With the Negro's Help
I
SKILLED WORKERS WANTED
LATHE HANDS NEEDED
WOMEN FOR ASSEMBLY WORK
MEN — No EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
THESE and similar advertisements are constantly appearing in metropolitan newspapers. They reveal the unpleasant truth that the shortage of man-power is no longer a probability — it is a fact. Today it exists only in critical occupations; soon it will be general.
There are many estimates of the labor requirements of our war effort. Although they differ in detail, they all agree on one point: by the end of 1943, the nation will require the services of every qualified able-bodied man and of millions of women never before inducted into the labor market. We shall have to use all available sources of labor supply. We cannot, as a production measure, afford the luxury of continued discrimination against minority groups, older workers, or women. Nor can we afford the threat to national unity and morale which follows from continued exclusion or delayed acceptance of such groups as an integral part of the war effort. It has aptly been said of one of these groups that we can lose the war without Negroes — but we can’t win it without them.
According to the 1940 Census, there were 5,389,000 Negroes in the labor force of the nation. At least 3,582,000 of these were males. More than 526,000 experienced and 65,000 new Negro workers were seeking employment in 1940. Not reflected in these unemployment figures, however, are two important categories of potential man-power for war production: the thousands of Negroes now working below their skills, and the vast reserve of Negro women not included in the labor market in the past. Colored workers with training and aptitudes are now employed in unskilled nonessential work; and Negroes with skills are, in the South, often kept in semi-skilled classifications, while white workers with no industrial experience arc assigned to skilled jobs under the tutelage of colored ‘helpers.’ Included among those thus underemployed are at least 200,000 Negro males.
Negro women have been generally relegated to domestic service, unskilled industrial employment, or farm labor. There are in domestic service today tens of thousands of colored women with high-school education, and hundreds with college degrees. These women are capable of learning quickly single skilled and semi-skilled operations which would materially aid war production. Other thousands of similarly qualified women, who have never been employed, are anxious to contribute to our war effort.
In the United States today, at least 500,000 male and an equal number of female colored workers are either unemployed or underemployed. Not only are these potential workers available, but many of them are now living in areas where general labor shortages exist, and where large-scale in-migration of white labor has occurred. In cities like Mobile, Baltimore, and Los Angeles, tens of thousands of local Negroes are seeking jobs while an equal number of outside white workers are being drawn into these already overcrowded areas. This has resulted in expensive programs of defense housing (involving the unnecessary use of vital, scarce materials) and great strains upon local transportation, water, sewer, hospital, school, and fire-protection facilities. It has also resulted in delayed production because migrant workers soon return to their original homes, since living in the ‘boom’ towns is both uncomfortable and expensive.
II
At the outbreak of World War I, there was a general shortage of unskilled workers. Negroes were brought into the industrial centres of the nation to meet this need. These workers entered the iron and steel, meat packing, shipbuilding, automobile and associated industries. They inherited from earlier migrant groups many of the domestic and general service jobs. Negro men became an important element in the unskilled labor force for construction and street maintenance. By the close of the war, it had been demonstrated that, when labor shortages forced their employment in new industries and new occupations, Negroes were found to be satisfactory workers. The results were perhaps most outstanding in shipbuilding, where the labor market was the tightest. In Philadelphia, for example, a gang of Negro pile drivers established a new world record; and at Sparrows Point a colored riveter broke the existing record.
Such results in the North and the West were not as remarkable as they then seemed to many in these sections. For the Negro worker in America has had a long and productive past as a skilled artisan. Much of the historically important architecture of the old South was constructed with skilled slave labor. The ironwork in the old French section in New Orleans and the fine old residences in Charleston, South Carolina, were in large measure built by Negro skilled workers, both slaves and freemen. When emancipation came, the Negro continued to work as an artisan in the construction industry, and he participated in the initial efforts to organize workers in this industry. In New Orleans, Negroes were among those who established the bricklayers’ union, and in Charleston, South Carolina, colored workers participated in setting up the first locals of both the bricklayers’ and the carpenters’ unions. In many other Southern cities there is a similar history.
In the South, the Negro worker is a familiar figure of long standing in iron and steel production, tobacco processing, shipbuilding, sawmills and lumbering, coal mining, and turpentine production. His ability to perform skilled work has long been accepted in this section. It was, however, World War I and its labor needs which laid the foundation for a similar demonstration in the industrial areas of the country. In these centres the Negro worker was the last arrival in industry, and he was relegated, for the most part, to unskilled work. In the period of industrial activity which followed the war, his occupational status gradually improved.
