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| PUNCH & BLACK STUDENTS Racism Held Bar to Labor:
Hurts Organizing Program, Union Head Says
The Sun, Baltimore (November 27, 1970)
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"Racism among both white and black workers has hurt union
organizing at hospitals in Baltimore, according to the head of a
hospital employees local. "Fred A. Punch, president of Local 1199E, Hospital and Nursing
Home Employees Union, AFL-CIO, in reply to recent questions from a group
of Johns Hopkins University students, said they could be of help in
labor organizing drives.
"If you really want to do something, cut off your beards, cut
off your beards, cut off your [African] bushes, take off your dashikis.
You've got to look like someone working people can relate to', he has
told members of AWARE, a student group active in civil rights.
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"But Mr. Punch, who has been successful in organizing about
7,000 non-professional employees at nine hospitals and several nursing
homes the past year, said the normal problems of unionizing workers have
become complicated by racist attitudes.
"Whites at many of the hospitals refuse to join the black-led
union," said Mr. Punch, himself a Negro. For example, he said,
"the union
organized about 1,500 employees, mostly black, at Johns Hopkins Hospital
but some 2,500 others mostly white, refused to join." * * *
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posted 24 July 2008 |
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