Eula McGill Interview 1

 EULA MCGILL: A view outside

GEORGE STONEY: Right, yeah.

MCGILL: I think that would --

GEORGE STONEY: Absolutely.

MCGILL: -- have a good side of the room there.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, sure, right. But, so we -- first we want (break in audio) for 44 years, from [whatever?] -- from --

MCGILL: Fall of? '39.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. (break in audio) Just start off then, s-- now.

MCGILL: June of '82.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now.

MCGILL: I went on the staff of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in the fall of 1939, and retired in June of '82. That was the, I guess, the most happiest time, I found that this is a union that had plans. And, uh, you had good direction, which is pretty well left up to your own devices, but you had direction. You had someone you could go to when you need your question answered. And, uh, you were furnished anything you needed to, uh, uh, educate you to the ways of the industry, and so -- and I started off as an organizer, trying -- uh, 00:01:00my first assignment was in Greenville, South Carolina, at the Wing Shirt Factory, one of the biggest shirt factories in the country. And I was there just a little while when, uh -- they had been trying to organize the clothing people by the Arrow plants. And the cutters in Detroit and New York, where the main headquarters was, had been organized for a good long while. And they never could get the rest of the workers to organize. In fact, some of the cutters used to spend their v acation coming to Atlanta, to try to help organize the Atlanta plant. Pete Zouble and Ed Duval. Well, uh, I -- I, uh was sent to Atlanta, and, uh, there I found, in Atlanta, here's the Arrow Shirt Company, who was the biggest shirt manufacturers. They didn't depend on blue-collar workers for 00:02:00their sales, they sold to the upper class. So we -- union labor couldn't touch them, because most of the people couldn't afford an Arrow shirt. Uh, I found workers in this shop making anywhere from 18 to 25 dollars a week, driving Cadillacs, and, uh, moneywise, they were just doing fine. Here I was, I told, uh, one girl, I went to see a girl one night, and they lived down in, uh, Jonesboro. Now I didn't have no car at that time, I was on the staff, making 12 dollars a week, getting my food allowance, and my room rent, getting three dollars a day to eat on and my room rent. And I couldn't afford an automobile at that time. And, uh, I, uh, I had to ride the streetcar, or walk. Fortunately, most of the workers didn't have a plan -- didn't have cars either, so you 00:03:00could have cottage -- what we call cottage meetings. Most of the workers lived near the plant, and you'd get somebody to have a meeting in their house who could give them eight or 10, 20 workers there. And I had a room with a family out there, and they had a big living room, and they let me use the living room for meetings. And, uh, of course, a lot of them was afraid to come. They wouldn't -- they would come to another worker's house. But, uh, I went out to talk to this girl one night, and, uh, she said, "Eula, I'm going to join the union, because my father was a good union man. And I believe in the union because he believed in it. But I don't believe y'all can get us any more money, I believe the company's paying us all it can afford to pay us." And I said, "Well, I don't know." I said, "I'll tell you this: We've never signed a contract without a wage increase, in fact, we'd only signed two in 00:04:00the South at that time." I wouldn't tell no lies. We never signed a contrac t without a wa-- wage increase, and hadn't all -- all of my lifetime, as a matter, we -- we never signed a contract without some wage increase. That was one thing we -- we insisted on. But, uh, I never will forget the night we ratified the contract in '41. And I was, uh, somewhere up in Tennessee working, and then, Gladys asked me to come back for the, uh, victory celebration, celebrating the contract. And she just, sort of, came up to me, and she said, "Eula, you remember night you'd come out and talk to me?" And I said, "Yeah." She said, "I bet you thought I was crazy." I said, "No, you was making more than I was." Then I said, "I told you the truth." Then I said, "Did you get a wage increase?" She said, "Lord, yes, and a good one." She said, "Isn't it funny how -- how little we knew?" And I said, 00:05:00"Well," I said, uh, uh, "with the union, if the company says they can't give you a wage increase, you can force them to prove it." And that's the difference in taking their word. You may believe them, but if you t ake them on belief, then you could be selling yourself short. It's best to have proof. So, uh, that's, uh -- uh, one thing that I found out, that you don't always come out -- and when you're organizing, you don't always tell the worker what you can get if you got a union. First, find out what they got. If they got one more little thing to their advantage that the union don't have, they'll play that up. I don't need a union, I got this, the union ain't got it. The main thing that you need to, and I think need to talk to workers when they organize is your job security. And to me, that's more important today, because the way the industry is today, you don't know who you're working for. And, uh, if you 00:06:00don't have some -- there's no laws can be passed to protect you. Laws are passed to -- the good employers go on and do right, then they felt they were above the law. The few bad ones can destroy the whole industry. So, the laws, uh, won't work. Uh, you have to have some way to deal with the boss on equal footing if you want to, uh, and the only way I know to do that is to have a union. A free trade union.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now, how have you been spending your time since you retired? Just like you covered --