Then came the depression. The Negro worker had little seniority and only the beginnings of skilled status in basic industries. Thus he felt doubly the throes of the depression and the devastating influence of unemployment which typified the period. Racial attitudes intensified the impact of these economic developments. In a few industries, such as meat packing, where the demand for the finished product was more stable than in the heavy industries, the colored worker was able to maintain some of his earlier gains in occupational status. But in general he suffered extreme unemployment and lost much of the ground which he had won in skilled employment. Depression also took its toll in the South, where the displacement of Negro skilled workers had gradually been in process for some time. Extreme competition for jobs in a contracting economy accelerated this trend and gave a new economic basis for antagonism between white and black labor.
Looking back over the industrial history of the nation, one is impressed by the fact that management of American industry has rarely faced the problem of racial employment in the framework of any well-conceived plan. The employment practices which have emerged have created in the mind of management the concept of the black worker as an untrained, unskilled laborer. The white worker, too, has generally shared this feeling; and even democratic public education, wedded as it has been in the field of vocational training to the concept of preparing workers for specific jobs in a contracting labor market, has hesitated to offer training to Negro youth. Labor organizations have reacted violently to groups of Negro strikebreakers; and these organizations, in a period of contracting job opportunities, have attempted to restrict the supply of workers in order to preserve labor standards. In the case of the craft unions, particularly in the metal trades, a traditional prejudice against the idea of black artisans has contributed greatly to an active and often aggressive opposition to the training and employment of skilled Negroes in certain trades.
The racial employment patterns which resulted from these circumstances made employers hesitant to use black workers in production capacities which had not become traditional. Supervisory staffs and foremen rapidly absorbed this attitude, contributed their own prejudices, and soon became almost insurmountable barriers to Negro occupational advancement. These patterns of industry created in the minds of the white workers a feeling of vested interest in certain jobs. And competition for employment during the depression accentuated such attitudes, so that these factors effectively prohibited the training of the mass of Negroes in many of those occupations which are today so vital to war production. But with the advent of the current war effort and the resulting need for training hundreds of thousands of workers for production in certain vital industries, a new situation has been created. In the tight labor market which is rapidly developing, the concept of competition for a limited number of available jobs and the policy of training for a contracting labor market are impediments to the effective mobilization of man-power.
When the defense program was launched, there had been sufficient employment of Negroes by American industry to convince all but the most biased or the least informed that Negroes, as individuals and when subjected to the usual processes of training and selection, can do any and all types of production jobs. There were, in every industrial area, object lessons in the truth that white and Negro labor can work together on production, and that management’s policy has much to do with the white workers’ attitude in the matter. At the same time, there was a large supply of Negroes with necessary aptitudes and education to fit them for defense training on the same basis as white youths. It seemed that our fight to defend democracy abroad would offer an opportunity to establish much greater economic democracy for our minority groups at home. Such results did not immediately follow, however, and today only the beginnings ate being made in solving the problem of Negro integration into war industries.
III
Employment of Negroes in war industries has two principal aspects, the quantitative and the qualitative. The first relates to the number of jobs held by Negroes regardless of the occupational distribution involved. The second refers to the industries and the occupations in which these jobs are distributed. At a time like the present, when we are rapidly restricting the production of nonessentials and converting existing plants into war production, qualitative factors materially affect quantitative results. This is true because production for a highly mechanized war requires new skills and the services of a larger proportion of trained workers than is usual. Therefore, unless there are full opportunities for a given group of workers to enter diversified occupations in war production, their numerical employment will be materially limited.
In the case of the Negro, the matter of the kind of jobs is intimately associated with the question of how many jobs. This is amply illustrated in the automobile industry, which is now in the process of being converted to war production. The converted industry requires few foundry workers; Negroes have heretofore been concentrated in foundries and generally excluded from assembly lines and skilled work. (The one notable exception has been in the Ford Motor Company, where there was the usual concentration in foundry but also participation in many highly skilled occupations and employment on assembly lines.) Management in the industry, despite the terms of agreements which provided for transfer of workers on the basis of seniority and industry-wide experience, hesitated to assign colored workers to occupations for which they qualified but in which they had not been used in non-defense production. Many of the white workers took a similar position, and certain local unions were hesitant to deal effectively with the problem. Such a policy limited the occupational advance and the numerical employment of colored labor since the bulk of Negroes with seniority were being assigned to the relatively few laboring and janitorial jobs, as were new Negro workers brought into defense activities of the converted industry. The potential Negro employment was therefore much less than would exist had there been opportunities for the transfer and upgrading of Negroes into new jobs.
