By Lee Ballard

The labor dispute at Sitel brings up the important topic of labor unions — and why North Carolinians haven’t historically been pro-union.  I see two reasons.  One goes way back in our history; the other has to do with modern Christianity.

The textile industry started moving South in the 1880s, feeding on the cheap labor of dispossessed farmers. When many mills went bankrupt after World War I, surviving mills “stretched” more work out of employees.  They increased the number of looms assigned to each worker, paid workers by piece rates and increased the number of supervisors to keep workers from slowing down.  Local strikes broke out all over.

When Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, Southern mill workers flocked to the new union made possible by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). The union was their Moses leading them out of bondage.

By mid-1934 the United Textile Workers had 250,000 members. An agency set up by the NIRA set minimum wages and workers’ hours–but employers countered the new minimum wages by increasing further the pace of work.  And when the labor board set a 40-hour work week, mill owners required the same amount of work in those 40 hours as they had in the previous 60-hour week.  The textile industry was a powder keg.

The union wasn’t ready for the huge strike to come, and the government had no power on the ground. The Graniteville, S.C., mill struck to force implementation of the new rules.  Instead they got special deputies and a machine-gun unit of the National Guard.  The NIRA sent special investigators, but they only urged workers to return to work.  When workers tried to return, however, mill owners refused to take them back and even evicted strikers from company housing. The NIRA took no action to stop the employers from violating the codes.

The fat was in the fire. Hundreds of thousands of textile workers went on strike in the South (early on in Gastonia) — and state governments responded violently. South Carolina and North Carolina governors deputized “every good citizen” to maintain order, that is, crush the strike.  Georgia’s governor declared martial law and directed the National Guard to arrest picketers, holding them in a former World War I prisoner-of-war camp.

The strike was a total defeat for the union. Workers were utterly demoralized by the strike and by the blacklists that followed. They wanted no further part of unions.

The second reason I see for anti-unionism in North Carolina is more complex and harder to understand.  It has its roots in 1979 with the founding of the Moral Majority — which especially opposed abortion, homosexuality, women’s liberation.  No surprises there.  These goals fell within what they called “traditional family values.”

Even 15 years later, when the Christian Coalition put forth its “Contract with the American Family,” the goals were family-oriented. For  example, a Constitutional amendment to allow prayer in public, retirement accounts for women who stay home to care for their families, protection of children from computer trash.

In the time since then, however, “faith-based” Christian organizations have steered conservative Christians toward different goals.  Family values are still there, but now, more prominently, are issues more closely tied to politics.  We hear tirades on Christian radio against climate change, tax increases on the rich — and labor unions.

And we see the Family Research Council contributing to anti-union efforts in Wisconsin. Perhaps a majority of conservative Christians in North Carolina now regard pro-business capitalism — and anti-unionism — as articles of their Christian faith.

That’s where we are today — and it’s really too bad.  We take for granted today the benefits working people enjoy that were won for us by labor unions: workplace safety, break times, vacations, overtime pay, The Family And Medical Leave Act and the right to protest working conditions without retaliation — the main issue at Sitel.

And lest I forget–unions gave us the weekend. Before unions, 60-hour weeks were the norm. And also, incomes we can live on. It’s absolutely clear from census data that right-to-work states have much poorer middle classes than non-right-to-work states.

I have no doubt that labor unions have a greater role to play in our future. As the cost of living goes up, so do salaries of company presidents.  But ordinary working people are paid as little as possible. Now with an abundance of skilled labor, pay is low. Supply and demand is fine for pricing rare coins but not for people. To fail to pay workers enough to live on, when profits are high, is immoral.

I would hope unions will refocus themselves, away from the greed of the last century and toward powerful advocacy for workers’ wages and working conditions.

I would also hope conservative Christians will see through the political motivations of faith-based organizations and adopt the cause of working people.

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Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.