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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 5. Lumber
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Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1095
maintenance and service occupations, which include such groups as electricians,
machinists, mechanics, millwrights and sawfilers. If we classify all the occupations by
the average hourly wages for all workers, we find that the proportion of Negroes dimin-
ishes regularly as the average earnings increase, from 69 per cent in occifpations paying
less than 35 cents an hour to 6 per cent in work paying 50 cents or more.®
Earnings per week differ more than wages per hour, due to the fact that the working
week is somewhat shorter for Negro than for white workers. Even so, it must be said
that the $9-13 earned per week by Negro lumber workers—as against the $ll-l8
earned by whites—is not so bad compared to what they have been used to before. The
main problem is how much work they will have when the war boom is over.
Lumber mills located in isolated areas have to provide housing for their workers. In
these “mill villages” Negroes are usually segregated, and the accommodation for them
tends to be inferior to that offered to whites. Most of the workers have to pay rent for
their housing facilities. There is a commissary system, but nowadays it does not seem
to be used for the purpose of exploiting the workers, except in unusual cases. Peonage,
by the same token, is reported to be rare.** Increases in rents and commissary prices,
however, have been used, in some instances, as one of the devices for evasion of the
Wages and Hours Law, but Wages and Hours officials are gradually wiping out practices
of this kind.®
There have been several attempts to unionize the Southern lumber mill workers, but,
so far, unions have little power in this field. There are four principal reasons for this:
The pronounced anti-union attitudes of most Southern employers, together with the
political impotency of the workers; the great number of small establishments, many
of which have an isolated location; the high labor turnover and the constant inter-
change of labor between agriculture and lumber camps; and the presence of the Negro,
The Brotherhood of Timber Workers, organized in 1910 and soon affiliated with the
International Workers of the World, worked among both Negroes and whites in
Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. The employers defeated it, capitalizing on the race
issue.^ The International Timber Workers’ Union, an A.F. of L. affiliate, entered the
* The complete series was
:
Occufations classified by
average hourly earnings
Under 35.0 cents
35.0-
39.9
”
40.0-
44.9
”
45 - 0-
49-9 ”
"Percentage of
Negro VDorkers
69.3
36.1
18.3
12.6
50to-cents & over 5.8
All occupations 59.9
Adapted from: U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unpublished tabulations for sawmill
and logging workers in establishments having 20 or more employees. Figures made
available through the courtesy of Acting Commissioner A. F. Hinrichs.
**
Norgren and Associates, of, cit,y Part i, pp. 69-72.
* Ibid,y Part i, p. 86, and Wage and Hour Reforter (May 27, 1940), p. 223.
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