanding so rapidly that American production of synthetics was growing continuously, albeit at a slower rate than imports. Hence, while the Union and the industry could show a loss in the proportion of the market, they could not demonstrate injury; they could not demonstrate a decline in production in absolute terms. Wool was not added to the list until 1974 because the wool industry was not influential in government and because Japan was the major supplier of imported wool; and “relations with Japan were such that it was difficult to impose additional restraints on trade with Japan.”
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
16:25
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Perkel's Involvement with the Kennedy Seven-Point Program for Textiles
: Barkin was Research Director until the end of 1962, and the import agreement was negotiated in 1962; hence, Perkel was not very involved with it until after 1962. He was quite involved in its evolution after that and with its extension to synthetics and wool.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
17:10
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Frustration in Dealing with the Government
: Both in regards to imports and in his current efforts on behalf of occupational safety and health, Perkel finds dealing with the government very frustrating. “Many government people don't really get involved in trying to see the true nature of problems. They just want to dispose of issues as painlessly as possible to them. They want to do things the easy way; they don't want to offend influential people. And so, progress is very slow in getting them to do what they should do.”
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
18:10
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The Trade Adjustment Assistance Provision of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act
: This provision was supposed to provide relief to workers who lost jobs due to imports. The provision was thrown in as a sop to labor; trade adjustment assistance, not import limitation, was the official policy of the AFL-CIO at the time. The Union until the early 1970s was never able to use this provision of the act because the legislation was written in such a way that the burden of proof was excessive. In order to fulfill all the requirements for getting trade adjustment assistance, one had to prove what was virtually impossible. Perkel can recall no relief coming from this provision of the act from 1962 to 1970, even though several petitions for assistance were filed in that period, including many by the TWUA; all were rejected. Finally, due to the efforts of the Steel Workers, a change in the interpretation of the provision came about in 1970. Thereafter TWUA was able to get some assistance for members thrown out of work because of imports.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
21:00
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The Nature of Perkel's Work Before Becoming Director
: He spent 60-70 percent of his time supervising and working on the service aspects of the Department - answering requests from the field, preparing routine financial, wage, and benefits analyses, etc. The remainder of his time was spent assisting the Director on more profound studies of what the Union's problems were and how to deal with them.
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Tape/Side
1/1
Time
22:20
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How the Research Department Became Involved in the Occupational Safety and Health Issue
: The immediate cause was the organizing of a plant in Philadelphia that processed asbestos. The plant had previously had an independent union which addressed in its contract the concerns of the workers about exposure to asbestos. This was the first time TWUA had ever encountered such a concern in any of its plants, and it therefore became necessary to learn about the problem. Concurrently, scientific research was beginning to disclose the problem of byssinosis amongst American cotton mill workers. Perkel saw it as his job, as Research Director, to learn about industrial disease in the textile industry; and the officers approved his devoting considerable time to this.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
00:30
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Research Department Reaction to This New Concern
: The Department was able to hire its first expert in safety and health in early 1972. Perkel actually welcomed this new concern; it was like starting a new career that was both gratifying and interesting.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
01:30
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Why It Took So Long for TWUA to Recognize This Issue
: The Union and the general public was simply unaware of occupational health problems. In 1968 Dr. Irving J. Selikoff published an article in The New Yorker about the health dangers of exposure to asbestos dust. This was the first time the popular press had carried anything on industrial disease. There had been simply no awareness previous to this, amongst unions or the public, that such things represented serious health hazards to workers. The Union, once made aware of the problems of industrial disease in textile employment, was quick to respond. At about the same time a mine disaster helped spark the beginnings of occupational safety and health legislation, which helped make the Union and the public aware that occupational health was a real problem. The reason the independent local in Philadelphia had been addressing occupational health in its contracts and the TWUA was unaware of the problem was because TWUA did not have textile asbestos plants. TWUA had locals where asbestos was used peripherally, but none where asbestos was actually manufactured and thus where asbestos dust was significant. People at the Philadelphia local were losing their ability to breathe and were dying early; these same problems were not noticeable in any TWUA local.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