This occupational pattern is now in the process of being changed. While the majority of new colored workers are entering unskilled and janitorial jobs, other new Negro workers are slowly finding jobs as welders, as riveters, and on other production operations in firms which previously did not so employ them. On the basis of the qualitative gains which have been made to date, the industry is in a position to tap the large reserve of Negro labor in Detroit. This is of more than theoretical importance in an area where there will be great expansion in employment and need for much defense housing. At the present time, approximately a thousand Negro trainees in defense occupations are available in the Detroit area. Their employment in war industries would make a real contribution to production by easing the pressure upon housing, reducing future labor turnover, and eliminating the necessity for duplicating training.
To date, the outstanding advances in numerical employment of Negroes have occurred in traditional occupations and industries where the number of Negro semi-skilled and unskilled workers has substantially increased during the last eighteen months. The number of Negro janitors has grown steadily. In many sections, Negroes have replaced white workers who formerly were employed as cooks, waiters, garage attendants, and house servants, and who are now entering defense work. These gains, in numerous instances, represent only an indirect contribution to war production and often involve the use of skilled persons in nonessential work at occupations far below their training and abilities. They cannot absorb the unemployed Negroes or facilitate the maximum use of this source of man-power. They do not contribute to the bolstering up of the morale of the colored citizen who sees white neighbors with no better or even poorer qualifications rapidly absorbed in better jobs in war industries.
In iron and steel production, Negro employment has appreciably increased since the war effort began. Gains in this industry have been concentrated in the larger firms which have traditionally used black workers. Even in some of these there are still serious occupational limitations preventing the upgrading of Negroes. Certain developments in this industry are, however, encouraging, and illustrate the real contribution to war production which Negro workers can and do make.
At the Lackawanna plant of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, Negro labor has figured in production work since World War I, when colored workers were brought in by management during a labor dispute. The Negro workers remained, and nearly all of them are now fully integrated into the union as members of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee. At least 150 shop stewards and a score of grievance adjusters are colored. Today the plant is engaged in war production, and the number of Negro employees has increased in the last eighteen months to the extent that about 20 per cent of the present labor force is Negro. Approximately 7 or 8 per cent of the Negro employees are skilled, and about 40 per cent are semi-skilled. Among the Negroes employed at the plant are crane operators, stampers, bricklayers, firstclass machinists, engineers, switchmen, and a score or more other types of production workers.
The pattern of employment set by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in its Lackawanna plant has done much to facilitate the use of Negroes in other industries in the Buffalo areas. It has effectively repudiated the contention of local employers that Negro and white workers will not work together. It has illustrated the fact that, even when colored workers are introduced during a labor dispute, labor has a stake in winning Negro members to its ranks and protecting their opportunity for employment.
In most of the older, established shipyards, Negro workers were employed prior to the war effort. In the majority of these yards, their participation has greatly increased. This growth of employment, while significant, has been limited by occupational patterns which have excluded Negroes from certain types of skilled and semi-skilled work. The most serious of these limitations, from the point of view of man-power, is the general disinclination to train and employ Negro welders. While in certain areas of small Negro populations, as in New England, a few colored welders are employed, this is by no means the general pattern. Also, the traditional opposition to Negro machinists, machine-tool trainees, and electricians has restricted the use of black labor in an industry which is admittedly behind schedule in production. At such large shipyards as the Federal Shipbuilding Company in New Jersey, Sun Shipbuilding Company in Pennsylvania, and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia, where approximately 10,000 Negroes are employed, traditional attitudes toward the use of Negroes in certain important production jobs are limiting artificially the degree to which existing reserves of available Negro labor can be tapped. The United States Navy yards were the first establishments in the industry to widen appreciably the occupations open to Negroes. Private yards are beginning to follow this lead; for example, the Sun Shipbuilding Company has recently announced a program of training and employing thousands of Negroes in all occupations — a notable development.
