Memorandum on Portland, Oregon, Shipyards

To: Dr. Robert C. Weaver

From: Clarence M. Mitchell

Subject: Portland, Oregon Shipyards

[ca. October 10, 1942]

On Saturday, October 10, Clarence Johnson called from Portland, Ore., to say that he had just completed a meeting with Mr. Morton, chief counsel for the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company, and Mr. Murray, chief of personnel. In this conference the Kaiser representatives said that they had met with Thomas Ray of the Boilermakers Union in New York and Mrs. Anna Rosenberg, Regional director of WMC for New York. In this conference, according to the Kaiser officials, an agreement was reached that Negroes would be employed at the yards as they come in from New York, but Mrs. Rosenberg consented to a demand from Mr. Ray that those cleared by the Boilermakers would have to work on a segregated basis.1

Mr. Johnson feels that this would set a very bad precedent in Portland and particularly at the Company yards where between 600 and 800 Negroes are already at work on a non-segregated basis. Mr. Johnson states that to his best knowledge some of these are persons in trades covered by the Boilermaker’s charter and others were cleared by unions controlling, electrical work, painting, machine operation and ship carpentry. He fears that if the segregated plan goes through it will mean that the other unions may begin asking for the same thing. I agree with him that from my knowledge of the Portland situation this would simply result in endless trouble.2

The company officials are to have a meeting at 10:30 a.m. Monday, October 12 with the union representatives. Mr. Johnson will not be at this meeting, but he will meet with the company officials on Tuesday, October 13. He states that 145 Negroes had come in from New York at the time of our telephone conversation and 47 others were due in on Monday. A total of 2,448 persons have come in so far.

There are two very important issues tied up with this in my opinion. The first, of course, concerns the defiant attitude of the Boilermakers. Something should be done by William Green to bring [th]em into line. I am suggesting that this might be accomplished through Governor McNutt’s labor advisory committee. The second thing affects our own operations. It appears that Mrs. Rosenberg arrived at her agreements and conclusions without the benefit of advice from Mr. Lawson of our office. It seems that in any conference so important as this Mr. Lawson should have been present or at least advised of it in advance so that he could offer suggestions. When circumstances favor its presentation, I would like to suggest that this be ironed out through General McSherry to avoid its happening in the future.

MS: copy, HqR14, Records Relating to Hearings. Boilermakers, General Files.

1. This report was part of the response to Edward H. Lawson’s request of 9/21/42 to Robert C. Weaver, director of the Negro Manpower Service, for information on the employment practices of the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, one of the Kaiser Corporation shipyards in Portland. Lawson, a member of the WMC New York staff, reported that he had heard that the company was seeking to hire about twenty thousand men in New York City who would be transported to the West Coast to work in the shipyards there. He said that one of the administrators of the New York employment service informed him “confidentially” that Albert Bauer, assistant general manager of the Oregon corporation, had asked for the men, most of whom would be used as laborers or would be prospective trainees. Bauer, however, had stipulated “that no Negroes be referred.” The employment service refused to process the discriminatory order. For this document and other related texts—esp. “Summary of Kaiser Recruitment Program in New York City” [ca. 10/6/42], Lawson’s follow-up memoranda to Weaver of 9/22 and 9/26, and Clarence R. Johnson’s letters to Weaver and to Lawson of 10/12/42—see HqR14, Records Relating to Hearings. Boilermakers, General Files; and, for the broader context, see the headnote on the FEPC and Federal Agencies, sections on WMC and USES (esp. for Anna M.L. Rosenberg’s role) and the section on the Boilermakers in the headnote on the FEPC and Unions.


2. Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. had been in Seattle and Portland in August 1942 helping create “a great experiment—the importation of Negroes to work in the shipyards.” He had helped plan “the states from which they will be drawn, the way they will come and what will happen when they get there.” See Mitchell to Juanita Mitchell, n.d., quoted in Denton L. Watson, Lion in the Lobby: Clarence Mitchell, Jr.'s Struggle for the Passage of Civil Rights Laws 136; Mitchell, letter to Juanita Mitchell, 8/7/42, Clarence Mitchell Jr. Papers.