Viewing page 19 of 100

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

CHARLESTON'S LEGACY      O'DELL 
beginning to develop a nation-wide mass movement of the poor. And only a sustained militant mass movement will push this nation towards making a firm national commitment to abolish poverty. Contrary to the fantasies and folklore of this society, there is no inherent good in the American Way of Life which makes progress and social change automatic. 
Charleston forged a unity between the community-organizing techniques developed during the civil rights era of the Freedom Movement and the working class organizational techniques of strike action developed by the labor movement. This is an effective combination of applied techniques which will undoubtedly be sharpened by experience in the months ahead. One of the special qualities to be noted in the Battle of Charleston is that this experience tested and proved, once again, the tenacity and fighting spirit of women workers when confronted with the arrogant power of The State. 
Charleston as an experience also had its share of weaknesses. Neither the South Carolina AFL-CIO nor the Central Trades and Labor Council in Charleston really supported the hospital workers' organizing effort. The leadership of these bodies gave the lame excuse that this was a "civil rights struggle" so they couldn't support it! Despite this distorted view by the top bureaucracy, a number of individual union locals in South Carolina did make donations to the hospital workers. Even if it were strictly a civil rights issue, labor should have supported the strike. This limited support from labor saved the legislature from having to really deal with the issues in the strike. The South Carolina Legislature was in session during this entire time and the hospital administrators had been using as a dodge the excuse that there was no legislation which recognized the right of state employees to have a union. Had labor done its part, sufficient pressure could have been put on the South Carolina Legislature to make them write such legislation during this session. This obviously would have benefited tens of thousands of workers, black and white. Once again racism blinded the labor leadership to its responsibility to the white workers, who are certainly a majority of state employees in South Carolina. As a consequence, the legislative arm of The State was able to ignore the hospital workers' strike and proceed with business as usual. One could also be constructively critical of the inadequate involvement of the New York membership of Local 1199 in organizing public support for Charleston. 
These were some of the missed opportunities which the Charleston experience presented and it is important to call attention to them 

209

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-13 10:54:47