Black Workers and the New Unions

By Horace R. Cayton and George S. Mitchell

This is a book for those who want to know what really happens when, in circumstances of enormous complexity and under the impetus of the New Deal, an irresistible drive for labor organization runs head-on into an immovably imbedded race prejudice. It is based on interviews by the authors with those people most intimately concerned.

Originally published in 1939.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780807879726

Book preview

SECTION I

The Iron and Steel Industry

Part I

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF THE NEGRO IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

PART I deals with the general history and background of Negroes in the industry, their peculiar problems, a review of the labor organizations in steel, and the role which Negroes have played in them in the past.

The Negro entered the iron and steel industry either as a strike breaker or at the time of great labor shortage. Chapter I describes the early history of Negroes in the industry and the period of most rapid increase—1910 to 1930. Some attention is also paid to the geographic distribution of Negro steel employees and it is shown that the early dominant position of the South has given way to northern states where at present the majority of Negro steel workers are found.

The problems peculiar to Negro steel workers, arising out of race prejudice, are discussed in Chapter II. In addition to the general working conditions which all workers face, Negroes have a special complaint from assignments to the most tedious, disagreeable, and low paid positions, the difficulty of obtaining promotions, more frequent displacements, and excessive domination and prejudice on the part of company officials.

It is generally assumed that labor organizations are the most effective method of improving the condition of industrial workers. Therefore, Chapter III is a discussion of union organizations in the industry to see how in the past they have been used to improve the general working conditions of all workers (including Negroes) and how specifically they have aided Negroes with their peculiar problems. It is first pointed out that there were many obstacles to union organization in steel. Most important of these has been the racial and ethnic heterogeneity of the workers, the large wage spread between the skilled and unskilled employees, and the control of the men, especially through the company unions. The union organizations themselves are then discussed and a section is devoted to the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers and the Steel and Metal Workers' Industrial Union. In both instances a general history of the union is given followed by a statement of the role which Negroes have played in the organization.

THE HISTORY OF NEGRO LABOR IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

THE NEGRO ENTERS THE STEEL INDUSTRY

THERE are two primary channels through which Negroes have entered the steel industry: the first is in the role of strike-breaker; the second, as a supplement to the normal labor force in periods of industrial expansion. For many years prior to the advent of the Negro in steel, the industry drew a large proportion of its labor supply from Europe. However, the South, with its thousands of rural Negroes, has always constituted a potential source of labor. But this supply was not drawn upon to any extent until the existing labor force, both immigrant and native, organized and struck. And even then Negroes did not enter the industry in any great numbers until the World War, when the abnormal increase in production and the army's drain on man power combined to create a labor shortage.

From 1875 to 1914, Negroes were admitted into northern steel plants chiefly as strike-breakers. Among the first to be recruited for this purpose were some Negro puddlers from Richmond, Virginia, who were imported to break a strike in Pittsburgh in 1875. During the next decade a number of northern mills adopted the precedent established in the Pittsburgh plant. The practice became particularly common in the Pittsburgh area and finally precipitated a riot between white strikers and Negro strike-breakers. In a subsequent investigation, the district attorney denounced employers for importing classes of labor which result in the disturbance of the peace.

… strikers at the Elba Works near Pittsburgh attempted to resist the introduction of Negroes and precipitated a serious riot. In the course of an investigation which followed, the district attorney in open court denounced the employers for importing classes of labor which resulted in the disturbance of the peace. In every instance the Negroes brought in were men trained in the mills of the South.¹

Since most of the men imported from the South during this period were trained steel workers, Negro and white workers competed only in the skilled divisions of the iron industry. It was not until later that a much more acute competition developed between white and Negro unskilled workers in the steel industry.

Negroes were used as strike-breakers in many of the smaller industrial disputes that occurred around 1890, and in significant numbers in the great Homestead strike of that year. They were similarly used in 1901 to defeat the organizational campaign of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. It was in the steel strike of 1919, however, that their strikebreaking activity reached its greatest proportions. It has been estimated that 30,000 Negroes were recruited for the purpose of breaking the 1919 strike.²

During the World War, Negroes commenced to enter all northern industries in large numbers. The tremendous increase in the Negro population in various northern cities suggests the extent to which they were absorbed by industry. Between 1910 and 1920, the percentage of increase of the Negro population in Detroit was 611.3, in Cleveland 307.8, in Chicago 148.2, and in Pittsburgh 47.2. During the next decade (1920 to 1930), over 1,000,000 Negroes left their rural southern homes. Some of these moved to cities in the South, but most migrated to the North. This movement northward was only an exaggeration of the movement which took place slowly from 1900 to 1910, and rapidly from 1910 to 1920.³

