Non-union workers have no way to redress poor treatment
Miller and her coworkers, most of them African American women, endured the verbal abuse of their white foreman to keep their jobs. Until the arrival of the union, Miller and others had no way to address the foreman's habit of favoring certain workers or firing them with little cause.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Dora Scott Miller, June 6, 1979. Interview H-0211. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
Can you tell me about the relationship between you and the foreman? Did
black women have a nice or cordial relationship between…
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Well, we had one of the toughest was the boss. He was a one-eyed fella
named George Hill. He was tight! He was out of South Carolina, and he
was tight. I mean tight! He'd get on top of them
machines—they had a machine that altered the
tobacco—he'd get on top of that machine and watch
you see if you was workin' all right and holler down and
curse.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
He would curse in your presence?
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Curse and we workin'. That's what we had to
undergo. Holler down and say, "D … go to
work!" "GD … go to work there; you all
ain't doin' nothin'"
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
And you said nothing?
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Nothing. No, you didn't say anything. You said anything, you
went out.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
Do you recall any problems black women might have had in regard to any
women who might have gotten fired?
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Oh yes, quite a few of them got fired. Then he had some pets. A girl
right over here on Roxborough Street was one of his pets. She
livin' there now.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
What you mean by "picks?"
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
His "pets"—had some pets.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
What did they receive?
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Give them a break, didn't work them hard like he did the rest
of them.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
Why did some of the women get fired?
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
He just didn't like them and said they weren't
doin' anything and fire them. If they
didn't like you, they'd fire you in a minute. Some
of them'd go over board to—I don't know
what else they did—but anyway, he had pets on the
job—quite a few pets.
- BEVERLY JONES:
-
For no reason, he would just say, "You got to go."
- DORA SCOTT MILLER:
-
Yeah, he just tell them they had to go and that was it. Sometimes he send
you home for two or three days, and then sometimes he'd fire
you. Weren't nobody to take up for you, but when the union
came about, you had shop stewards. They'd take your case to
the foreman and discuss it. That's what I did; I was a shop
steward.