The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998 Page: 501
574 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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No Gold Watch for fim Crow's Retirement
calls for racial solidarity and left segregated jobs and lines of promotion
intact. Nonetheless, the initiative represented the only departure from
the IMW's constitution, which called on each local to conduct its own
labor relations with management. Hughes Tool rejected the proposal,
based on the argument it used with the FEPC during World War II, and
refused to negotiate with biracial committees.9 Except for this one limit-
ed attempt at racial solidarity, the company and the IMW cooperated to
institutionalize Jim Crow unionism between 1946 and 1961. Jim Crow
flourished, in part, because of the NLRB's joint certification of the
IMW's two locals.
The IMW defeated the United Steelworkers of America/CIO and
the International Association of Machinists/AFL in several union certi-
fication elections between 1946 and 1961. Following each election,
the NLRB jointly certified both IMW locals as the collective bargaining
agent at Hughes Tool.10 The National Labor Relations Act of 1935
(NLRA) empowered the NLRB to conduct union certification elec-
tions so workers could choose either a collective bargaining agent or
no union, and to also certify unions as exclusive collective bargaining
agents. The act also guaranteed that employers could recognize and
bargain with unions their employees chose. Though the NLRA
increased and institutionalized the collective bargaining strength of
organized labor, black workers enjoyed few of its benefits. The act
specifically ignored racial discrimination in unions and contained no
provisions for protecting minority interests from the majority rule."
Consequently, the IMW's Labor Board certification enabled the
union's racially segregated locals to appear to be coequal partners in a
unified labor organization while in practice the certification allowed
the white majority to dominate the black members. Technically,
9 "Proceedings," 33-36, 256-258; Columbus Henry to Michael R. Botson Jr., interview, May 9,
1997, handwritten notes in Botson's possession.
10 "Independents, Steelworkers at Hughes Vie for Bargaining Rights," Informer (Houston), July
20, 1946, sec. 1, p. 1; "I.M.W. Winner at Hughes Plant," Houston Post, Aug. 2, 1946, sec. i, p. i;
"Personal Message From Those Who Quit I.M.W.U.," Steelworker News, n.d., RG 329 (Texas Labor
Archives); National Labor Relations Board, Decisions, vol. 104, 318-320; National Labor
Relations Board, Decizsons, vol. 147, 1595.
" Hill, Black Labor, loo-o16; Harris, The Harder We Run, 110; Robert L. Carter and Maria L.
Marcus, "Trade Union Practices and the Law," in The Negro and the American Labor Movement, ed.
Julius Jacobson (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1968), 385-386. The NAACP and the National
Urban League vigorously opposed the National Labor Relations Act. At the time of its passage in
1935, unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, except for the United Mine
Workers, enforced ngid racial segregation. Black opponents of the NLRA argued that the law
would be used by AFL-affiliated unions to establish closed-shop contracts with employers and effec-
tively bar blacks from employment opportunities. The AFL successfully lobbied against including
an antidiscrimination clause in the NLRA. Senator Robert Wagner of New York, who authored the
bill and pnvately supported the inclusion of a nondiscrimination amendment, bowed to AFL pres-
sure out of fear that the entire bill would be defeated over the issue of racial discrimination.1998
501
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998, periodical, 1998; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117155/m1/584/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.