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Octave
Blake Says: Unions Working
'Night and Day' To Bring End To
Segregation
Central Carolinian
(Monday,
July 9, 1956)
Labor unions are working day and night and pouring out
the money which they collect in dues to bring an end to racial
segregation, Octave Blake, president of the Cornell Dubilier
Electric corporation, charged in a letter which was distributed
to employees of the firm's Sanford plant over the past week-end.
The eight-page letter dated July 7 and mailed over
Blake's signature contained the firm's complete ideas on the
matter of unionization plus the essential facts regarding time,
place and manner of voting for the representation election set
July 20. The election will determine whether or not the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers will become the
bargaining agent for employees at the Sanford plant.
Commenting on the union position on segregation Blake
said:
"With respect to the Union organizers leading you
into their fold, there is another matter which I want to lay
before you very clearly and very frankly. All over the South
today there is deep concern on the question of racial
segregation versus integration. That is a matter on which each
person is entitled to his or her own views. This company does
not consider, and I do not consider, that it is appropriate for
the Company to try to influence you one way or another on this
deep and vital issue.
"But the Unions have taken and are taking a very
extreme position on this matter. When the union organizers try
to lead people to believe that the Union does not take any stand
one way or another on integration or segregation and that they
consider the matter as on which should be handled by each
community on a local basis, they are not telling you the truth
as to what the Union's real position is. You are entitled to
know, and you should understand the organizers are misleading
you and deceiving you when they pretend that the Unions are
neutral on this matter. The actual truth is that the Unions are
working day and night, and pouring out the money which they
collect in dues, in an effort to eliminate segregation and to
bring about integration in the schools and elsewhere between the
white people and the colored people as rapidly as possible.
"In the case which was before the United States
Supreme Court on the question, the CIO, now merged with the AFL
in what is called the AFL-CIO, filed an official document in
which it stated emphatically and positively that the Union
'supports the elimination of racial integration . . . from every
phase of American Life.' Further the union urged that
segregation should be ended 'forthwith' rather than by 'gradual
adjustment.' The document further states that where the 'Unions
have there way, there is like wise no segregation in the use of
plant eating places, locker rooms, rest rooms, etc.'
"You may not have noticed in the newspapers that the
AFL-CIO at its recent convention took $75,000.00 of the dues
paid to it by the people who are its members and gave this money
to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, which is the organization aggressively working for the
wiping out of all racial segregation, both in schools,
manufacturing plants and elsewhere."
Other points covered in Blake's letter included the
matter of union dues as he charged that "What they (the
organizers) are after is MONEY -- YOUR MONEY."
Commenting on pay in the local plant Blake said . . .
"Your pay is the best for this line of work in the entire
area . . . It is our hope that this shall continue to be so. You
can count on that without having to pay any union dues to
accomplish it."
He also called attention to physical facilities at the
local Cornell-Dubilier plant, stating "while most people
work in the sweltering heat of summer, you have the best of air
conditioning. There is no other plant in our line of work in the
whole country, Union plants or non-union plants--where the
people have as good conditions of work as you have here.
Furthermore we hope to expand here in this plant, which would
provide more jobs all along for your friends, relatives and
other people of the community."
Commenting on job security, Blake said that the basis on
which personnel are laid off in times of short orders and work
is the same in the local plant that it is in the company's union
plants.
The Cornell-Dubilier President further said that in the
company's union plants the total employment has dropped down to
one-third what it used to be. He said that this was the type of
job security the union gave those employees in exchange for
$728,000 in union dues over the years.
Blake in commenting on conditions at the local Cornell-Dubilier
plant said, 'I do not mean to claim that everything is just as
perfect as it might be here. I do not believe that things have
been improved a lot and we hope to keep on
improving them. And I would like to emphasize to you
before, that if there is anything you wish to call to our
attention at any time, there is no reason why you should not do
so and we will sincerely welcome you doing so'.
In concluding his letter Blake said, "In light of
all these considerations, I believe you will surely come to the
conclusion in your own good judgment: That you stand to lose if
this Union were to come in here and that you stand to gain by
keeping it out!"
Asked this (Monday) morning if he wanted to comment
further on the letter Leslie A. Johnson, manger of the local
Cornell-Dubilier plant said that he felt the letter covered the
situation and that he had no further comment of the union
organizing activities. |
