May Day

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No, we didn't celebrate May Day, a.k.a. International Workers' Day, when I grew up in the Piedmont region of N.C. Mine was a textile town, and the textile industry was notorious in it's opposition to labor unions. The mill executives were Christian men who were leaders in their mainline Protestant Churches, and they saw it as their Christian duty to keep out godless communist labor movements. Capitalism was next to Godliness, and child labor and 16 hour work days were good for the soul because they were good for the profit margin. The labor movement fought the hard-won battle for an eight hour work day and an end to child labor. These were not acts of kindness on the part of the executives.


My Dad was an accountant in a textile mill, and we attended one of those First Churches. I worked one summer in high school as a grounds keeper around the mill, and on rainy days I worked in the area where they opened the giant bales of cotton to begin turning out cotton yarn. It was mind-numbing work and a great motivator to go to college. I'm guessing the other men (all black) resented my presence, though, short of a little teasing, they were actually pretty kind to me - kinder than I deserved. 


Dad saw no need for labor unions. He figured the mill paid a low-skilled labor force about what they were worth, given the number who would lay out on Mondays or not show up at all. I get that it was a personnel headache, but do you think it would have been different had the mill paid more and added in some benefits that would make it the kind of job you didn't dare risk losing?


I haven't read Wilt Browning's book pictured above, but I would like to.

 

 


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