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13.. 1997 • T he P ortland O bserver
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i M< K im i a Bi ki
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Professor M cKinley Burt,
Lee Perlman,
t is interesting that the
¡ p r e s e n t
ationwide strike by the
Teamsters Union against
the United Parcel Service has re
vealed among our younger gen
eration such a lack of knowledge
about American labor history,
labor law and many key issues con
cerning the work force and their
place in it (AFL origin, National
Labor Relations Board, CIO birth.
Tafi-Hartley).
It is not possible, o f course, to
impro ve this situation in sucha short
space as feiven here, but we can do
Neil Heilpem
4747 NE M artin L uther K ing, Jr. Blvd.,
P ortlan d, O regon 97211
503-288-0033 • Fax 503-288-0015
Em ail: P dxob serv@ aol.com
It
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gi n. let us expand some of
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tlfe h fs tdrical workplace concerns I
have introduced in my 'book re-
vicw” selection for this week’s
‘G ood S u m m er R ea d in g ’, “Black
Jacks: African Am erican Seam en
In The A ge of S ail” (on another
page). Their early successes and
later trials and tribulations parallel
the experiences of white labor - but
Q tT tt'/ii’n we eat that w onderful
/J Ü iis u m m e r tim e fr u it know n
as strawberries, we don ’to fte n th in k
o f those whose hard work m akes
our enjoym ent possible. But the re
ality is that thousands of workers must
do the backbreaking work to harvest
the fragile crop.
They work in difficult conditions,
for low wages and are now experi
encing a crisis which needs public
support.
As public demand for strawberries
has increased in the last three decades,
strawberry production has increased
sixfold.
Today it is a billion-dollar industry.
About 80pcrcent of the nation's straw-
bernes are grown in California and
nearly half of them in one region in that
state. Almost all of the pickers are
p
e
c
only for a time. Be sure to read this
review and then get the book.
Since some will find it difficult to
believe the advanced, modern con
cepts of working conditions and ben
efits that were in circulation before
and immediately after the Civil War,
I have relied upon citation s from
that b a sic so u rc e a cc e p te d by
A m erican C ourts and a d m in istra
tiv e a g e n c ie s : “ D o c u m e n ts o f
A m erican H istory,” Ed by Henry
Steele C om m ager.
At other times here I have given
accounts of the initial cooperation
and ease o f association between
workingmen and women o f all races
after the Ci vii War. See Commager's
Document No. 298. ‘Preamble o f
Constitution o f the Knights o f L a
bor". Jan. I, ¡878. “ B eginning as a
society o f garm ent cutters in P hila
delphia in 1869, it grew in pow er
and strength until by 1886 it num
bered an [incredible] th ree-q u ar
ters o f a m illion m em bers. Its m em
bership included m en and w om en,
w hite and N egro, sk illed and un
sk illed.”
Among other things, the Knights
of Labor demanded "weekly pay fo r
la b o r p e r fo r m e d the p r e v io u s
week...laws giving mechanics and
laborers a first lien on their work fo r
fu ll wages...setting up a process o f
Civil Rights Journal
t
r
/
e
arbitration' in labor disputes... the
prohibition o f the em ploym ent of
children in w orkshops, m ines and
factories before their fourteenth
year...equal pay for both sexes...the
reduction o f hours o f labor to eight
per day so that ‘laborers m ay have
m ore tim e for social enjoym ent
and intellectual im p rovem en t’...
Stop the railroads from seizing
excess land/tim ber.”
Can you even imagine the fear that
swept the ranks of the new capitalists
and empire-builders who had envi
sioned a vast supply of cheap, unor
ganized labor — hundreds of thou
sands of illiterate immigrants arriv
ing yearly and millions of exslaves
helpless as the “Reconstruction Acts”
failed miserably to provide them the
promised land and other means. The
N ew C a p ita list’ rushed to su p
port the Ku Klux K ian. S ee D ocu
m ent 2 7 1 ,1 8 6 8 .
As the 'Knights of Labor’declined
under the pressures we have de
scribed, a new force became eminent
in the union movement. See “Docu
ment 473, constitution of the Ameri
can Federation of Labor 1932” This
certainly differs from original docu
ments I have seen (dated prior to
1900) where all activities and mem
bership were restricted to the trades
and were fo r "white males o n ly”.
ers are just d iscovering that
many European w orkers get
five weeks vacation each year-
regardless o f yea rs worked.
O thers have le a rn e d th a t the
K ello g C om pany (c o rn fla k e s)
had a 30 hou r w eek f r o m 1933
to 1985. The U.S. S e n a te p a sse d
a 30 hour work week b ill in 1933,
but it d ie d in th e H ou se.