In the beginning, the migration of Negroes to the North was largely stimulated by the labor agents of large northern industries. Black workers were brought in primarily to supply the demand for labor in some of the country's largest steel plants. The first large scale importations of Negroes were made into Pennsylvania. Other states engaged in the production of steel also received much of the influx. Ohio was generously visited. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron and Youngstown were popular centers. Indiana, which had in the past been the destination of many Negro migrants, caught the flood proceeding up the Mississippi Valley … Gary and Indiana Harbor … developed an almost entirely new Negro population. But of all the steel-producing states, Illinois received the heaviest quota.⁴

The number of Negroes employed in steel mills increased with the growth of the Negro population in steel-producing centers. In 1900 the Negro population of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, was 27,753. By 1910 this number had increased to 34,217, and at the end of 1917 it had reached 66,000. The Carnegie Steel Company (situated in Allegheny County) employed only a handful of Negroes in 1910, but the number swelled to 1,500 in 1916, and the Carnegie Company

… almost trebled its working force of Negroes between 1916 and 1917, when 4,000 were employed; the Jones and Laughlin Company with 400 Negroes in 1914 had 1,500 in its payroll in 1917; the Crucible Steel Company with 150 Negroes in 1916 had 400 the following year. Some plants which had no Negroes in 1916, due to the acute labor shortage, employed Negroes ranging in numbers from 50 to 200 in 1917.⁵

There were less than 100 Negro steel workers in the Allegheny district in 1910, in 1915 there were 2,500, and in 1916, 8,325. At the peak of employment in the industry, in 1923, there were 16,000 Negroes in the iron and steel industry, which number constituted 21 per cent of the total of steel workers in that area. An official of the Carnegie Steel Company said:

As far as I am concerned I believe that the Negro has been a life-saver to the steel company. When we have had labor disputes, or when we needed more men for expansion we have gone to the South and brought up thousands of them. I don't know what this company would have done without Negroes. [Interview (Homestead, Pa.) July 6, 1934.]

Clairton, Pennsylvania, a small community just outside of Pittsburgh, is the site of one of the plants of the Carnegie Steel Company. The experience of this community with the importation of Negro labor is more or less typical of the district. Negroes first came to Clairton in 1911 when the company began importing them from the South. The company recruited Negroes more or less steadily between 1914 and 1919, mainly from Richmond, Virginia. According to a Negro who had worked as a labor agent for this plant, Negroes in 1915 made up 50 per cent of all common labor in the mill. In 1916 a white labor agent in Charlottesville, Virginia, arranged for the transportation of 150 or 200 Negroes who were shipped directly from Charlottesville to Clairton. And, during the strike of 1919, the Negro agent estimated that well over 100 Negro strike-breakers entered the plant. From 1922 to 1924 a number of coke ovens were installed, and Negroes were used almost exclusively to operate them because of the unpleasantness of the work and the intense heat. With the installation of each new battery of ovens, more Negroes were brought to Clairton. Many of these later migrants came from Petersburg, Virginia.

As the movement of Negroes to the North increased and gained the momentum of a mass exodus, labor agents were not always necessary.⁶ The North exerted an attraction which the South could not counteract even with the promises of wage increases and of a new liberality in the social attitude toward Negroes which it offered in an attempt to retain its departing labor force. The demand for more southern Negro labor in the North did not end even after the war. A major cause of this continuing need for labor was the change in the national immigration policy.

In 1921 the immigration law cut off most of the European labor supply. In the preceding ten years of unrestricted immigration, over 10,000,000 immigrants had entered the United States. Successive laws restricted this influx until in 1924, under the National Origins Plan, only 250,000 European immigrants were permitted to enter the country annually. Thus, from 1921 on northern industries found it necessary to draw upon the South for their unskilled labor supply.