In the newer shipyards of the Southwest, only slight progress has been made in the employment of Negro production workers although most of the yards in this section use Negro laborers. On the West Coast, however, hundreds of black workers have been added to the payrolls of the shipyards in recent months. Current negotiations with the craft unions in this area should lead to expanding job opportunities for colored labor. In the Southeast, Negroes employed in shipyards are generally restricted to unskilled and certain semi-skilled occupations. There are a few encouraging exceptions, but, throughout the area, management and unions have evaded facing the problem. Labor supply considerations are requiring the government to bring the issue to a head.
In the March 1941 issue of Fortune, which was devoted to a study of the aircraft industry, is found this statement: ‘The industry also has its prejudices. You will find an almost universal prejudice against Negroes — and in the West Coast, against Jews. This statement stands the test of observation; you almost never see Negroes in aircraft factories nor do you see Jews in the West Coast plants except in some engineering department. . . . There is little concealment about the anti-Negro policy.’
In the two-year period ending July 1941, employment in aircraft, manufacture increased fivefold and reached 310,000; and it has, of course, continued to grow at a rapid rate. Since most of the workers in this industry have been trained for their new employment, tens of thousands of Negro Americans likewise could have been trained and employed in aircraft production. Such was not the case. In 1940 only a few colored men were employed by the industry; at the close of 1941, some 2000 Negroes had entered aircraft; as of April 1942, 5286 colored workers were employed in 49 selected aircraft plants.
In September 1941 the Bureau of Employment Security made a survey of employment prospects for Negroes in selected armament industries. At that time only 5.9 per cent of the establishments which anticipated hiring workers for aircraft production employed Negroes; 24.3 per cent did not then employ colored workers but expressed a willingness to do so in the future; 69.8 per cent of the firms did not then and did not intend to employ colored. Significant progress has been made since this survey was undertaken, and many of the principal aircraft companies, such as Glenn L. Martin, Lockheed, Curtiss-Wright and Wright Aeronautical, North American, Douglas, Bell, Brewster, Republic, and Fairchild, use colored production workers. Others are committed to such a policy, and practically all the major firms in the industry now employ Negroes in some capacity. Although a start has been made in this new and expanding industry, the numerical participation of Negroes in aircraft is still disappointing, and woefully small in the light of the total employment figure for the industry. Only a few companies, such as Lockheed, North American in Kansas City, CurtissWright and Wright Aeronautical, have laid solid foundations for really tapping the vital labor potential which exists in the Negro community.
The vast, expanding ordnance industry in the nation is affording Negroes opportunities for employment. Already thousands of colored workers are employed by this industry. The Winchester Arms plant in New Haven, Connecticut, has over 1300 Negroes on its payroll. Colored men and women are on the production lines in many new ordnance plants, and plans for similar employment patterns have been developed in a score of other plants which are now in various stages of construction and operation.
In many sections of the nation, these ordnance works are offering Negroes their first opportunity for industrial employment. In certain areas, notably in communities of the South and in northern areas with small Negro populations, there is opposition to the introduction of Negroes as production workers. This is even more pronounced in the case of Negro women. The bases for this opposition are the local beliefs that: (1) there are white workers still unemployed who should be absorbed before Negroes are used in any but unskilled and service capacities; and (2) the industrial employment of Negro women would upset local wage scales and ‘spoil ‘ good domestic servants. The first of these considerations is usually a carry-over of depression thinking in the community, and management hesitates to consider Negro production workers until labor shortages force the issue; the second is often championed by the middle-class housewives who do not want the cost of domestic service to rise. The experience in ordnance to date illustrates two things: Full mobilization of labor for war production in certain areas will involve occupational patterns which are new and will be opposed by certain community attitudes; and Negroes are satisfactory and efficient workers in what is largely a new industry to them.
In a production war, the machine-tool industry is vitally important. When the defense effort began, there were few Negro toolmakers and only a small number of Negro machinists. Labor organizations having jurisdiction over workers in these trades had generally either excluded colored workers or discouraged their entrance into the field; and vocational education officials cited this opposition in justification of their failure to extend training to Negroes. With the advent of defense training, colored youth had their first real opportunity to learn the rudimentary principles of machine-tool work. When the first Negroes completed defense training, however, they faced great difficulties in securing private employment, because the old prejudices remained; and the first real opportunities for their employment occurred in the United States Navy yards and Army arsenals.