MCGILL: I didn't know what I'd do. I -- I thought, Well, the union can't do without me. I don't know what in the world the unions is going to do. I always felt like I had all the answers, and, uh, I was more concerned with what was going to happen to the union than what was going to happen with me, I wouldn't be there to get my two cents in, I somebody got off. No, the power of 00:07:00it asides, I -- I really knew, I did not realize what pressure I was under until I did. You see, I had -- I had been a business agent for years. I was an organizer, I was a business agent. I went back on the staff in -- went back on an organizing staff in the early '50s. And I had been on the organizing staff, and so, co-director in the Southeast, and, uh, the lower Southeastern states, from '55 until '76, when Charlie English asked me if I'd come over here, and take over the North Alabama area, (inaudible). And, uh, I, uh told Charlie, I said I'd never. He asked me would I come? I said, "I'll never. I go wherever you tell -- tell me t o go. I'll go anywhere." I never, uh, res-- resigned to some place that I think, Oh, I hate to go there. I was trying to 00:08:00look to -- like my daddy told me, "When you go on a job, if you don't like it, try to look at something good about it, instead of dwelling on the bad, and you'll get along." That's how a person you -- that's how I looked at a new place to organize. I tried to look for the positive thing. But I came back over -- over here in '76, and retired from where I started out from. But I, uh, I liked organizing, but to me, once you get a union, and you can see the results of what the union can do is more satisfying. I got a letter the other day from a young man who was instrumental in getting on staff. And, uh, he had just sat on a big case, and he sent me all his newspaper articles. And, uh, it was one of the biggest things that he had been able to do. And he had a big, favorable 00:09:00write-up in the local town paper. And, uh, he wrote me a letter, and was telling me, you know, how appreciative he was tha t I started him off, and that he wanted me to -- to see. I wrote him back, and I said, "You see, Canibal this one, makes it all worthwhile. Seeing the results, you were able to help people do -- see, organizers don't organize nothing. People organize, and you just the leader, and to help them answer questions, and help them obtain it. They have to organize. But, if they'll stick together, if like, they were talking union, if you all stick together, it won't be long, you could have vacation, holiday, and they'll pay, take you out to the seashore. And that's the key, and that is the most gratifying thing, I think, and I -- I've never forgotten, in the whole years, and no matter how high rose the union, or how much money I 00:10:00made as a staff member, I never forgot that I once worked in that mill, too. And if old man Ames hadn't fired me (laughs) in 1936, I might have still been in there, if I had been a living. And I have never forgotten that. And when I organized the business station, and a worker came with me, I don't care how frivolous I thought she was talking about. If she had a problem, whether it was in her mind, real, or imaginary, she had a problem, and I had a problem, and in some way, know that we hadn't solved that. And I had never forgotten, and the day I left, I felt just the same way about the union as the day I started out. That's the only answer for working people.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, tell us about, just very briefly, you spent your day, League of Women Voters --