04:55
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TWUA'S Role in Passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act
: TWUA was very active testifying before the committees of both houses of Congress. The Union brought members to hearings to testify on brown lung (byssinosis), excessive noise levels, etc. The testimony must have been effective because the report of the committee used asbestos and cotton dust as prominent examples of industrial disease that should be addressed in legislation.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
05:50
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Frustration in Attempting to Get the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to Issue a Cotton Dust Standard
: The TWUA experience in attempting to get a decent cotton dust standard issued was “an important experience in that it reflects...the kinds of pressures and the kinds of results that occur when a trade union tries to deal with a serious problem through a government administrative agency; and the kinds of pressures that are brought to bear on (the government agency) and affect the results.” It was very frustrating trying to get OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to move, despite the Union's application of political pressure and factual data to support that pressure.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
08:25
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TWUA Went to Court to Force the Government to Move on Cotton Dust
: In late 1975 the Union filed suit against the Secretary of Labor, after waiting nearly a year for him to propose a new cotton dust standard. The Department of Labor reacted by proposing a new standard, which was merely the first step. This proposal formed the basis for a rule-making proceeding, which involved hearings, briefs, testimony, etc. The Union made a major effort in this proceeding, doing a lot of work and spending a lot of money for independent experts and worker testimony, in order to demonstrate the need for, and feasibility of, an effective standard.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
09:40
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Government Inflation-Control Agencies Attempted to Stall Issuance of the Standard
: The Council of Economic Advisors and the Council on Wage and Price Stability tried to prevent issuing the standard OSHA had prepared. OSHA, however, had heard testimony from the Council on Wage and Price Stability and had rejected its arguments. The Council's position was that, when setting standards under OSHA, the main thrust should be to find the most cost-effective way of regulating the problem. In this case, it meant having workers wear masks and respirators and having them examined periodically by company doctors who would, when deemed necessary, have the employees transferred to healthier departments of the plant. The theory was that this would be cheaper than forcing the mills to clean up the air. In the short run this would be true, but in the long run it would wind up costing more to take care of cotton dust victims who would not really be adequately protected by this system. Masks are impractical for use over extended periods. Company doctors are pro-company and not all plants have healthy departments to which affected employees can be transferred. Because the Union's suit against the Secretary of Labor was held in abeyance rather than withdrawn, the Council was unable to keep OSHA from issuing the standard.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
13:30
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Unsatisfactory Standard Finally Issued
: The Carter administration, because of its concern over inflation, did several flip-flops on issuance of the standard before finally coming out with a standard that Perkel viewed as entirely unsatisfactory. The basic problem with the standard, as issued, is that it delays by four years the amount of time given to the companies to implement engineering control of cotton dust. In the meantime, the mask system will be in effect. If ordered to do so, the companies could clean up the air within a year. The Union has appealed to the Court of Appeals to correct the deficiencies in the standard.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
14:45
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The Delays Were Caused by Company Influence with Various Governmental Agencies, Not by OSHA
: Even when a good government agency head wants to do his job correctly, the employers have political influence with other sectors of the Administration which “are more attuned to them.” This influence was used to try to prevent OSHA from issuing the standard. The employers are now going to court to try to get the standard set aside and are trying to use Congress to amend the appropriations bill to impede OSHA's implementation of the standard.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
16:10
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Other Ways to Induce Management to Cooperate
: The use of tax incentives to make it attractive to management to implement effective cotton dust standards has possibilities, but this approach has not been adequately explored.