Gradually, war industries have followed the lead of the Federal establishments in accepting Negro machine-shop trainees. The initial steps in this direction occurred in New England, where labor shortages first appeared. Today an increasing number of established firms such as Brown and Sharpe Manufacturing Company in Providence, Rhode Island; the Brewer Drydock Company at Staten Island, New York; the Morey Machinery Company in Queens, New York; the Taylor Chemical and Hartsook Machine Company of Cleveland; and the Pressed Steel Car Company accept Negro machine-shop trainees. In most instances, however, only a limited number of Negro operators and trainees are used, and the bulk of their employment has been concentrated in the smaller firms. In Cleveland, where several of the larger establishments which hire a substantial number of trainees have manifested their willingness to employ colored machine-shop workers, the traditional attitude of white opposition has continued. At the time of this writing, the government is negotiating with the locals of the International Association of Machinists to secure labor’s coöperation in effecting Negro employment. Recently President Roosevelt, at the behest of his Committee on Fair Employment Practice which he had established to carry out the provisions of his executive order banning discrimination in defense employment, intervened in a similar difficulty with machinists’ unions on the West Coast. As a result of this action, the International sent to two locals a directive requiring them to facilitate the employment of qualified Negroes on war production.
In the spring of 1942 the Labor Division of the War Production Board made a survey of 750 selected defense plants. These establishments were primarily large firms and they were located in areas where there are available supplies of Negro labor. They are the firms which, if there were no discrimination against colored workers, would employ large numbers of them. The survey showed that, while most of the companies are now employing some Negroes, in many cases this employment is either so small as to represent token compliance with governmental non-discrimination policies or it is concentrated in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations. There have been, however, two significant gains. In hundreds of cases, Negroes are now being inducted into production jobs in firms which formerly banned them from such employment. Although the numbers used to date are not significant, the occupational patterns recently established offer a basis for full utilization of Negro labor. At the same time, encouraging gains in numerical employment and occupational diversification have occurred in government establishments, in firms which have had long experience in employing Negroes, and in the majority of the new war production plants covered by the survey.
IV
There is already sufficient accumulated evidence in World War II to indicate how we can achieve full utilization of Negro labor. Three groups are the deciding factors, and governmental activity and community pressure must be directed toward them. They are top, policy-making management; the supervisors and foremen; and the workers in the plant. Of these the first, top management, is by far the most important. In instance after instance, it has been demonstrated that, when management has developed a comprehensive and definite plan for dealing with this problem, the desired results are achieved. It is, of course, not enough for management to have an inclination to use Negro labor; it must have a conviction and transmit that conviction to its supervisory officials, foremen, and workers. The attitude of the supervisory staff is important because this staff can, by its coöperation or lack of it, do much to decide whether or not a given program succeeds. When supervisors realize that a part of their job is to make a given policy work, they generally devise means to achieve such results. Workers, organized or unorganized, are influenced by management’s attitude.
Where there is a well-developed, strong labor organization, the active coöperation of the union should be sought by management when a new source of labor supply is about to be introduced. This is a natural approach in a company where industrial relations have matured to the point that employment policies are changed only after they have been the subject of discussions between labor and management. In other instances, where management is not in the habit of conferring with its workers on matters of labor policy, delaying action on employing Negroes until the workers agree to such a policy can hardly be more than an attempt on the part of management to shun its responsibility and delay action on what it considers a difficult problem. This does not mean that the hostility of white workers has ceased to exist or that exclusionist policies of labor unions and unorganized workers are unimportant. It does mean, however, that in most instances (save under closed-shop agreements) management exercises the right to hire workers and must take the initiative in introducing new employees. Unless and until this is done, it is impossible to establish the responsibility of the workers, organized or unorganized, for any restrictive hiring policies. And until such responsibility is established little can be done to influence the policies or practices of labor. There are, for example, scores of instances where labor organizations have capitalized on management’s hesitancy to face the issue and have hedged on the problem. Increasingly, however, as these cases are brought to light, it has been possible for the government to secure action by union officials, as in the case of the machinists’ union on the West Coast, mentioned before.
A typical example of an intelligent and effective approach to the problem is offered by the Lockheed-Vega Corporation of California. When officials of this firm decided to introduce skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled Negro workers into their aircraft plant, they developed a comprehensive plan in which foremen and supervisors were charged with responsibility for the success of the experiment. Cyril Chappellet, secretary of the corporation, sent every executive and supervisor a memorandum announcing the company’s intention to abide by the President’s executive order banning discrimination in defense employment, and to train and employ Negroes ‘in capacities commensurate with their individual skills and aptitudes.’ A similar memorandum was sent to Aeronautical Lodge 727 of the International Association of Machinists, bargaining agent for the company’s employees. On October 15, 1941, Randall Irwin, director of industrial relations, informed this writer: —
‘During the last few weeks we have employed 31 Negroes, 22 of whom have been placed on mechanical work in various departments of the factory. . . . As you see, we do not practice segregation of Negroes and I am happy to say that our supervisors and employees are entering into this program with a wholesome attitude.’