More Signs of Hope
n the midst of all the depress
ing news about violence an^».
environmental racism and bud-
;et cuts and racial injustice and eco-
lomic injustice there are always won-
lertul signs ot hope. One of them is
in my hometown, Washington, D.C.
It is a sign that communities given up
on by outsiders can flourish, if only
given half a chance.
Right after graduating from col
lege, I returned to Washington to
teach. My teaching career was short,
but it was spent in one of the Nation’s
C a p ita l’s poorest com m unities,
Anaeostia, which was located in the
southeast section of the city. In the
post Civil W ar days of the city,
I
A n a e o stia , lo c a te d a c ro ss the
Anaeostia River from the rest of the
city, was seen as an expansion of the
city's boundaries and a pathway to
economic expansion as well. Indeed,
Frederick Douglass chose to live in a
large house on a hill in Anaeostia,
overlooking the city’s expanse.
But as often happens in cities
where a river divides one community
from another, Anaeostia remained
an isolated step-child and even today
feels farremoved from the W ashing
ton we all think of. During recent
decades, Anaeostia found itself the
site of illegal and toxic dumping,
deteriorated public housing, rising
crime and little economic develop
ment. But all of that is changing.
A recent videotape, Across the
River, narrated by journalist Hedrick
Smith, tells the stories of people in
the Anaeostia community who were
determined to turn their community
around. Instead o f abandoning
Anaeostia, they chose to stay and
fight for the life of this community in
which many o f them had grown up.
Take the story of the Alliance of
Concerned Men. a small group of
African American men who had gone
to high school together, but who had
drifted apart in adulthood. Propelled
to do something about the alarming
rise of young black men with no
positive role models in the home,
these men decided they could do
something about it themselves. They
have established relationships with
children and young men; providing
affection, good advice, prayer and
tough love.
Or take the story of the Public Ser
vice Academy, aschool within aschool
at Anaeostia High School. It has a
94% graduation rate and represents a
chance for its students, many of whom
come from troubled homes. An inte
gral part of the program of this small
school is the public service which the
students are required to do and which
often leads to summer or after-school
paid jobs for them
These are inspiring people who
have something to teach us all. What
can we do to reclaim ourchildren and
our communities?
Civil Rights Journal Workers’ Rights And Strawberries
Mexican or Mexican American.
The strawberry industry is different
from most other farm industries. Cali
fornia growers in one region number
some 270 and range from very large
farms to those which are thousands of
acres in size. Every grower operates
under an exclusive contract with one
of eight shippers or “coolers,” who
form the economic core of the straw
berry industry.
Growers work under contract to
these coolers, who set quality guide
lines and production timeliness and
set standards for such things as crop
care and pesticide use. Smaller farms
are particularly vulnerable and techni
cally each farm is an independent busi
ness.
These factors have made it diffi
cult for straw berry w orkers to or-
ganize for better w orking condi
tions and pay. A decade ago the
average hourly wage for straw berry
w orkers was $9.10 in current dol
la rs, b u t now the a v erag e has
dropped to $6. 1 1,Straw berry w ork
ers report that they were paid the
same w age, $5.75 per hou r, for seven
years in a row. But the actual wages
paid to an individual worker can very
dramatically when hourly rates are
combined with rates pertray harvested.
In some years, growers have prom
ised higher wages to workers who
returned the next year, only to have
their incentives for higher production
cut.
Working conditions for the straw
berry workers are difficult at best. On
hot days the company may provide ice
in the drinking water for the pickers,
This W ay For Black Em pow erm ent
but then charge them for the ice. With
the work requiring them to constantly
bend over, pickers are required to fill
three trays an hour, but they are some
times pushed to produce six to eight
trays. In some cases toilets are not
readily available and women com
plain of sexual harassment and abuse.
hen there is the question o f
e xposure to pesticides.
T
The pesticides used on straw ber
ries often cause headaches, vom it
ing and rashes in w orkers, but they
receive little or no information about
which pesticide is being used. Work
ers who become ill from the pesticides
are sometimes accused of drinking loo
much the night before or are told they
are suffering from food poisoning.
Legal and health care advice regard
ing these issues often are unavailable
or limited to English only.
Housing conditions for strawberry
workers are often substandard. Some
live in camps, where there are low
wooden and concrete buildings in the
middle of the fields. Each building
includes four apartment, which are
rented out by bedrooms. Small chil
dren living in the camps are exposed to
the pesticides sprayed in the nearby
fields.
Over the past fe w years the United
Farm Workers have attempted to or
ganize the strawberry workers, as they
had the grape pickers in the past.