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Tape/Side
1/2
Time
16:55
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Creation of the TWUA Industrial Engineering Department in 1970
: The Union almost always had at least two industrial engineers in the Research Department. Perkel decided he could no longer devote the required time to the economic aspects of his work, where his expertise lay, and still supervise the industrial engineers, who perform a very specialized function. Hence, he decided it would be best for both himself and the Union if Industrial Engineering was made a separate department.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
00:30
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How Changing Lifestyles in the 1950s Affected the Textile Industry
: It was a question of intensity. While people were buying more cars and homes which have upholstery, drapes, carpets, etc., they were buying less and different types of clothes, and apparel has always been the major user of textile products. Hence, total textile demand declined; and this decline affected mostly the older, less competitive industry in the North.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
03:15
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Northern Pockets Never Organized by TWUA
: At its peak, TWUA had about three-fourths of the North organized. as the northern industry declined, organized plants declined more sharply than unorganized plants. This was due in part to the fact that organization was concentrated in large units making staple products - American Woolen Company, the large carpet companies, etc. These large plants took a greater beating by the decline in demand for textiles than did many smaller plants. The unorganized pockets were in synthetic yarn weaving and processing in Pennsylvania; the woolen industry in Maine and Massachusetts; and the narrow fabric industry in Rhode Island. These smaller plant industries showed a greater ability to survive in the 1950s. By the late 1950s, or certainly by the 1960s, this residue of unorganized northern textile mills, often widely dispersed, accounted for close to half of northern textile employment. “The fact that there was such a large sector of unorganized workers in the North reflected a failure of the Union to organize in the North as well as in the South.”
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
06:35
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Why These Pockets Were Not Organized
: Initially they were not organized because they were harder to organize. They were more geographically dispersed, smaller in size, and not located in the major textile centers that were organized on a mass basis in the 1940s. They were in the hinterlands. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, they were not organized because the Union was concentrating its efforts in the South. The idea that organization of a large southern chain was the essential step needed before the industry could be organized, “dominated the thinking of the leadership....” a minority felt more effort should be applied to the North where, if an election were won, there would be a greater chance of getting a contract.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
09:00
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Attempts to Organize the North Did Continue, But They Were Largely Unsuccessful
: The reasons for this were twofold: 1) By the 1950s more and more workers, especially in non-metropolitan areas, were becoming skeptical of the value of unions and were much less aware of unionism as a force than were workers in heavily populated areas. 2) To organize these small, dispersed, hinterlands plants required exceptionally competent people who could discover the needs of these workers, ways to appeal to them, and ways to carry out an effective campaign. “And I think we had a scarcity of skilled people to do that.” There appeared to be a scarcity of skilled organizers throughout the labor movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The quality of the TWUA organizing staff probably did not differ much from other unions at the time.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
11:00
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The Sizeable Unorganized Northern Pockets
: There were thousands of unorganized textile workers in the Pennsylvania synthetic yarn processing, weaving, and knitting industry. In Rhode Island there were many unorganized workers in the narrow fabric industry and in Maine and Massachusetts the unorganized were concentrated in the woolen industry. All together, there were (and still are) probably 70,000 to 90,000 unorganized textile workers in these four states.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
12:00
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Unorganized Synthetics
: TWUA had good organization in plants that used chemicals to make synthetic yarn. The unorganized synthetic plants were those that took this product, put a twist in it, rewound it, wove it and knitted it; that is, these plants took the yarn product of Viscose and Celanese and made it into bolts of cloth. In earlier days, the Union did have sizeable numbers of these workers organized in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the Paterson, New Jersey, areas, but those areas have dwindled appreciably while the lower-wage areas - small towns in the Pennsylvania coal region, like Scranton and Wilkes-Barre - were able to maintain themselves through the 1950s textile recession.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
14:20
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The Economics of Organizing Were Rarely a Consideration
: While smaller, dispersed plants are more expensive to organize and service, this expense rarely affected determinations of what should be an organizing target. TWUA has never made an economic analysis to determine if there is a break-even point in organizing. The Union has tried to get around the problem of the expense of servicing small, dispersed plants by “setting up joint boards which weren't joint boards in the sense that they're a center of a mill area; they're joint boards in that they centralize the administration over a wide radius of small towns.” “We've tried to organize wherever we could find unorganized workers, and we've simply found it difficult, if not impossible, to win elections among these 80 or 90,000 workers. We've won some, but we lose more than we win in the North.”