By April 1942, more than 350 Negroes, including women, were employed by the Lockheed-Vega Corporation, the majority in production work; and the local union, despite a ‘white’ clause in the I. A. M. ritual, had begun to induct the Negro workers into full union membership.
A similar approach to the problem, in a case where the workers were not organized, is offered by the Denver (Colorado) Ordnance Plant. At the start of operations John J. Hastings, employment manager, decided to introduce Negro workers, and he enlisted the aid of his supervisory personnel. When the first hundred workers were brought to the plant for an ‘orientation’ period, a single Negro was placed in each crew of ten men. As these crews entered the plant for the first time, the foreman made a short speech: —
‘It is the policy of the Remington Arms Corporation and the United States Government not to discriminate against any worker because of his race, religion, or color. And this company expects each worker in its employ to abide by this policy.’
Although workers in this plant were from all sections of the nation, not one offered an objection to the company policy, and Negroes were integrated into all divisions of the plant from the beginning. Recent reports from the Denver Ordnance Plant revealed the employment of more than 300 Negroes, including a number of Negro women trained and employed as inspectors.
The influence of top, policy-making management on the employment practices of war plants is demonstrated in the case of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation and its subsidiary, Wright Aeronautical Corporation. In May 1941, Guy A. Vaughan, the president of this corporation, assured OPM officials that Negroes would be employed in skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled capacities in the company’s many plants. In keeping with this promise and subsequent commitments to the President’s Committee on Fair Employment Practice, colored workers are now speeding aircraft production in the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio plants of Curtiss-Wright and Wright Aeronautical. One Ohio plant of Wright Aeronautical had more than 1000 Negroes at work in April 1942, and another had begun the introduction of Negro women as production workers. Two of the Wright Aeronautical plants have Negroes on the staffs of their personnel departments.
An Ohio Curtiss-Wright plant figured in the news in November 1941, when a walkout was reported to have occurred because a Negro trainee was assigned to the tool and die department. Investigation by OPM’s Labor Division revealed, however, that the racial factor had not been the chief cause of the walkout, although there had been some misunderstanding incident to the methods used to introduce Negro workers. A settlement was quickly effected when management stood its ground on Negro employment and the CIO assumed its responsibility and coöperated. An agreement between management and labor called for the extension of Negro employment to all departments, including the clerical and engineering staffs. More than 250 Negroes were at work in this plant in March 1942, including three in the tool and die department, many skilled and semi-skilled workers, and Negro women in production work. A Negro engineer who had been employed as a ditchdigger during the construction of the plant had been given a technical job and transferred to the Buffalo plant as an engineer.
The theory that Negroes cannot be trained and employed on skilled work in Southern war plants was again exploded by the Higgins Industries in New Orleans. This theory is often advanced by Northern industrialists who establish plants in the South. In their anxiety to observe oft-mistaken Southern ' traditions ‘ these employers have, in many cases, restricted the employment of Negroes far more rigidly than established Southern firms.
Higgins Industries recently received one of the largest contracts yet negotiated for the construction of ships. It is estimated that over 40,000 workers will be required to produce these ships on schedule. The new Higgins contract was announced at a time when a neighboring shipyard, despite a need for skilled labor and earlier commitments to the Federal Government, cited union opposition as its reason for not employing colored production workers.
Immediately upon receipt of his record contract, however, A. L. Higgins, Sr., president of Higgins Industries, announced publicly that Negroes would be employed without occupational discrimination ‘on any job for which they can be trained.’ Mr. Higgins followed this announcement by a personal appearance before the local A. F. of L. shipbuilding unions, at which he asked the coöperation of organized labor in his project. This coöperation was granted. The company then announced that training schools would be established immediately for the first 5000 workers and that equal training would be furnished Negroes and whites. Classes are now being set up, and they will be so directed as to facilitate the full use of all local sources of labor supply, both Negro and white. The company has already enlisted the aid of local Negro newspapers and organizations in recruiting colored workers.
These detailed cases and the experience in several hundred defense plants, of which there is a record in the War Manpower Commission, illustrate that full use of available Negro labor can be achieved.
