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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 - 15. The Slaughtering and Meat-Packing Industry
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Appendix 6. Conditions of Negro Wage Earner 1123
part of the labor force in some of the Northern centers. This was not so originally.
Kansas and Missouri had an appreciable proportion of Negro workers in 1910, but the
increase during the First World War was such that by 1920 this proportion had become
two or three times higher. Even more spectacular was the development in Chicago.
Negroes had been used as strike-breakers in 1894 and, particularly, in 1904. Few of
these Negro strike-breakers were allowed to stay, and by 1910 there were only about
500 Negro workers in the Chicago stockyards. The subsequent increase was due to three
factors: (l) the scarcity of labor during the First World War; (2) the interest the
packers had in keeping the labor force heterogeneous when a unionization drive was
started in 1916 and 1917 by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen,
and the Stockyards Labor Council; and (3) the fact that, while some unions did accept
Negroes, there were several others which “drew the color line sharply” or discriminated
against them in other ways, and this alienated many Negro workers.® In other words,
the packers made a definite policy of increasing the proportion of Negro workers, and
the equivocal stand of the unions on the race issue ensured them of success. The unions
could not fail to see this danger, and an energetic attempt was made to win the Negro
workers over. It met with some response from the Negroes, but the race riot of 1919,
due in part to the increase in the proportion of Negro workers in the stockyards and
to “the conflict between union workers and packing house employers for the allegiance
of Negro workers,” made these attempts fail.** During a strike in December, 1921, and
January, 1922, Negroes were used as strike-breakers. The workers were completely
defeated, and unionism in the Chicago stockyards was practically eliminated for a
decade.®
During the ’twenties Negroes lost in relative position in some of the secondary
Northern meat-packing centers. In Chicago, on the other hand, they continued to gain,
in that the actual number of Negro workers was slightly increased between 1920 and
1930, although the total labor force in the stockyards showed some decrease,** When
unionism returned to the Chicago packing houses during the New Deal, Negroes
continued to be rather “poor union material.” There was a three-cornered battle among
company unions, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (A.F. of L.)
and the Packing House Workers’ Industrial Union (C.I.O.) The Amalgamated was
still unable to go the whole way on the Negro issue; often there was racial segregation
in social affairs, and the representation of Negroes among the leaders was not high
enough to appeal to the Negroes. The Packing House Workers are said to have been
dominated (at least formerly) by communist leaders. Employers continued to intimi-
date union members to such an extent that Negroes, who had always gained more by
siding with the employers, were reluctant to join the independent unions in large
numbers.® Recently, there have been reports that the C.I.O, union has become a dom-
inant influence in the major Chicago plants,* and this may have increased the prospects
for a final victory for the kind of unionism which will appeal to Negro workers,
* Cayton and Mitchell, op, c//., pp. 242-246.
**
Ibid.y p. 247.
*Norgren and Associates, of, cit., Part 4, p. 676.
^ Ibid.^ Part 4, pp. 661-665.
• Ibid.^ Part 4, pp. 689-694. Cayton and Mitchell, of, cit,^ pp. 262-279.
’Information from Howard D. Gould of the Chicago Urban League (letter of May 21,
1942).
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