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
16:10
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More on the Difficulty of Organizing These Northern Pockets
: It is difficult “to convince them that you're powerful enough to get them what they want and to overcome the employers' opposition.” Although Scranton and Wilkes-Barre are in the center of the old Appalachian coal fields where there is a strong union tradition, many of the textile workers there are women, and they are harder to organize. However, it appears that garment shops in the area are better organized than textile.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
18:00
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The Key Factor in Successful Organizing in the 1950s
: Usually organizing successes in the 1950s came when the workers in a mill were angry about something the boss or foreman had done.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
19:10
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The Basic Problem in Organizing the South
: “Southern workers believe that their bosses are more powerful than unions are; and many, if not most, are afraid...that they would suffer...primarily through loss of their jobs.” “The basic problem...[is] that people are afraid, and the dominance of the employer in the community is such that people don't see the potential for exercising the necessary power to equalize their position or improve their position on the job.” It is true that where workers have organized in the South, they have not shifted the balance of power tremendously or improved their standard of living appreciably; but organization has given working people a greater sense of their own dignity, a greater reliance on themselves to correct wrongs. They do feel they have more right to their own opinions and control of their lives.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
21:55
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What the Union Can Offer the Southern Worker
: Where workers sense they are not in command of their lives, “the Union gives them an opportunity for redress of a sort” through the grievance procedure. The Union cannot offer substantial wage increases, but can offer improvement in job rights and the long-range promise that wide-scale organization will bring wages up.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
24:00
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The Changing South
: “The changing nature of industry in the South and culture in the South are important influences that will affect the future of organizing in the South.” It was once impossible to organize in the South; it is easier now; organizing conditions should continue to improve.
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Tape/Side
2/1
Time
24:55
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The “Southern Conspiracy”
: It is questionable whether there is a conspiracy in the usual sense, but southern employers do get together to discuss common concerns, including the union problem. Also, the pattern of activities of certain southern legal firms, like Whiteford Blakeney's, do imply a conspiracy.
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
00:30
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The Mentality of the Southern Employer
: There is a new generation of southern textile management, but many employers retain the old notions of dominance that were common in the era of Charles Cannon. They still largely retain “the sense that workers aren't really adults; they're kinda children; they have to be told what to do.” This paternalism is changing to some extent as new people, who have had experience in other industries and with unions, are being brought into textile management. They have more sophisticated attitudes, but they still feel the union gets in the way when management wants to make changes. So whatever the motive, “you have a very strong anti-union animus pervading the...top management in the southern textile industry.”
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
03:10
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Differences Between Southern and Northern Textile Workers Today
: The South has a larger proportion of younger workers and black workers and, therefore, would appear to have more workers who are susceptible to organization.
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
04:35
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Organizing Approaches Today
: By and large, organizing is carried on today the same way it was 20 or 30 years ago. That is one of the problems. There is very little innovation; very little geared to the younger worker who grew up in a different climate. TWUA has, to a very limited extent, experimented with new techniques like TV and opinion surveys. “These are things that require money and they require a willingness to experiment and an openness to the possibilities of doing things a lot differently than they have been done. And those attitudes are rather uncommon in our Union and generally among unions.” While there has been talk of changing these attitudes, when it comes down to putting up the money to invest in new techniques, the money is not there. The AFL-CIO has given no indication of advancing new techniques. “The AFL-CIO, the Industrial Union Department, and the unions are dominated in the organizing department by people who feel that organizing is a process which they know because they've been in it and nobody else knows. And anything new is a gimmick.”
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
07:40
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Perkel's Opinion of the TWUA Merger with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (ACW)
: It is too early to say much about it. The Textile Division is still in a separate building. The merger has had certain clear benefits in regard to the J.P. Stevens campaign. The consumer boycott is more effective than it would have been had TWUA tried it alone, and the merged organization is able to do a bigger and better job in the legal aspects and in the launching of the corporate campaign against Stevens. It is too early to tell, however, if these benefits will make any significant difference because the Union has not won against Stevens yet, and there is no way of telling if it will win. The negative aspects of the merger are that it is now more difficult to get things done; actions have to be cleared with more people; there is a longer chain of command and a slower process of decision making. It is too difficult to balance the pluses and minuses at this point. ACTWU will take a few years to become more efficient. “It's impossible for me to say whether the merged organization is a much more potent force than the separate organizations were.”