THE NEGRO IN STEEL—1910-1930

According to various census reports, the number of Negroes in the iron, steel, machinery and vehicle industries increased eleven-fold between the years of 1890 and 1930. In 1930, there were a quarter of a million Negro employees in these combined industries.⁷ The number of Negro laborers in the United States employed in blast furnaces and steel rolling mills, increased from 13,417 in 1910 to 42,445 in 1920, and fell to 38,915 in 1930 (see Table 1). The increase between 1910 and 1920 amounted to 216.4 Percent as compared with an increase of 33.2 per cent in the total number of laborers in the industry (see Table 2). The per cent increase of native whites was 84.45 while there was a decrease of 1.7 per cent in the number of foreignborn whites and a decrease of 30.1 per cent for other races⁸ during the same period. Between 1920 and 1930, the number of Negro laborers decreased 8.3 per cent as compared with a decrease of 8.9 per cent in the total number of laborers in the industry and a decrease of 29.8 per cent in the number of foreign-born whites. The number of native white laborers increased 13.5 per cent during this interval, while those belonging to other races increased 69.9 per cent. During this decade, Negroes met competition in their bid for laborers' jobs in steel from both the native whites, who contributed 11,161 more laborers, and the other races who added 9,087 members of their group to this class of workers.

TABLE 1. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF LABORERS IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES BY RACE AND NATIONALITY FOR THE YEARS 1910, 1920, AND 1930*

*From the Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Vol. IV, Population: Occupational Statistics; also the Fourteenth Census, 1920, and the Fifteenth Census, 1930, Vol. IV, Population: Occupations by State.

TABLE 2. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE AND DECREASE OF LABORERS IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES BY RACE AND NATIONALITY FOR THE YEARS 1910-1920 AND 1920-1930*

*From the Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Vol. IV, Population: Occupational Statistics; also the Fourteenth Census, 1920, and the Fifteenth Census, 1930, Vol. IV, Population: Occupations by State.

It is extremely unfortunate that more recent census data is not available. There is, however, some material on the racial distribution of steel workers which was gathered by the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1933 for code purposes. This material, unfortunately, is not comparable with the census data as it covers only the workers and plants affected by the iron and steel code (under N.R.A.). Some of the plants which were included in the census report were not subject to code regulation.

The following distribution was found at that time:

TABLE 3. WAGE EARNERS IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY (Subject To Code Regulation) BY RACE AND NATIVITY, JUNE, 1933*

*C. G. Daugherty and others: Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry, I, 112.

These figures show that there were 337,894 less persons in the iron and steel plants covered by the code than there were reported in the United States Census for 1930. There are several explanations for this: (1) not all workers enumerated in 1930 were in plants subject to code regulations; (2) it is the belief of some students that the 1930 census enumerated many who were not actually employed in the industry; and (3) there was some decrease in the number of persons employed in 1933 since this year fell at the height of the depression. There is also some difference in the per cent of each racial and nationality group to be found in the industry. Mr. Daugherty, who prepared this material, used the distribution of the racial and nationality groups as found in the 1930 census and applied this to the totals for 1933, since this latter information was not given by race and nationality. However, certain adjustments were made on the basis of information obtained from questionnaires and interview material. These changes showed an increase for the foreign-born white, the Negro, and other races and a decrease for the native whites. As the material for 1930 and 1933 is not comparable, little can be assumed from this comparison.

THE GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO LABORERS AND SEMI-SKILLED WORKERS IN STEEL

Of the total number of laborers in blast furnaces and steel rolling mills in the United States in 1910, 94.7 per cent were to be found in the Middle Atlantic, East North Central, South Atlantic, and East South Central States.⁹ Of the total Negro laborers in the industry, 96.6 per cent were concentrated in these areas. The distribution of Negro laborers, however, differed widely from the distribution of the total laborers (see Appendix C, Tables 26, 27, 28, and 29, for detailed distribution). The Middle Atlantic States contained 56.8 per cent of the total number of laborers but only 23.2 per cent of the Negroes in the industry. Twenty-nine and nine-tenths per cent of all laborers but only 10.7 per cent of the Negroes were to be found in the East North Central division. The South Atlantic and East South Central divisions presented a reversed distribution with respect to Negro and white labor. In the South Atlantic states there were only 3.9 per cent of the total laborers, but 20.2 per cent of the Negro laborers, while in the East South Central division the percentage of Negro laborers was even more disproportionate. Forty-two and five-tenths per cent of the Negro laborers, as compared with 4.1 per cent of the total laborers, were to be found in that section.

If we regard the Middle Atlantic and the East North Central states as the North, and the South Atlantic and East South Central states as the South, we find that in 1910, 86.7 per cent of the total laborers as compared with 34.0 per cent of the Negro laborers in the industry were located in the North (see Table 4). In the South there were 8.0 per cent of the total laborers and 62.6 per cent of the Negro laborers in the industry.

