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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 - 12. Coal Miners
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1 1 14 An American Dilemma
counteract this trend temporarily; it is possible that the scarcity of white labor will give
the Negroes an increased share of the jobs. On the other hand, there is the danger of
overexpansion which will increase the general post-war unemployment. It is impossible
to say anything definite on these important matters.
As previously mentioned, unionism, until the New Deal era, was much weaker in the
South than in the North. Yet there have been determined attempts since the i88o’s to
unionize the Southern coal industry. These attempts were sometimes successful, but
only for short periods. Time and again the union was defeated by employers, who
utilized all sorts of brutal tactics. In this they were usually supported by groups of
white citizens who were incited by the race issue.® These defeats, as well as the subse-
quent abolishment of union contracts in the northern Appalachian area, could not fail
to weaken the United Mine Workers, but the organization was by no means crushed.
It had been fighting hard and from the very beginning had developed a technique of
equalitarian collaboration between white and black labor which turned out to be highly
useful. The continued wage cuts during the Great Depression of the ’thirties, the
unemployment which eventually brought great numbers of mine workers to starvation,
as well as memories of the previous fight, all prepared the ground for a determined
comeback. The opportunity came with the New Deal. With the institution of the
N.R.A. a big organizing campaign was launched. North as well as South. The response
was impressive. Within a few months the overwhelming majority of mine workers was
unionized. The employers tried to play up the race issue, and they spread rumors to the
effect that either Negroes or whites would lose everything by putting the union into
power. This time it failed. Then, too, the mine operators were weak. Many of them
were impoverished, and some had come to realize the futility of using the wage-cut
method as a competitive instrument. Pressure from the government aided the union.
Almost the whole field is now covered by contracts. Negroes and whites are organized
in the same locals, often with a white president and a Negro vice-president—an arrange-
ment which has been adopted in order to have a white representative to contact employers
and yet give the Negroes a voice in the decisions whenever they constitute an appreciable
proportion of the workers. There may still be a small amount of bad racial feeling, but
the leadership takes energetic action against any local which does not recognize the
principle of racial equality and collaboration. The policy of “gradualism” adopted by
the union has given results. At the beginning, when employers had to get used to the
idea of discussing work problems with representatives of labor, the unions were
sometimes reluctant to include Negroes among their representatives at these discussions.
Today, even in Alabama, Negroes take part in all such discussions and argue quite as
freely as whites. They probably have gained more than whites through the collective
settlement of all sorts of petty grievances, since they were formerly more easily sub-
jected to arbitrary treatment by foremen. Then, too, more than whites, they are con-
centrated in piece-rate work, where there is need for constant adjustments because
of the variation in yield of different work places. These policies seem to have brought
about an increased mutual understanding between the two racial groups. Speaking
of the conditions in Birmingham, Norgren says:
Informants among both leaders and rank-and-file members testify that social intercourse
between workers of the two races is much more common to-day than it was prior to the
*$pero and Harris, of, ciV., pp, 357-375.
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