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
11:20
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Professional Staff Freedom after Emil Rieve's Retirement
: Rieve permitted professional staff a good deal of freedom to pursue those things which they thought were best for the Union. This did not change appreciably under William Pollock or Sol Stetin. “Stetin was more free in letting people develop ideas and try to carry them out than Pollock was.” Since the merger, however, “it's less of a free organization from that point of view. You can't move very far without getting the okay of all four general officers.”
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
12:35
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Divided Opinion in the Executive Council on Organizing Priorities
: By the early 1970s, after several years of the Stevens campaign without any successes to show for it, a handful of Council members began to question whether maybe the Union should be concentrating its organizing efforts in the North. “There started to be serious concern that we were barking up the wrong tree; (that) it was a no-win situation.” Jack Rubenstein was the most voluble one expressing these views, and from time to time two or three others would express similar views. Rubenstein expressed them most strongly, and he had expressed them for several years. “...But it was not a popular view.”
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
15:10
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Consideration about Dropping the Stevens Campaign
: Sol Stetin, a few months before the election at Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, told the Council that if the Union did not win that election, it should consider whether to continue with the Stevens campaign. Southern Director Scott Hoyman maintained at the time that the Union was not winning the battle against Stevens and that perhaps the Union should reassess its strategy. The inference was not to withdraw from the South and concentrate on the North, but perhaps to select a smaller target in the South because the big ones appeared to be too much of a burden.
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
17:10
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TWUA'S Near Victory at Cannon Mills and the Campaign That Followed
: In 1974 TWUA polled 45 percent of the vote in an NLRB election at Cannon mills. It is hard to judge how that near victory came about. The Union then decided to pursue a second major campaign in Cannon mills. It used an opinion polling firm “to get more understanding of the Cannon worker's mentality.” The poll indicated a sharp division amongst the workers, and an election outcome was hard to predict. Many older workers were pro-management, and many others regarded Cannon management as at least neutral. There was, however, substantial dissatisfaction amongst younger and black workers. The Union then launched a campaign there similar to previous campaigns, but after six months the response was not encouraging. Not enough workers were signing cards, and the organizer in charge decided to withdraw from the situation. Cannon management did not fire anyone for union activity during the campaign. If the Union had won by a narrow margin and was not able to bargain a contract, it might have been able to strike because of the concentration of Cannon mills in one geographic area and one bargaining unit.
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
23:00
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Availability of Strikebreakers in the South Today
: They are still pretty easy to come by, but recent TWUA strikes have seen management forego this route and attempt to continue operations with their regular employees.
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Tape/Side
2/2
Time
23:55
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Perkel's Assessment of William Pollock as President of TWUA
: He had a great stubbornness of will; he faced difficult problems and refused to retreat in the face of adverse conditions; he tried to maintain the organization but resisted spending money for innovation in organizing. Perkel was not close enough to the decision-making process to attempt to grade Pollock as a leader. “To me his outstanding quality was a determination to maintain the strength of the organization, a resistance to retreat....He was aggressive about winning wage increases at a time when it was difficult to do so. On the other hand, in the organizing field, he was limited in his willingness to experiment in response to the difficult problems we faced.” “I won't say I felt comfortable working for him....Trying to get him to change his mind was an onerous thing. I felt that I had two-and-a-half strikes against me when I went in to try to get him to change his mind.”