As a result of the extensive Negro migration to the North, the distribution had changed considerably by 1920. The percentage of the total laborers in the industry in the North decreased slightly to 85.9 per cent, while the percentage of Negro steel workers in that section increased from 34.0 per cent in 1910 to 64.1 per cent in 1920. In 1910 over 62 per cent of the Negroes in the industry were located in the South, but in 1920 only 32.7 per cent worked in southern mills. During the same period the total number of employees in the South increased from 8.0 per cent of 9.3 per cent. The absolute number of Negroes in southern mills increased from 8,103 to 13,491.

TABLE 4. DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL LABORERS AND NEGRO LABORERS BY SECTION FOR THE YEARS 1910, 1920, AND 1930*

*From the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth census reports of the United States.

The same trend, although it was less pronounced, continued through the next decade. In 1930, 71.6 per cent of the Negro workers in steel were in the North, and only 15.4 per cent in the South. This latter figure is striking when it is remembered that 62.6 per cent of all Negro laborers in steel were in the South in 1910. The influx of Negroes into northern mills between 1910 and 1930 is best illustrated, however, in the distribution of Negro laborers by states. Of the 12,938 Negro laborers in blast furnaces and steel rolling mills in 1910, Alabama accounted for 4,730. This number represented 36.6 per cent of the total number of Negro laborers employed in the industry (see Table 5). The extremely disproportional distribution of the Negro laborers is manifest when we consider that in that year only 3.0 per cent of the total laborers of the industry were located in Alabama.

TABLE 5. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL, NATIVE WHITE, AND NEGRO LABORERS IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS FOUND IN THE STATE OF ALABAMA FOR THE YEARS 1910, 1920, AND 1930*

*From the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth census reports of the United States.

In 1920 the percentage of Negro laborers in Alabama had decreased (from 36.6 per cent in 1910) to 21.7 per cent, and by 1930 Alabama had only 12.9 per cent of all Negro laborers in the industry. During this twenty-year period the percentage of the total steel laborers in Alabama remained almost constant. The absolute number increased from 4,730 in 1910 to 8,959 in 1920. By 1930 the number had decreased to 4,748—approximately the same number as were employed in that state in 1910. But while the 4,730 Negro laborers in Alabama in 1910 constituted 36.6 per cent of the total number of Negro laborers in the industry, the 4,748 in Alabama in 1930 were only 12.9 per cent of all Negro laborers in steel in that year (see Appendix C, Tables 26 and 27).

Five northern states—Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and Maryland (a border state)—reported rapid gains in Negro steel laborers during this period. Table 6

TABLE 6. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL NEGRO LABORERS IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS BY PRINCIPAL STEEL-PRODUCING STATES FOR THE YEARS 1910, 1920, AND 1930*

*From the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth census reports of the United States.

shows that in 1910 there were only three states with more than 1,000 Negro laborers. In addition to Alabama, Maryland had 1,181 and Pennsylvania 2,836. By 1920 there were five states, excluding Alabama, which had more than 1,000 Negro laborers in steel. Four of these five states had more than 2,000, two had over 5,000, and Pennsylvania had more than 14,000. Between 1920 and 1930 the total number of Negro laborers in these northern states increased from 27,080 to 29,253. However, there was a decline in the total number of Negro laborers in steel during this ten-year span, which is accounted for by the fact that the number in Alabama decreased from 8,959 in 1920, to 4,748 in 1930.

The distribution and trends in the distribution of semi-skilled Negro operators exhibit much the same pattern as that of Negro laborers (see Table 7. Two differences, however, are apparent. In 1910 only 45.4 per cent of the Negro semi-skilled workers in the industry were located in southern mills, while 45.7 per cent were to be found in northern mills. In 1930 over 28 per cent of the semi-skilled workers were still in the South (see Appendix C, Table 29).

TABLE 7. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF SEMI-SKILLED NEGRO OPERATIVES IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS FOR VARIOUS STATES FOR THE YEARS 1910, 1920, AND 1930*

*From the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth census reports of the United States.

Two centers of concentration of semi-skilled Negroes were discernible in 1910. Of the 1,658 semi-skilled Negroes in the entire industry, 635 or 38.3 per cent were in Alabama, and 501 or 30.2 per cent in Pennsylvania. Sixty-eight and five-tenths per cent of the total semi-skilled Negroes in the industry were in these two states. Ohio in that year accounted for only 147 or 8.9 per cent of the total.

