In a steel-manufacturing plant there was a total of 1,300 employees, of whom seventeen were Negroes, eleven men and six women. During the steel strike of 1919 Negroes were employed in this plant in large numbers. Feeling was antagonistic on the part of the whites, "particularly Austrians and Slavonians." The total number of Negroes employed during the strike and the turnover were reported as "an average force of 175."
Friction in the foregoing case was probably due to the heritage of bitterness over the use of Negroes as strike breakers and to irritation caused by the low grade of workers employed more than to difference in color. They were described by the manager as "irresponsible and shiftless."
In the other case fear of Negroes' competition rather than race prejudice was apparently the cause of friction. The manager of a wholesale millinery house employing forty-three girls in one department, out of a total of 700 employees, said:
We decided to take on colored help in June, 1919. Our white people resented very much the fact of employing colored people in our business, and I believe the blame, if there is any, lies as much with the whites as with the blacks in the difficulties we have had. I find a great resentment among all our white people. I couldn't overcome the prejudice enough to bring the people in the same building, and had to engage outside quarters for the blacks. We had a meeting of our colored operators after employing the hand workers. We thought it would be nice if we would start a school for machine operators. It was, of course, rumored that we were going to do this, and I received a delegation from our sewing hall who said they resented the idea. They wouldn't listen to it at all, and I had to abandon the project. Their argument was: "If you let them in it won't be long until we are out entirely." The attitude against the colored is only the same as it was against the Slavs or the foreign races when they first intruded in the field. There was no prejudice, particularly against the color. In millinery establishments in New York City colored girls and white girls work together and do not seem to have any trouble, but, we can't do it here.
The resentment felt by the white girls in this shop may be accounted for in part by a fact to which the manager apparently attached no importance. In speaking of the loyalty and good spirit of the Negro girls, he said casually:
In a few instances, where we have had difficulty in getting work done by the whites, we have been able to use the colored workroom as a level. We have sent it over to them and gotten it out. The white girls have refused either through stubbornness or some condition to get the work out.
Friction was also reported between women employees in a plant where relations between the men of both races were reported harmonious. This plant which manufactures machinery, has a total of 6,647 employees, including 1,225 Negro men and sixty Negro women. A representative of the company said:
Among the girls we had quite a lot of trouble in some departments against our hiring colored girls. To every colored girl employed we lost five white girls. There was friction in the washrooms due probably to race, though it may have been personal.
The report from a foundry employing 950 men, of whom 200 were colored, said:
As a rule if any objection is made to working together it comes from the white men (Polish) on the grounds that the colored man is being given the preference.