Trade Unionism in the South

Report Outline
Development of Unionism in the South
Recent Strikes at Southern Textile Mills
Present Labor Organizing Campaign in South
Conditions Favorabls and Unfavorable to Unionism
Labor Legislation in the South

The southern textile strikes during the spring of 1929, the New Orleans street railway strike, and the recent threat of a general strike in that city, afford evidence of renewed trade union activity in the South after a dormant period that dates from the post—war collapse of labor organizations formed under the stimulus of war conditions. The more important textile strikes of March and April were either settled by compromise agreements or lost outright by the employees, but several new strikes have since developed in the textile industry and there are numerous reports of unrest among other groups of southern workers.

Plans for the creation of a committee of one thousand, to be known as the “Committee for American Conditions in the Textile Industry,” were announced at New York on July 14. The purpose of the committee will be to assist the American Federation of Labor and the United Textile Workers in “unionizing 300,000 textile workers at 100 mills in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama.” Edward F. McGrady, representing President Green of the A. F. of L. at the New York meeting, said:

“The American Federation of Labor is not going to turn back, even though the governors of the southern states, the chambers of commerce and the churches close their eyes to the situation. The A. F. of L. has planted its flag there, and there it is going to stay, no matter what ths price that we must pay may be and no matter who pays it.”