By 1920, three centers of concentration of semi-skilled Negroes had emerged. The per cent of the semi-skilled Negroes in Alabama declined from 38.3 per cent in 1910 to 20.2 per cent in 1920. The per cent in Pennsylvania increased slightly from 30.2 in 1910 to 34.5 per cent in 1920. Ohio ranked third in 1920, with 17.1 per cent of the semi-skilled, as compared with 8.9 per cent in 1910. These three states reported 72 per cent of all semi-skilled Negroes in steel. There were also four other areas of lesser concentration in 1920: Illinois had 4.6 per cent, Indiana 4.8 per cent, Maryland 4.1 per cent, and New York 4.2 per cent of the semi-skilled Negro workers in that year. Of the seventeen other states listed as steel-producing centers, only four had more than 1 per cent of the semi-skilled; five had less than 1 per cent, and six listed no semi-skilled Negroes at all.

Numerous shifts in this pattern had occurred by 1930. Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Ohio accounted for only 66.4 per cent of all Negro semi-skilled workers in 1930, as compared with 72.0 per cent in 1920. While the per cent in Alabama declined from 20.2 in 1920 to 16.5 in 1930, and the per cent in Pennsylvania from 34.5 to 27.3, Ohio increased from 17.1 to 22.6 per cent and Maryland more than doubled its proportion, furnishing in 1930 9.9 per cent of the Negroes in this category. Other states which increased their proportion were: Indiana, which jumped to 8.3 per cent, and Illinois, which increased slightly to 5.2 per cent. New York decreased during this decade from 4.2 to 3.3 per cent (see Appendix C, Table 29).

The seven states (Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, and New York) which in 1920 reported 89.5 per cent of all semi-skilled Negro workers in steel, still accounted for 87.3 per cent in 1930. However, a definite dispersal of the Negro semi-skilled occurred during this decade. This dispersal seems to reflect the operation of two factors. The first is the migration of Negro workers from south to north, and especially the movement out of the East South Central States. This migration, however, is not so marked among semi-skilled Negro steel workers as it is among Negro laborers. The second is the movement of all workers from older to newer steel-producing centers.

1. Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, The Black Worker, p. 250.

2. Ibid., p. 261.

3. Sterling D. Spero and Abram L. Harris, Negro Problem, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, XI, 343.

4. Emmett J. Scott, Negro Migration During the War, pp. 57-58.

5. Abraham Epstein, The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh (unpublished thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1918), p. 31.

6. The Department of Labor, in the effort to relieve this shortage, through its employment service, at first assisted the migration northward. It later withdrew its assistance when its attention was called to the growing magnitude of the movement and its possible effect on the South. (Scott, op. cit., p. 53.)

7. The census classification iron, steel, machinery and vehicle industry covers the following specific industries: agricultural implement factories, automobile factories, blast furnace and steel rolling mills, car and railroad shops, iron foundries, ship and boat building, wagon and carriage factories, other iron and steel factories. Later specified metal industries and automobile repair shops were added.

The present investigation covers only blast furnaces and steel rolling mills. The following census data bear almost entirely on this industry alone.

8. Native white, as it is used in this study refers to native-born whites of native, foreign, or mixed parentage. Foreign white refers to all foreign-born whites. Under other races the census enumerates all non-white people except Negroes. Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Mexicans, etc., come under this classification.

9. States are grouped into the following divisions by the United States Census—Middle Atlantic: New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; East North Central: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin; South Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; East South Central; Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.

PROBLEMS OF THE NEGRO STEEL WORKER

THERE are problems which the Negro steel worker shares with all workers in the steel industry or, for that matter, with all workers in any industry. The Negro worker, like the white worker, is affected by the general working conditions in the industry; he has an equally vital interest in such matters as hours, wages, and collective bargaining. The policy of the steel companies with respect to these, and other similar problems, affects black and white steel employees alike. However, in addition to the problems which are common to all workers, the Negro is forced to meet a set of problems which tend to be more or less exclusively his own. The racial prejudice in the United States against Negroes manifests itself in the industrial sphere in the form of limited industrial opportunity. This is true in the North as well as in the South. It has been true in the steel industry, as in all industries.

When the Negro migrated to the North, and entered the steel industry, he was at first satisfied with the mere fact that he had obtained a job—any kind of a job. But as time passed, he came to realize that although he possessed industrial capabilities equal to those of white workers, his opportunities for advancement were not equal. This realization resulted in a growing dissatisfaction, which culminated (among some Negro workers) in open resentment. Others developed a fatalistic resignation to the situation, supported as it was both by the management and by white wrkers.

NEGRO JOBS IN STEEL

The type of work to which Negroes have been assigned is the source of an awakening dissatisfaction and unrest among the steel workers. With his longer experience in industry, the Negro's uncritical acceptance of any cash-paying job has given way to an objective evaluation of his position and a consequent realization of his exploitation. He finds that he has consistently been given the dirtier, more unpleasant, and lowest-paid jobs.