MCGILL: Oh, ooh, forgot, yeah, definitely --

GEORGE STONEY: -- uh, they -- the, uh, Democratic Committee, uh --

MCGILL: Oh --

GEORGE STONEY: -- this, that, the -- the -- all the kinds of things you got --

MCGILL: Well, there's a lot, uh, as a start --

GEORGE STONEY: The first one --

MCGILL: -- I'd say that I got sidetracked, uh, about when I tried retiring, I wondered what in the world I'm going to do with myself. But then, I thought about all the things that I couldn't do, because of moving around, that I couldn't get in the Democratic Party, like I wanted to. I'd always admired the League of Women Voters as being able to do things for -- because they was non-partisan, nobody can say there's a special interest group. There were so many ways that I can help them further. The, uh, union and politics, by being in an organization that had clout. You can join, uh, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, you don't have the clout, because you're tied with the union. You can belong to the, uh, National Organization of Women, but again, you got -- either that, or, they think you're all about the women's issues. When you come to 00:12:00the women's trade union, uh, League of Women Voters, you have uh, uh, uh, an organization that votes only on issues, non-political. I worked only on issues, and I always felt best when I'd like to work. And I joined it. The first thing after I retired. I joined the, uh, League of Women Voters here, and got active, I only said one thing, I won't take an office, because I couldn't be political. You can't -- that's one thing, if you're an officer in the League of Women Voters, you can't take no side in partisan politics, you got to be fair. So -- but I can do work, and, uh, I work, uh, the Democratic Party. And, uh, I think that the -- I'm working very hard with some of the people in the Democratic Party now who thinks we've got to go back to our old ways of what we stand for, and quit com-- quit complaining about what Republicans are doing, and promote our issues, promote our program, the program that got us 00:13:00where we got. And so many people don't realize that young people don't know what the Democratic Party stands for. Oh, everything today they've got, the Democrats got it -- Democrats got it for them. They don't realize that. And if we don't tell them, they'll never know it. And i f we don't tell it, nobody is. And I have -- I've found -- find plenty to do, plenty to do, because there's a lot to be done. And I still, uh, work with Jobs With Justice. I'm very, uh, strong, and I see our way getting pretty close to a national health program that I've devoted my whole -- th-- that's my number one priority. When I first began to talk to it -- to Congressmen, Senators, they would pay no attention. I remember first talking to -- to my Congressman, he said, "you will never get that." I said, "no, we won't, we're going to try." I feel we're getting close to it. This bill's going to be up now. I 00:14:00never let a month go by I don't write my congressman, and my two senators, reminding them, and sending info. Just last week, I sent them newspaper clippings with the AMA, American Medical Association, that stepped out in favor of it. When the businessman says we've got to do something about health costs, they're tired of all the red tape, they don't pay for it, they say it costs us too much, hell, they d on't pay for it, comes out of wages. It's the red tape, and all that. We're close to it. If -- if we beat down opposition, uh, which is the biggest American Medical Association, and the business community, that only leaves the politicians, so we've got to get our side. And I'm working very hard. And that's my main objective right now, is that we don't get that. This country is a shame, that people can wave flags, and talk about what we done in Desert Storm, and people sleeping on the streets in this 00:15:00country. No education, no health care. We could turn, we can -- before we start setting examples for the world, let's clean up some things here. Let's do something about this. Then we can -- how can we have standing in the world if we don't do it here? How can we -- we stand, and say, "We're the greatest country," when all our money's coming from somewhere else, to run these programs, what they are. We have got to get back -- the Democrats have got to get back to basics, what they all stood for all their life is a part, and, like one of the guys said, "We don't need two Republican parties."

GEORGE STONEY: OK. That's great. OK, now, you have some -- let me see --

JUDITH HELFAND: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: Uh -- (break in audio)

MCGILL: -- picture of my, uh --

JAMIE STONEY: Hold on a second, let me count. One, two, three, four, when you're ready.