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September 28, 1978 Session
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
00:35
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How Perkel First Came to TWUA
: His family background was Russian-Polish socialist, and from youth he had been interested in working for a union. About 1947 he sent a general letter of inquiry to several union research department directors, and Sol Barkin responded when TWUA had an opening. He had made no conscious decision to work for TWUA; he had merely written that union because it was in New York City, and he preferred to work there.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
02:25
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How Perkel Became Research Director
: He had left TWUA in early 1960 to work for the New York City Department of Labor. [It was actually 1961 that Perkel went to work for the New York City Department of Labor.] When Barkin announced his intention to leave the Union, Pollock called and offered Perkel the job. It was more or less assumed that Perkel would become director if Barkin left because he had been the senior person under Barkin for so long.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
03:35
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The Relationship of the Field Staff to the Professional Staff
: There is a barrier between the two, based on educational achievements and social strata. Organizers by and large are militant workers who look upon college-educated people as part of the enemy class. To be effective, then, the professional staff must find ways to overcome this barrier; and, even when they are able to do this, there is often a residue of suspicion on the organizer's part, a feeling “that the college boy is not one of us.” This problem is probably not just confined to TWUA. Perkel is not quite sure how important a role this plays in reducing the effectiveness of the professional, but he gets the feeling that the field man is not completely levelling with him in most conversations, and he is thus not sure how best to help the field man since he is not quite sure he fully understands what the field man wants to do or is trying to do.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
07:35
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There Is a Similar Problem with Union Officialdom That Is Not College Educated
: There is still this residue of suspicion “and in some cases pretty strong hostility,” although it is usually hidden. It is similar to the feeling a worker has toward anyone in the white-collar class; there is an assumption that an office job is always a soft job.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
09:20
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An Example of Officialdom's Suspicion of Professional Staff
: In the 1950s when organizing was going very poorly for the Union, Barkin pursuaded the top officials that it was important to discover why things were not going well. Barkin devised a program to evaluate what happens during an organizing campaign. It was an attempt to rationalize organizing, to systematically think about what goes on during a campaign and to focus the organizers' attention on each aspect of the campaign. Conferences were called at which Barkin explained the purpose of the program and distributed copies of the forms. A great deal of hostility to the project was shown by the staff and also by their supervisors--regional directors, etc. The regional directors never accepted the program; they felt it was improper supervision of their work, that the professionals in New York, who never did any organizing themselves, should not even be addressing the issue.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
14:15
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Perkel Suspects These Field Staff Attitudes Are Applied to the Education Department as Well
: Bruce Raynor, TWUA's Education Director before the merger, has a better personality to overcome this barrier than does Perkel, but there is still probably a residue of suspicion that he is a college boy, and “not one of us.”
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
15:00
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Field Staff Suspicion Does Not Necessarily Extend to Top Officers Who Happen to Be College Educated
: ACTWU's current top officers are both attorneys, but Perkel has not witnessed any resentment of this. The difference is that these people are leaders, not professional staff. The professional staff must work closely with the field staff, whereas the leadership often comes no closer than making a speech to the field staff. This, however, raises the whole question of whether a union leader should be “one of the boys” or somehow removed from the rank and file. One school of thought claims the rank and file expect the latter. The ACTWU leaders do not attempt to maintain an image of being on the same level as the workers; they mingle with the workers, but not as equals. With TWUA it was the opposite; the officers were always former workers.
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
19:40
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The Competence of Organizers
: Organizers have a function which is very difficult to perform and very difficult to supervise. Often they are working alone and have to make many decisions on their own. This calls for a lot of imagination, ability, initiative, and planning. Usually organizers have not been prepared adequately for this complex task. Generally organizers are people with little formal education who rose to their current positions because they exhibited leadership qualities in a local union. While leadership skills are very important in organizing, other skills which, given the backgrounds of most organizers, most cannot be expected to have, are also very important. Particularly lacking is skill in planning complex operations. In most cases, “before becoming organizers, they've had no occasion to plan and think ahead in a major way of that sort, and they are accustomed to rushing into things and getting things done as quickly as possible and going from one problem to another without building a structure and planning and anticipating. Many campaigns, I think, are carried out in a rather disorganized manner, and they react to problems as they arise rather than trying to plan for them....” “He finds a compromise between what's comfortable for him and what's going to work. And, since organizing is a very difficult thing, this compromise almost necessarily results in...low rates of success....”