There has been a tendency in American industry for the various nationality groups (as the length of their residence in the country increased) to rise in the occupational hierarchy, and for jobs on the lower levels to be successively filled by the most recent immigrants. Early immigrants from Northern Europe, such as the English and the Germans, were among the first to enter industry, and after a period of years they rose from laborers to highly skilled and even executive positions. The same process has occurred to some extent in more recent years among immigrants from Southern Europe, although this group has not been nearly so mobile as were its predecessors. Among Negroes, however, occupational succession has been very, very slow, and there are definite limits beyond which the Negro steel worker cannot rise. There has been only a very slight trend upward in the occupational hierarchy on the part of Negro workers, in spite of the fact that Negroes have been employed in the steel industry in considerable numbers since 1900.

The exact extent of occupational succession among Negroes in the steel industry is extremely hard to determine, because of the lack of specific data. Census returns for the industry by states do not report the material beyond the categories of common labor and semi-skilled operatives, and material on the industry as a whole is given for only two years—1910 and 1930. Although this latter information is helpful in giving some idea of the movement of racial groups within the industry as a whole, it offers no clue to the distribution of the various degrees of ascent over smaller, differential steel areas, and makes impossible even a loose correlation between the characteristics of a particular area and the degree of occupational ascent. The fact that different occupational classifications were used in the two censuses has introduced additional difficulties. The material does, however, give some notion of the extent to which Negroes have succeeded in gaining admission into the more highly skilled and more technical operations of the industry.

In 1910 there was a total of 401,039 employees in blast furnaces and steel rolling mills in the United States. Of this number 18,220 or 4.5 per cent were Negroes. The various occupations listed in the census have been divided into eight groups: officials, professionals, and highly technical; office employees; less skilled office help; standard crafts; skilled workmen in iron and steel; semi-skilled workers; laborers; (for 1910) all other occupations; and (for 1930) maintenance employees. Although Negroes in 1910 constituted 4.5 per cent of the total gainfully employed in the industry (see Table 8), they furnished less than i per cent of the employees in the first three divisions; only I per cent of the standard crafts, and 2.9 per cent of the skilled workmen. However, Negroes constituted 4.3 per cent of the semi-skilled workmen and 6.9 per cent of the laborers. Their disproportionately low representation in the higher occupational levels of the industry is apparent when compared with the occupational distribution of the native white. The foreign-born whites are also disproportionately concentrated in the lower brackets, but not to the extent that is true of Negroes (see Appendix C, Tables 30, 31, 32).

TABLE 8. COMPARISON BETWEEN PERCENTAGES OF NATIVE WHITE AND NEGROES IN VARIOUS RANKS OF BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1910*

*From the Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Vol. IV.

A further idea of the concentration of Negroes in the unskilled, lower-paid groups may be gained from an analysis of the percentage of the total Negroes employed in each rank. Of all Negroes employed in the industry in 1910, 73.6 per cent were laborers, 10.7 per cent were semi-skilled workers, and 8.2 per cent were skilled workers. But only 48.5 per cent of the total employees in the industry were laborers; 25.0 per cent of the native whites, and 67.1 per cent of the foreign-born whites as compared with 73.6 per cent of Negroes. Negroes were surpassed in this group only by the other races who contributed 85.3 per cent of their number to the unskilled labor category.

By 1930 the total number of employees in the steel industry had increased to 620,894, of which 52,956 or 8.5 per cent were Negroes (see Fig. I). Less than 1 per cent of the officials, office employees, and less skilled office help, a little more than 1 per cent of the standard crafts, and 4 per cent of the skilled workmen were Negroes (see Table 9). Negroes constituted 6.5 per cent of the semi-skilled workers. Only as maintenance employees and laborers did they contribute more than their normal proportion—i.e., a proportion equal to the proportion that Negroes comprised of the total number of employees. (Negroes may have been unduly represented among maintenance employes in 1910, also, but maintenance employees were not listed separately in the census in that year.)

TABLE 9. COMPARISON BETWEEN PERCENTAGES OF NEGROES IN TOTAL EMPLOYED IN VARIOUS RANKS OF BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS1 IN THE UNITED STATES FOR 1910 A 1930*

*From the thirteenth and fifteenth census reports of the United States. See Table 27 in Appendix C for a more complete table.