Strawberry workers, who work fo r an
eight-month season, are not protected
by the National Labor Relations Act
and are thus at the mercy o f the grow
ers and the coolers. Those workers
who have been seen as union support
ers or organizers often ju st have nt
been rehired. Moreover, where unio
elections were won, growers simpl
plowed under the crops, terminatei
workers or selectively shut down op
erations rather than negotiate a U F\
contract.
We who enjoy the fruit can not jus
take tor granted the food that we picl
up in our supermarket. We must raisi
questions about rights of the straw
berry workers to have safe workinj
and living conditions and adequate
pay for a difficult job.
(W rite to Driscall Strawberry As
sociates (the largest U.S. cooler) al
P.O. Box 50045, W atsonville, CA
95077-5045 and ask what are they
doing to ensure that w orkers are
not harassed for union activity and
what they are doing about growers
WHY WELFARE-TO-WORK ISN'T W O R K IN G
B y I) r . L enora F ui . ani
ince President C linton's sign
ing of the welfare reform act -
- Ihe one his policy advisors told him
to veto while his “score-points-at-
all-costs" political advisors told him
to sign -- moving welfare recipients
from public assistance to jobs has
become a government focus. In his
State of the Union address in Febru
ary. Clinton called on corporate
America to join in creating newpart-
nci mips with go.crnm ent to evolve
welfare-lo-work programs. Things
d o n 't appear to be going so well.
Recently, a front page Wall Street
Journal article reported on what it
S
called the "mixed results" of one
such program undertaken by Sprint
and AT&T in Kansas City. Missouri.
These efforts — loudly trumpeted by
the White House at the beginning --
have succeeded in placing a total of
seven workers at Sprint, one of whom
was let go after the first week. AT&T
hired one person whom they fired in
two weeks.
These statistics do not bode well.
And as you might expect, various
explanations have begun surfacing.
One corporate insider stated that the
programs were ineffective because
corporate America w asn't “ready."
I
s
This document simply mentions that
the AFL was organized first in 1881,
and reorganized as a national federa
tion in 1886 - and describes struc
ture.
For a fuller and more comprehen
sive perspective one should see ma
jor works on “Trade Unionism or
Labor/Unions” as a section in eco
nomic books. Particularly, you will
find that in 1936 the AFL split in two,
the new entity being the “CIO ” (Con
gress of Industrial Relations).
This group was more industry-
general oriented than trade-specific,
and was not nearly as racist as the
AFL. The two groups reunited in
1955, principal unions being the
Teamsters, The United Auto Work
ers and the United Mine Workers.
Today the trauma in the work
place centers around the daily in
creasing number of part-time work
ers (nearly 20 million), pensions and
benefits. Some A m erican work
J y B ernice P owell J ackson
Voi F or R eading T he P ortland O bserver
Bv B ernice P owell J ackson
s
Much Labor, Much Pain, a Modest Gain
(USPS 959-680) Established in 1970
A r tic le s :F r id a y , 5 : 0 0 p m
r
A supervisor at Sprint said, “There
are welfare recipients who choose to
succeed and those who choose not
to Can the same be said of presi
dents?
With the success rate so low, a
debate has arisen as to which is the
best method to effect welfare-to-
work. Once camp argues that you
must train people before placing them
in private sector jobs. The other pre
sents the "job first” argument, where
welfare recipients receive aone week
crash course oriented toward em
ployment basics, like getting to work
on time, and not on job skills. This is
the approach that is gaining popular
ity with policy makers because it is
cheaper and because “quick fix" sta
tistics can be used to demonstrate
how effectively the program is work
ing.
However, there is no quick fix
here. The U.S. economy has been
structured over the long haul to be an
economy without full employment.
While the range of unemployment
fluctuates between 3% and 7% de
pending on various factors, there has
always been - by design - a sector of
Americans relegated to being unem
ployed. This economic phenomenon
has historically helped, among other
things, to keep wages down and,
thereby, profits up.
The welfare and unemployment
programs adopted during and after
the Great Depression which institu
tionalized unemployment were based
on policy makers' acceptance of this
macro-economic feature o f the U.S.
economy. Not surprisingly an entire
culture of being both unemployed
and unem ployable has evolved.
Schools educate -- but not everyone
- because unemployability is desir
able. Welfare must discourage self-
reliance so that the demand for jobs
and job training from within the per
manent underclass will be muted.
This institutionalized culture cannot
and will not be overcome by “job-
first or even by “training-first” ap
proaches.
You cannot take a society -- busi
ness and the poor alike - socialized
over lifetimes for intractable unem
ployment and then, because the po
litical climate now opposes Big gov
ernment spending create a few pro
grams that will suddenly transform
the long-term unemployed into reli
able workers.