[L-I] REFLECTIONS ON [HOPEFULLY] REAL-STUFF DIXIE LABOR ORGANIZING

REFLECTIONS ON [HOPEFULLY] REAL-STUFF DIXIE LABOR ORGANIZING

BY HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]:  [JANUARY  2004]

The basic reason now that the South [and there really are several different
Souths in the geographical and socio-cultural sense] is so relatively
unorganized, union-wise, is that mainline American Labor simply won't make
the investment in intensive, pro-longed union organization and servicing of
locals.  It hasn't for many decades.  The one major effort, the CIO's
Operation Dixie [ its high point was 1946-1948] spent a million dollars,
hired 400 organizers, did organize a few hundred local unions in
lumber, textile, and tobacco. Then, in the face of increasingly explicit
racism -- and the mounting Cold War atmosphere -- Operation Dixie
faltered and failed.

That was more than a half century ago.

The most basic and enduring historical reasons feeding the hostile and often
virulently anti-union atmosphere in the South -- cynical use of racism by
the power structures to divide workers and keep unions out,  scab laws, the
Taft-Hartley Act, surviving feudalism, extremely antagonistic anti-union
local jurisdictions especially at the town and county levels --  are all
still very much part of the often tortured economic and social scenery.

But the Civil Rights Movement -- its countless demonstrations and
litigation,  egalitarian civil rights acts at the Federal level, organized
political action -- always fueled by the high courage of a vast throng of
Blacks and their allies -- have put racism and its attendant dimensions on
the skids.  Its demise may be at whatever glacial pace -- but it's no
longer the dependable anti-union "silver bullet" weapon that it was for so
many openly inflamed generations.  And even in the Old South of the 1910s,
the IWW could organize interracially and effectively in the Louisiana lumber
woods; and, in the 1930s and 1940s, a left union like Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers was able to organize very effectively on a completely integrated and
egalitarian basis -- even in such absolutely racist and repressive bastions
as the Birmingham/Bessemer iron mining district.  But that took financial
resources -- and very much courage and visionary commitment.

Most unions were simply afraid to buck the racist status quo.

But now essentially, the AFL-CIO and most of its components simply don't
want to invest in what it takes:  much money, many good and creative
and courageous organizers, and first-rate lawyers and publicists.

In the latter stages of the Civil Rights Movement, especially in the late
'60s and well into the '70s, many opportunities existed for unions
to work directly and in close partnership with grassroots civil rights
organizations -- which often and eagerly proffered their hand.  But, with a
few significant exceptions, Labor simply got scared.

Internationals with Southern organizing traditions, such as International
Woodworkers of America and International Chemical Workers Union, were
backing away from the South in the late '50s and very early '60s even as the
Civil Rights Movement had barely hit its stride.  Still others, such as
United Packinghouse -- which had provided much direct food and
financial assistance to the Movement and had many attendant civil rights
contacts -- decided by the mid-60s against following through with any
substantial unionization efforts.  [I am personally quite familiar with
those three examples, as well as several others.]

When, up briefly at Akron from Mississippi, I directly [and politely]
challenged Walter Mitchell, the Anglo Alabamian who was International
President of the Chemical Workers, on his relative lack of any
substantive organizing in the Deep South and talked about the current
responsibilities of unionism, I received an intense hot-eyed glare and the
angry comment, "Shee-It!  That's kid talk."  He was a good man who soon
enough apologized, later quietly contributed funds to our burgeoning Jackson
Movement of 1962-63, and in the latter '60s ordered any still segregated
ICWU locals to integrate immediately or jump ship. But there was never any
really ongoing and effective Southern unionization from his International.

On the Southern battlefield itself, good and dedicated people like an old
friend, the late Claude Ramsay, President of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, fought
the very good struggle for decades -- but it was extremely tough and lonely.
Increasingly, his efforts, and those of his associates, were reduced to
attempting to lobby an extremely hostile state legislature -- usually
without any success.

Thus Labor, so far, has largely missed that great complex of opportunities
given it by the Civil Rights Movement: e.g., substantial, local grassroots
community organization;  smashing the hardest and most recalcitrant hard
lines of resistance to constructive social change; desegregation in many
areas and the beginnings of some genuine traditions of integration.
Talk always continues in Labor circles about "organizing the unorganized,"
but it frequently has a pie-in-the-sky ring and if bona fide unionization
efforts are almost always thin everywhere, they are certainly
virtually absent in most of the South.  There have been some victories in
Dixie -- but they are still only scratches in the red soil and pine needles
and mill towns.

The South -- Deep, Border, Middle, or Urban or Rural -- is a tough and
expensive crucible for any genuine social justice endeavors.  And it can
still  be sanguinary.

But those settings all abound with thoroughly exploited Blacks, Whites,
Hispanics, Native Americans, and immigrants from abroad.

AFL-CIO and many of its components certainly have a good deal of money -- as
witness their many substantial non-organizing project expenditures.  Direct,
grassroots organizing is Genesis -- and the South and other recalcitrant
regions have to be  organized sooner or later.

There are still many, many locally viable and living activist components
of the old Civil Rights Movement around. New grassroots community
organizations certainly continue to emerge. And much of this would
certainly be delighted to work with bona fide egalitarian, hard-hitting,
and visionary unionism.

It requires a very long-term, militant and affirmative commitment of many
kinds -- especially from Labor itself.

History reaches out to us, tells us again that it's time to Organize
and Fight --  hard and consistently -- wherever such are needed. Its
hand and grip are still strong and far from skeletal at this point.

But we must now take those Winds of History,  and ride with
them into the Four Directions and the Sun.


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR]
www.hunterbear.org

When you cut to the bone  and cut away the college degrees, academic and
other titles, published books and articles, ours is essentially a working
class and Indian family.  We consistently join unions  -- and we always
support them with the greatest vigor.

It's critical to always keep fighting -- and to always remember that, if one
lives with grace, he/she should be prepared to die with grace.





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