BY PETER THIERJUNG AND JOAN PALTRINERI
GREENSBORO, North Carolina - Members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) from several southeastern states joined workers from the Kmart Distribution Center here and local supporters in a December 2 protest to press the fight for a union contract.
More than 1,000 people filled the Dudley High School gym in a rally to kick off the day. The media reported that as many as 1,700 participated. From the school, participants were bused to a protest at the local Super Kmart and then to a closing rally at the distribution center's gates.
Buses of UNITE members came from textile mills and plants in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and from across North Carolina. Several contingents of workers involved in struggles for union recognition participated.
Workers, union officials, and union staff came from Tultex in Martinsville, Virginia, where a 17-year fight involving five organizing drives culminated last spring with a contract. Workers from Healthtex in Georgia and Virginia who conducted a successful one-week strike last year turned out. A group from the newly organized Levi- Strauss plant in Valdosta, Georgia, attended. So did some 30 workers from the Chipman Union plant, also in Georgia, where workers have been in a long fight for a contract and have participated in community protests against racism. A few workers from a Virginia garment plant came to learn about the Kmart fight as part of deciding whether to launch a union organizing drive of their own.
Representatives and members of the postal workers unions; Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers union; and Communication Workers of America joined the protest. Bruce Raynor and Edgar Romney, executive vice presidents of UNITE; William Lucy from the national Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Richard Womack, director of Civil Rights for the AFL-CIO; and Richard Koritz, secretary of the Triad Central Labor Council, addressed the opening rally.
The slave mentality must end
"Kmart workers are tired of being harassed, intimidated,
and terminated," Deborah Holt told the rally to a standing
ovation. "There's something wrong with a society when
people work 40 to 60 hours per week and still can't put
food on the table." Workers in the South are paid "slave
wages" and "it's time to let the Fortune 500 companies know
the slave mentality must end," she said.
Kmart, like many other companies, has located in North Carolina due to low labor costs. The state now has the highest percentage of manufacturing jobs in the country, and is second only to South Carolina in having the least unionized workforce. Only 5.2 percent of workers are organized, one-third the national average.
Many workers in Greensboro have firsthand experience with Kmart's low wages and difficult working conditions. Holt, who is one of more than 550 employees at the distribution center, explained that more than 2,000 workers have left Kmart or have been fired since 1992, when the facility opened.
Workers start at $6.75 an hour and top wage is $8.50, regardless of the number of years in the plant. Kmart pays much higher wages at its other distribution centers across the country. Kmart employees in Newman, Georgia, for example, make $14 an hour, according to union officials. The union is demanding wage parity for the Greensboro workforce and an increase in paid holidays and sick days.
Local boycott launched
Kmart claims that the low wages are based on the lower
cost of living in North Carolina, an assertion workers
dispute. Statistics from the American Chamber of Commerce
Research Association confirm workers' contentions that the
cost of living is similar to areas where several other
distribution centers are located. Kmart wages in those
areas on average are 52 percent higher than the pay
received by Greensboro workers.
Rev. William Wright, Rev. Gregory Headen, and Rev. Nelson Johnson, longtime supporters of the fight by Kmart workers, addressed the rally. They are prominent members of the Pulpit Forum, a group of ministers primarily from the Black community who joined with the workers on November 24 to begin a holiday season boycott of the three Kmart stores. Kmart has 2,167 stores in the United States and 147 in other countries.
Union officials filed charges October 25 against the company with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The charges assert that Kmart discriminates against its predominantly African-American workforce. Union spokespeople allege the company's low wages are racially motivated.
On November 14, ministers from the Pulpit Forum held a press conference at the Woolworth store where 35 years ago Black students launched a historic sit-in at the lunch counter to protest Jim Crow racial segregation. The ministers gave Kmart a seven-day deadline to negotiate an agreement with UNITE or face a boycott, but the company did not meet their demands. Ministers have told congregations about the contract fight during sermons, often to the enthusiastic response of those present.
Union ranks reach out
Workers at the distribution center have pressed for the
boycott as a way to win support. For the last several
months, the union ranks have turned to the community and
found a reservoir of support.
A contingent of 100 Kmart unionists was prominent at the September 23 "1,000 Black Man March" here. More than a dozen workers carried a banner about their struggle at the October 16 Million Man March in Washington, D.C.
In three weeks, workers collected more than 10,000 signatures on petitions demanding Kmart bargain with the union. Signers came from 37 church congregations where Kmart workers spoke, 11 local unions, and students at several area university and high school campuses. Union members addressed the state AFL-CIO convention in September and received a standing ovation.
Boycott picket lines have brought Kmart workers into daily contact with working people in the Greensboro area. Many shoppers have responded to boycott appeals and have often stopped to learn more about the struggle. Church members report having heard about the boycott at church services and some have joined picket lines.
Discussions on the boycott picket lines have helped Kmart unionists better explain their fight. One tobacco worker challenged some pickets, saying that the struggle was not primarily a race issue but one of union busting "no matter if the workers are Black, white, or green."
"This is not about Black workers or about white workers," Sullivan Hamlet, a second-shift worker, told a cheering crowd of hundreds gathered at the distribution center to conclude the December 2 actions. "It's about economics," he continued. "We have refused to allow the company to divide us." Hamlet called on workers to stand together for the benefit of all.
Press coverage of the December 2 protests here centered on the arrest of one worker and the citation of three others for attempting to pass through police lines in front of the Super Kmart store. The arrested worker was charged with misdemeanor riot and crossing police lines.
Joan Paltrineri and Peter Thierjung are members of UNITE Local 2603 at the Kmart Distribution Center in Greensboro.