MCGILL: This is a picture, it was taken, uh, at a sawmill in North Georgia. It was back before I was born, I was born in 1911, I'd say around 1910. And in that picture is, uh, I can recognize my father, and my uncle, my mother's, uh, one of my mother's brothers at a sawmill in North Georgia. This is a picture of my mother's two younger sisters, Florence, and Reena. Florence Jackson, and Reena Moore. This is a picture of my father and mother, made about 1919, in Gadsden, Alabama. This is a picture of me dressed up like Rudolph Valentino, this in Fairfield, Alabama, around 1920-- I was 14, about 1923. This is a 00:17:00picture of my, uh, class, with our teacher, Bessie Moon, and made in Gadsden, Alabama, about 1922 or '3. This is a picture of my son when he was six years old, see, made in Ensley, Alabama. This is a picture of, uh, organizer, the textile organizer Albert Cox, and myself, and, um, his bodyguard, Clyde Ware, made in our front yard in Ensley. This is a picture of part of a parade held in 00:18:00Cordova, Alabama, in 1936. And this is another picture of a parade, showing the group from the local union 1847, people who were employed at the Indian Head, uh, cotton mill there in Cordova.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, just talk a little bit about that local, because it didn't fall apart when -- after the strike.

MCGILL: This Local, uh, existed from the -- it was organized during 1934, and remained in operation, with a full strong labor union, until the plant closed, uh, in the '60s, 1960s. This is a group, uh, of people who was going to the, uh, convention of the women's trade union league in Washington, DC -- DC in 1937, it is showing a picture with Miss Dowd reading a letter from Eleanor 00:19:00Roosevelt, inviting us to be her guest at the White House during, uh, that week of the convention. It's Mr. J.C. Cooper, who represented the, uh, Federal Commun-- oh, it was Conciliation, Mediation Service, during the '30s in Alabama.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, why would you have a picture of him, J.C. Cooper?

MCGILL: Well, uh, he was a former very, uh, he was a former railroad worker, and, uh, he was just a very -- he did a lot of favors for us, uh, beyond his call of duty, let's say, especially at the time that Homer Welch was in -- in jail in Talladega, and they had a bunch of women locked up in -- in the jail who had been shot in the back with buckshot. And he used his position as United 00:20:00States -- representing the United States government to get medical -- medical, uh, attention for those women in the Talladega jail.

GEORGE STONEY: So, uh, actually, those -- all of those federal people weren't against you?

MCGILL: Oh, no, I think, uh, most people, we've had a few that -- that most people that work for the federal government in the Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the -- and the National Labor Relations Board, and things like that. They were there to represent the labor side. We felt that they were fair -- fair, and impartial in their dealings. And that was really all we were asking for. This is a picture of my sister, my older sister, and the only sister I have, and my two nieces, Joyce, and Mary Francis, made in Ensley, about 1933, 00:21:00no, '34, something like that. This is a picture made of me, and, um, a worker out of a shop in Knoxville that was trying to help us organize, Loretta Monroe, whose husband was a member of the topographic union, worked on the Knoxville News-Sentinel in 1940, made in the streets of Knoxville. This is me in 1940, with the first, uh, car I owned. And if you've noticed there I was rationing gasoline, and I had a C license. That meant 10 gallons a week for our Buick. And I never wa s able to get an A card, until we were able to get some people from the labor unions over war rationing board. This is a picture of me, uh, speaking 00:22:00on behalf of organizing the South, at a convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1946 in Atlantic City. This is a picture of, uh, me with a group, uh, Cindy Hillman, and Philip Murray, who was then head of the CIO, and Jacob S. Potofsky, who was, uh, executive vice president of Amalgamated, and two delegates from Texas, at the 1946 convention in Atlantic City of Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. This is two union org-- uh, uh, officers of Local 525 in Huntington, Tennessee, uh, made at a installation of officers we had, and notice our beautiful corsages. One is shop chairlady, Minnie Ho on the left, and 00:23:00myself in the middle, and Donnie Van Cleve, who was executive board member, on the right. This is a picture made at the convention in 1946 of Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. Uh, I can identify everyone except the young ma n on the right. Uh, on the left, I remember his face, I can't say his name, but then I'm next to him, and then August Perrandio is in the middle, and Ida Mae McAfee, and Otis Doggett. And this was made at Amalgamated convention, I would say -- I think it was the '46 convention too. I think that picture was made at the '46 convention, in front of the education booth. This is a picture of myself, and one of the strikers, uh, made at the strike we had in, uh, 00:24:00Newbury, South Carolina in 19 and 54 at the Newbury garment plant, and the union's still in existence there, the Local. This is a -- a group picture, uh, with Crystal Lee Sutton, who is the, uh, Stevens worker that the picture Norma Rae was made of, it was a -- we had a news conference on the strike, uh, the boycott, J.P. Stevens was boycotted, and then there's a delegation of, uh, of, uh, people from our Local and staff, along with Crystal Sutton.