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Tape/Side
3/1
Time
25:55
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TWUA Organizers' Training Program
: In the mid-1960s the Union started a staff training program. The department heads were responsible for working up the program under the direction of the Education Director and later under Paul Swaity when he became Director of Organizing. As far as Perkel can tell, this was a first in the United States. Four to six programs were held over an eight to ten-year period. A great deal was learned and a fair amount was accomplished in improving the capability of organizers to handle their jobs. The program, however, was never fully accepted; there was always a fair amount of opposition from the regional directors who were responsible for supervising organizers.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
00:30
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More on Regional Directors' Opposition to the Organizer Training Program
: The regional directors were resentful of the input of the department heads, “and part of that resentment, I think, reflected the antipathy between the manual workers and the white-collar workers that I referred to earlier.” It became evident that the regional directors were sabotaging the training program by instructing organizers, when they came back from the training, to forget about what they were told and to get back out and do the job as before. In an attempt to overcome this opposition, the regional directors were invited in to serve as part of the faculty at one session. At the end of this session, a meeting was held to review the experience and to plan for the next session. “We spent a couple pretty rough days trying to save this educational program, and we failed to save it because the regional directors were negative about everything....” Many felt that if an organizer needed preparation or training, it was their responsibility, and they would take care of it. “And, of course, (they) would take care of it in the time-honored way of either throwing him out on his own or starting him off with some older organizer so that a guy could learn the bad habits of the older guy....”
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
04:20
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The Difficulty in Supervising Organizers
: Because it is so difficult to supervise organizing, most organizers simply do not get supervision. This lack of supervision, coupled with the lack of preparation, “makes for, in my opinion, quite low performance and has contributed appreciably to the poor record of organizing in our Union.”
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
05:25
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Dismissal of Unproductive Organizers
: The Union had never fired any organizers for failure to produce results until the 1960s, after the Federation of Textile Representatives (FTR) had been formed. Several were fired at that time, but they were all reinstated because the FTR took the matter to arbitration and won on the basis that past practice had been not to fire unproductive organizers. The existence of the FTR probably makes it more difficult to correct organizing deficiencies, but it does not make it impossible. A sustained effort to train organizers could still be accomplished if done correctly.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
07:45
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Organizer Burn Out
: Perkel is not close enough to the organizing activity to speak authoritatively, but it appears that the nature of the work is such that it must be very difficult to maintain a reasonably high level of productive work for more than five or ten years. In practice, the natural progression from organizer to International representative or joint board manager means that few organizers actually do organizing for more than ten years.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
08:45
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Regional Jealousies in TWUA
: Pollock attempted in the early 1970s to restructure the Union by removing authority over organizing from regional directors and placing it under the International's Organizing Department. This was done over the strenuous objections of most vice presidents and all regional directors. One of the first activities of Stetin as President was to reverse this setup. The political nature of the Union made it difficult for the President to tell regional directors what to do since each regional director was usually also a vice president with his own constituency.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
11:25
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TWUA Structure
: It arose out of the historical process by which the Union was formed. The Dyers had their own union and thus became a separate division within the TWUA with a great deal of autonomy. The Synthetic Division also dates back to the beginnings of TWUA and has maintained a good deal of autonomy. The Carpet Division, although small, was cohesive and militant and formed a fairly autonomous sector. Other divisions, however, never developed this sense of homogeneity and autonomy, mainly because they were not well organized. Hence, the cotton and wool divisions tended not to be cohesive; and workers within these divisions were more likely to look to the state or regional division than the industrial division. It was not possible to sit down and determine the structure of the Union; the structure was the result of how the Union grew and the personalities involved in the various industrial groups. “It grew like Topsy, you could say, and that's the way it ran.” Union politics and the existing separate constituencies would make it very difficult to change now; it would take a president with a very strong personality and a very strong will. “I think that the Union suffers from the fact that it has lacked for many years the kind of...strong central leadership that was needed to harness the various divisions and various regions into a more cohesive and effective institution....”