A disproportionate concentration in the lower ranks of the industry is less marked in the case of the foreign-born whites than it is of Negroes, but it is even greater among the other races. In 1930 other races constituted 1.8 per cent of the

FIG. I. PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS BY RACE AND NATIVITY IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES—1930

total steel employees and 3.9 per cent of the laborers. In no other division did other races comprise more than three-quarters of one per cent. But this is not particularly surprising, since members of other races have entered the industry more recently than any other ethnic group. In 1930 Negroes were distributed in the various occupational groups in the following manner (see Fig. II):¹

When these figures are compared with those for 1910 (see Table 10) it is apparent that there has been very little change in the distribution of the Negro in the occupational hierarchy during the twenty-year period. The percentage of Negroes who were laborers varied only fifteen one-hundredths of 1 per cent. The percentage of office employees, less skilled office help, standard crafts, and skilled workmen was smaller in 1930 than

WAGE EARNERS IN THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY BY RACE AND NATIONALITY ON THE BASIS OF SKILL, JUNE, 1933*

*Daugherty and others, op. cit., I, 112.

This classification results, in the case of Negroes, in very much the same sort of distribution. Using the classifications in the text, if we combine the semi-skilled worker (16.4%), maintenance employees (1.4%) and laborers (73.5%) we find 91.3% of the unskilled and semi-skilled Negro workers in these groups. Daugherty finds 91.6% of the total Negro workers in those groups. There is some difference, however, in the semi-skilled group.

Mr. Alba Edwards of the Bureau of Census has devised a social-economic grouping for classifying occupations by skill. The classification of employees in the iron and steel industry was not released in time to be included in this discussion. In Table 35 in Appendix C, however, the Edwards' classification of this industry for 1930 is presented.

FIG. II. PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF RACE AND NATIVITY GROUPS BY OCCUPATION IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES—1930

TABLE 10. DISTRIBUTION IN PERCENTAGES OF RACE AND NATIONALITY GROUPS BY OCCUPATION IN BLAST FURNACES AND STEEL ROLLING MILLS IN THE UNITED STATES FOR 1910-1930*

*From the Thirteenth Census of the United States. 1910, Vol. IV, and the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Vol. V.

in 1910. The only category to show an important increase was that of semi-skilled workmen.²

An examination of the ethnic distribution of employees according to the specific tasks which they perform reveals that in 1930 Negro steel workers were engaged almost exclusively in the performance of six operations. Ninety-two and two-tenths per cent of all Negroes in the industry were classified as follows:

*The census combines rollers and roll hands: most Negroes are roll hands, a semi-skilled operation.

Of the total number of Negroes employed in the industry 46.4 per cent were laborers or operatives. An additional 5.7 per cent were to be found in the following eight occupations, which are ranked according to the percentage of Negro workers which they contain:

The remaining Negroes in the industry were scattered throughout the various other occupations in very small numbers. Of the 277 Negroes listed as less skilled office help 120 or 43.3 per cent were shipping clerks. 195 or 18.3 per cent of those in standard crafts were brick and stone masons, and tile layers; 110 or 10.3 per cent of the group were engineers (stationary); and 303 or 28.5 per cent were machinists. 681 or 78.6 per cent of all Negro laborers in the semi-skilled category were operatives. And 927 or 28.2 per cent of the Negro skilled workers were listed as furnace men, smeltermen, and pourers, while 1,080 or 32.9 per cent were rollers and roll hands. The census does not separate the skilled operations from the semiskilled in either of these classifications, but it is safe to assume that in both groups Negroes do the less skilled work. Of Negroes classified as maintenance employees, 529 or 73.7 per cent were janitors.

The following list of the ten occupations, in which the percentage of the total number of Negroes employed in the industry was the highest, reveals clearly the concentration of Negro workers in the lower ranks of the occupational hierarchy:

Although Negroes are found in many of the departments in the blast furnace and steel rolling mill sections of the steel industry, they are almost completely excluded from the occupations which involve the least disagreeable tasks and pay the highest wages. The particular occupation beyond which Negro employees are not promoted may vary slightly from city to city, but the level for the industry as a whole remains approximately the same. In blast furnaces the highest position a Negro can obtain is that of keeper. It is a position of some responsibility and requires skill and experience. The number of Negro keepers, however, is very small. A few were found in such places as Rankin, Homestead, Duquesne, Aliquippa, McKeesport, Pittsburgh, and Braddock, in Pennsylvania. Negro workers in plants located in Gary and Indiana Harbor, Indiana; Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York; all reported that in their opinion, a keeper was as high as any colored man could get in that department. Most Negroes employed in blast furnaces are cindermen, daymen, and general laborers. Occasionally an isolated instance of a Negro who is a first helper may be found, but this operation is usually performed by native whites. The wages of a first helper are based on a tonnage rate, and may vary from $10 to $15 a day. Keepers may average around $7 to $8 a day, whereas laborers receive from $3.60 to $4.40 a day, with the majority receiving about $3.60.³

In the open hearth department most of the Negro workers who were interviewed were convinced that the highest position they could possibly attain was that of first helper. It is extremely unusual to find Negroes in this position at all, and (with the exception of the mills in Homestead and Duquesne, Pennsylvania) there are few plants in the country where Negroes are first helpers. Most Negroes in the open hearth, as in the blast furnaces, are common or semi-skilled laborers.