GEORGE STONEY: So, uh, look at, just like, the camera, and tell me what you think about, uh, Norma Rae, that film. Just start off, uh, the Norma Rae, the film.

MCGILL: I think it was one of the best film--

GEORGE STONEY: No, no, you want to start over --

MCGILL: Oh. The picture Norma Rae, uh, so many times, uh, I don't know why, uh, I had been not -- ever been too happy with any pictures made about labor unions for the commercial market. On the Waterfront I thought was terrible, and that other one, um, about the Teamsters. Norma Rae come -- closetest, that's even a word isn't it--closetest -- come the closest to representing really how our campaign was carried on, also, I know it was dramatized to a certain esteem. The guy who played the organizer, I thought, uh, came over more like a real organizer than any picture I had, uh, seen.

GEORGE STONEY: Um --

JAMIE STONEY: What about Matewan? Did you ever see the movie Matewan? John Sayles' picture on the coal miners, and their organization, remember, Jim?

JIM: A coal miner?

GEORGE STONEY: Well, just, uh --

MCGILL: Commercial picture?

JAMIE STONEY: Yes. Yeah, it was done real well.

MCGILL: I never heard of it.

JAMIE STONEY: You have to rent it.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now, I want you to tell the camera, again, just start out, "Norma Rae," and, remember, the f-- the uh, the beginning scenes where they were showing what it was like to be in the mills, because we made the effort to (inaudible) --

MCGILL: I thought Shelly, uh, uh -- I was amazed, uh, how true, uh, uh, a textile worker she portrayed, Sally Fields. I was amazed at how -- how well she played the part of a -- of a -- of a cotton mill worker. And her father, the man who played her father, too, I thought it was real, real true to the -- too -- and the mill. Of course, it was made down here in Opelika in a union mill, and they had free run. Uh, well, I -- I, for one, I -- I really en-- enjoyed it, and 00:27:00I thought that Sally Fields, without ever being a -- a real tex-- textile worker, and the -- I think she played the part of a textile worker as good as anybody could.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, th-- that shows, uh, what is was like, the lint, the heat, and so forth, and so on, and we -- as I said, we may be able to -- to borrow a little bit of that footage, so, I just want you to s-- uh, just say that Norma Rae, the conditions shown in that were the way I remembered it.

MCGILL: Yes, uh, it was worse in the mill I worked in. The mill the picture Norma Rae portrays, especially humidifiers were run, because a lot of people don't know that you have to keep the humidity in a plant at a certain level in order for this yarn. And it has to be kept at that le-- level, and, uh, that's why the humidifiers, and then it has to blow in this one, you got to have a constant, think this was bad with the health of the textile workers, as much as the lint is that m-- humidity in there. I hated it. And, uh, it -- it made me 00:28:00sweat to look at her. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Good, OK. All right, now, if you (inaudible) -- you want to move over, and --

HELFAND: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: -- pass those things that you're heading under.

CREW: Any questions you got, I got about two minutes--