The necessity of introducing women into industries and occupations where they have not been used before will present a new element. From the point of view of production, however, it is imperative that, as far as possible, women already living and housed in a given community be used by the local industries. Also, in tapping this new and, for the most part, inexperienced source of labor supply, care should be taken to secure the best possible selection of available workers. In order to do this, selection must be made from the largest possible universe of potential workers. This means that all elements in the population must be drawn upon and the best from each must be chosen. Firms like Curtiss-Wright, in its Ohio plants, and Lockheed-Vega are finding that, by tapping early the vast source of Negro women, they are able to select superior workers who are displaying remarkable aptitude. Thus it is reported that, at the Columbus plant of the Curtiss-Wright company, one of a group of Negro women selected for training completed a standard six weeks’ course in less than half the allotted time.
V
To the casual observer it might appear that, since the necessities of our war production are such that the use of colored workers is inevitable, it is useless to waste time further considering the matter. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as this. There are economic and morale factors which must be dealt with. It is, of course, true that ultimately American industry will use Negro labor to a much greater degree. For many war plants this step, when seriously taken, will represent a new practice. Attitudes will have to be changed, and immediate plans should therefore be made to accomplish this. At the same time, study should be given to the local supplies of Negro labor so as to devise programs for the training and employment of workers in capacities which will make them most productive. These things cannot be done overnight. They must be anticipated and planned. Patterns should be changed within the framework of a long-run program. In a word, since such employment is generally inevitable, steps should be taken now to start it. Many sound managements realize these things and are acting accordingly. Unfortunately, the number is not large enough, and it must be increased if we are to meet our production goals.
The productivity of a worker is intimately associated with his feeling for and belief in his job. Therefore it is important that the Negro worker feel that his services are wanted to win victory in an important battle. He can hardly be expected to go all-out in his efforts, as he and all other workers must, if he is led to believe that his employment is a last resort and the result of economic necessity alone. He must have faith and belief in his opportunity to participate, so that he will be eager for training and will be anxious to go into war industries. He must feel that he is a part of America’s great struggle and that he has an opportunity to make his greatest possible contribution to it. That he may feel these things, America must demonstrate that his contribution, as a citizen, is needed and that he, as a worker, is wanted. In a democracy it is dangerous for any citizen to feel less.
There is perhaps no issue as little understood as the matter of Negro morale. Many people in the United States have never given much thought to the attitudes of Negroes. Others have repeated that colored folk are traditionally loyal; while still others say that what Negroes feel toward the war does not matter. Recently there has arisen an articulate leadership among Negroes which questions blind loyalty and asks: ‘What are we colored folk fighting for?’ It wonders if we should not give more thought to developing democracy at home while we are fighting to preserve democracy in the world. White citizens, who have given little thought to the shortcomings of our democracy as far as Negroes are concerned, recoil with surprise at such embarrassing questions and, coupling them with Japanese propaganda that this is a race war, jump to the conclusion that Negroes are potential fifth columnists.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of Negroes are opposed to all that the Axis powers stand for. They either know or instinctively feel that their destiny is intimately associated with that of the United States, and they feel as great an allegiance to their country as any other group of citizens. They do question discrimination against them in the armed forces, they are indignant at the initial refusal and eventual conditional acceptance of their blood by the Red Cross, and they do resent discrimination in employment in war production. They do sometimes wonder what they are fighting for. Their attitude is one of apathy toward — and at times bewilderment at — the war as it is now progressing in America. It is not disloyalty — but it certainly is not enthusiastic support. This is a serious matter; it is one which can and must be cured by the simple process of extending to 13,000,000 citizens of America more of the essence of the democracy which we are defending throughout the world. A chance to earn a living, and equality of opportunity, are basic elements of democracy. Denial of them to Negroes is the cause of the Negro’s hesitancy to be all-out for the war effort. These same features are also delaying our production of war materials.
For some time I have been trying to express tersely the basic attitude of Negroes which explains their current feelings. As I was recently reading Stuart Chase’s The Road We Are Traveling, 1914-1942, it suddenly dawned upon me that my approach to the problem had been wrong. The attitude I was seeking to express is not peculiar to Negroes; it is an attitude of mankind. Then I found it. Chase expressed it in these words: “Man is a working animal, as any biologist will tell you. They want to belong: to feel that they are a part of a living community, that they have a place in it which other people recognize.’