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
16:00
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Textron Formula
: In the early 1950s, the Union signed a three-year contract with the Textron corporation, which provided for automatic cost of living wage adjustments. The problem was that the workers came to look at these small pay increases every three or six months as coming from the company and not from the Union's efforts. The leadership concluded that it would be better to negotiate lump sum increases on a yearly basis than to have these periodic small increases, because then the Union would be more identified with the pay raises.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
19:50
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The Principle of Continual Improvement in the Standard of Living of Textile Workers Did Not Become Firmly Implanted until the 1960s
: It had been established in textile during the boom years of the 1940s, but the textile recession of the 1950s saw textile workers foregoing raises or even accepting pay cuts while workers in other industries were getting annual raises. Most members of the TWUA lived in depressed areas and were beaten down; hence, they did not blame the Union for not getting them raises similar to those in auto and steel.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
22:35
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1951 Southern Cotton Strike
: Perkel believes it was political in nature. He can recall people from the Emil Rieve/Mariano Bishop forces saying that the George Baldanzi people wanted to be militant and show that they could run the Union better, so “'let's see what happens,' meaning that they would probably get their ass kicked in and it's a good thing, too.”
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
23:50
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Danville and Modern Unionism
: There was a great effort to build a union in Danville with the aid of such forces as industrial engineers and publicity and education people. In that respect, it was a departure from the old type of unionism. Perkel cannot say, however, whether there was any philosophical dispute over whether to proceed this way or not.
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Tape/Side
3/2
Time
25:45
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Southern Organizing on a Localized Basis
: Sol Barkin maintained that southern organizing had to be done differently than northern organizing; that community attitudes had to be changed before organizing could be successful. Perkel believes the idea has merit, although he thinks modern media has made the local community less important than the national community in forming opinions. The Union did get involved in localized organizing efforts, but this approach was never given an adequate opportunity to prove its worth.
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November 16, 1978 Session
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
00:30
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Causes of the 1950-1952 Internal Fight
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
02:15
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Perkel and the Research Department During the Fight
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
05:40
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Effects of the 1952 Fight on the Union
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
07:10
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More on the 1951 Southern Cotton Strike
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
12:25
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The Southern Situation Was Not Necessarily a Defeat Waiting to Happen
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
15:45
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The Research Department Did Not Predict the Lengthy Textile Depression of the 1950s
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
17:05
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The Two-Year Economic Cycle in the Textile Industry
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
21:25
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The 1962-1964 Internal Fight - Causes
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
23:50
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Perkel During the 1962-1964 Fight
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
24:35
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Organizing Climate in the Early 1960s
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/1
Time
26:15
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Effect of the 1962-1964 Fight
: 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.”
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
00:30
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The Long-Term Impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on TWUA
: 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.”
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
05:10
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Taft-Hartley Provisions That Hindered Organizing
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
06:45
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The Law Has Had a Greater Impact on TWUA Than Other Unions
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
08:00
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Other Unions Have Not Found It Any Easier to Organize in the South
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
09:05
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Promotion of Southern Migration by Northern Capital
: 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.”
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
11:35
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Southern Agitational Wage Drives
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
16:20
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How Unorganized Mills Recoup Wage Increases
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
18:25
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Why TWUA Organized Fewer Workers in the 1970s Than in the 1960s
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
22:15
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Less Than Ten Percent of the Southern Textile Industry Is Organized Today
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
22:35
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Fifteen to Twenty Percent of TWUA Membership Is Employed in Non-Textile Jobs
: 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.
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Tape/Side
4/2
Time
24:05
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Conglomeratization Effects on TWUA
: 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.”
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
00:00
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Introduction
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
00:30
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An Example of a Conglomerate Liquidating a Textile Company: FMC Purchase of American Viscose
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
01:50
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Existence of Large Textile Companies in the 1930s and 1940s Would Not Have Made It Any Easier to Organize the Industry
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
04:10
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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
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
05:00
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The Automation Threat Is Overplayed
: “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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
06:15
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Liquidation of Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company in Connecticut
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
08:00
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Causes of TWUA Membership Decline Between the Late 1950s and the Early 1970s
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
12:25
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Why It Is So Difficult to Organize in the South
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
16:30
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These Factors Are Not Confined to the South
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
18:15
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How to Change This Configuration of Employer Power and Worker Dependence
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
20:25
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Perkel's Hindsight Regarding What Might Have Been Done to Stem the Decline of TWUA
: 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.
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Tape/Side
5/1
Time
24:35
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More on Perkel's Opinion of the Merger with ACW
: 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.
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