In the rolling or hot mill there is an unwritten law that rollers' jobs belong to whites, and usually native-born whites. Rollers are the aristocrats of the mill; they have a high degree of skill and receive the highest pay. The unanimous testimony of hundreds of Negro steel workers confirmed the following statement: Colored work on the hotbed and as steel catchers and on the labor gang, but the big jobs as on the rolls he ain't gonna get [Interview (Gary, Ind.) August 28, 1934]. Negroes do work on the less skilled jobs in the rolling mill. They are often found in large numbers in the soaking pits. This work is hot, and it is easier for employers to obtain Negroes to do it than whites. In most plants Negroes are used to a considerable degree as chippers, and in some plants as crane operators and dinky engineers.

Few are found in the standard crafts. In 1930, taking the industry as a whole, Negroes constituted only 1.3 per cent of the total number in the crafts. The superintendent of the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company explained:

No Negroes are in the standard crafts, such as carpenters, pipefitters, electricians, etc., and we have no Negroes in the machine shop. They are mostly in the producing plant and can work up as high as first helpers. [Interview (Homestead, Pa.) July 6, 1934.]

The assistant superintendent of a steel plant in Cleveland remarked: We have Negroes in practically all departments, but we do not have them working in the standard crafts, such as patternmakers, diemakers, and machinists. The reason for this, the employer explained, was that

There is some objection from the whites who do not want to work with them. But as time goes on, I believe much of this will be eliminated and Negroes will be in these crafts. [Interview (Cleveland, O.) August 10, 1934.]

There are Negroes in the finishing department as steel pilers and in the shipping department handling finished products but those having by far the highest number of Negroes are the general labor and yard departments. These departments usually furnish labor for various tasks in all parts of the plant and handle general maintenance work.

* * *

The subordinate position of Negro workers in the industrial hierarchy of the steel mills of the country is also reflected in their earnings. A recent study of the industry made an examination of pay rolls in a number of plants.⁴ Although there was no evidence of wage discrimination as between Negro and white workers in the same occupation the average hourly earning for the industry as a whole and for each steel producing district was lower for Negroes than for white employees. The average lower hourly earning for Negroes, the study explained, was due to the fact that colored employees were restricted to the less skilled and consequently lower-paid occupations.

In the twenty-one manufacturing departments in the iron and steel industry it was found that the average hourly earning of the 90,484 males (both white and colored) was 68.1 cents. For whites the average hourly earning was 69.5 cents but for Negroes only 54.6 cents, a difference of 14.9 cents. Each district reflected a racial differential in average hourly earnings. In the Eastern District whites earned 64.3 cents as compared with 52.9 cents for Negroes. The differential in the Pittsburgh area was 12.1 cents, whites receiving 69.8 cents and Negroes 57.7. The Great Lakes and Middle West district had about the same differential, 10.5, where white workers averaged earning 70.5 cents and Negroes 60 cents. The greatest difference in the earning of Negroes and whites was to be found in the South. Negroes in the Southern region showed average hourly earnings of 46.3 cents as compared with 70.8 for whites, a difference of 24.5 cents.

The smallest differentials, it will thus be seen, occurred in the Pittsburgh and Great Lakes and Middle West districts, which also had the smallest proportion of Negro labor. In the East, on the other hand, where the colored employees constituted a substantial part of the labor force, the differential was somewhat wider than in either of the first-named regions. The greatest differential was found in the Southern region, which showed also the highest percentage of Negro workers.⁵

TABLE 11. AVERAGE HOURLY EARNING OF WHITES AND NEGROES BY DISTRICT, MARCH, 1935*

*From Earnings of Negroes in the Iron and Steel Industry, Monthly Labor Review, March, 1937,

The reason for the low average hourly earnings for Negro workers is apparent when the distribution of workers according to earnings is made for the industry. In the plants examined 27.0 per cent of the Negro employees earned less than 45 cents an hour as