Monthly Report of Labor Secretary, September 3, 1947

MONTHLY REPORT OF LABOR SECRETARY

September 3, 1947

Loyalty Investigations

Some indication of the problem which may be expected in connection with the loyalty investigations in the government service was furnished when we received a telephone call from a government employee who asked whether she should say that she is a member of the NAACP. The form used in her agency requires that employees state the organizations of which they are members other than religious and political.1

Also, while talking with an official of the Post Office Department concerning a complaint from Fort Worth, Texas, it was disturbing to hear him say that the present loyalty investigations were a good thing because now agencies could find out who these people are who go outside to organizations for assistance. (The Post Office Department is currently under our scrutiny because of serious problems of discrimination which have risen in New Orleans and Forth Worth.2 This month, with the President and other representatives of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, we met with Civil Service officials to discuss some of these cases. The Commission gives little evidence of being helpful.)3

One of the members of the National Labor Committee recommended that a colored member be sought for the various loyalty boards established by government agencies. This matter has been submitted to the Assistant Secretary for a determination of whether as a matter of policy the Association wishes to make such a request.4

Apprenticeship Training

This month, we conferred with Secretary Schwellenbach of the Labor Department on problems of Apprenticeship Training Service.5 This service has given little attention to colored persons and we are especially anxious that the number of apprentices in construction trades be increased. Present estimates from the National Housing Agency indicate that approximately 2,000 colored people are in apprenticeship training in the building trades throughout the country. There are over 100,000 white persons.

Secretary Schwellenbach agreed to study our proposal that the apprenticeship promotion service of the National Housing Agency, which is scheduled for elimination due to curtailment in funds, be transferred to the ATS.6 Representatives of the AFL and CIO are backing this proposal also. In this connection, it should also be stated that we received a letter from the National Housing Agency indicating that Racial Relations Advisors in the field and Washington will be retained. The letter stated that “None of this would have been possible without your complete confidence and vigorous support.”7

How the Taft-Hartley Law Works

The first suggestion of what is in store for colored people under the Taft-Hartley Act came from the National Tube Company of Lorain, Ohio.8 When union representatives obtained the upgrading of some colored employees, the white individuals in the shop to which they were sent objected. These persons have announced that they will utilize the Taft-Hartley Law to secure a separate bargaining unit, and, thereby, be free to carry on discriminatory policies. I visited Lorain on this matter during the past month and pledged the union involved (United Steel Workers, CIO) that we will give full cooperation in helping to prevent the dissenters from making a successful attack on the union.9

We have received a communication from the Regional Office of the National Labor Relations Board in Baltimore indicating that a case filed by the NAACP which has been pending several months will now be considered on its merits.10 However, we have learned that, before a complaint will be issued against the party charged, the matter must be reviewed in Washington by Mr. Robert Denham, General Counsel for the NLRB. Several of Mr. Denham’s former associates and persons in labor unions charge that he has strong Anti-Negro bias. It is expected that this case will shed some light on his attitude toward colored people.

After clearance with the Legal Division, we prepared and circulated a memorandum exploding the false statements that the Taft-Hartley Law contained a little FEPC section as was stated in some newspapers.11

Segregation in Kansas City, Missouri

Word from the Kansas City branch indicated that some 200 colored workers in the Processing Division of the Bureau of Internal Revenue were being segregated. This division was recently transferred to Missouri from New York. We took this matter up with Secretary John W. Snyder of the Treasury Department. The following commitment was sent to us from George J. Schoenemon, Commissioner of Internal Revenue:

“The employment policies of the Bureau of Internal Revenue do not contemplate any distinction between individuals based upon race, creed, color or national origin in hiring, promotion or in the nature of working conditions and facilities furnished. Due cognizance will be taken of the statements made in your communication. If any corrective measures are found to be necessary in the practices followed by the Processing Division in order to bring them into conformity with these policies, you are assured that appropriate action will be taken.”

Columbia River Dam

Labor chairmen on the West Coast have expressed great concern about employment policies on a dam at Hermiston, Oregon which is on the Columbia River. According to their statements, colored persons are being denied employment in construction work. We have taken this matter up with the Army engineers since they are supervising it.

Migratory Farm Workers

With other groups, we have been working on problems of migratory farm workers. We succeeded in establishing a priority on the sales of camps for these workers which offers interested groups and state agencies a chance to acquire them. Under the former plan of the House Agriculture Committee, these camps were to be at the complete disposition of farm associations. We also arranged for the return of the Farm Labor Recruiting Service to the Department of Labor. We are planning a fall conference on this problem in Washington with other organizations. There is still a great need for proper legislative action.12

Reports from Branch Labor Committees

At the request of the Florence, South Carolina branch, we have taken up with the National Office of the Great Atlantic and Pacific stores problems of discrimination against colored persons in that area.

Mr. Kelly M. Alexander of the Charlotte, North Carolina branch has indicated that there is new activity in textile employment in his city. It appears that the branch will make a real effort to get jobs in the textile plants and has asked for our help in dealing with the national offices of the companies involved.13

The Cleveland Labor Committee is planning to work for the passage of a fair employment practice ordinance in that city.

Speaking Engagements

This month, I spoke at the National Convention of the National Alliance of Postal Employees. The occasion was a presentation of the NAACP’s medal for a five hundred dollar life membership taken out by the group.

MS: NAACP IX: 200, DLC.

[1] The NAACP’s concerns about activist blacks being charged with disloyalty were noted when William H. Hastie, nominated to be governor of the Virgin Islands, was accused of being disloyal to the American form of government by what the NAACP called “two anti-Negro members [Sen. James O. Eastland (D-Miss.) and Sen. Allen J. Ellender (D-La.)] of the Senate Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs.” Report of Leslie Perry, 10/45–12/46, NAACP II: A-654, DLC.

On March 22, 1947, in response to repeated allegations in Congress that communists held federal jobs and that the administration had done nothing about it, President Truman issued EO 9835, establishing an elaborate and unprecedented national security program that set loyalty standards. The order created the Loyalty Review Board within the Civil Service Commission to consider, as an authority of final appeal, cases of employees who were recommended for dismissal because they had been charged with disloyalty. New York Times 3/23/47, 1, 49. See also “Loyalty Check,” New Republic 115 (December 30, 1946): 898; Bontecou, Federal Loyalty-Security Program 1-33; and Watson, Lion in the Lobby 163–64.


[2] On Post Office discrimination cases, see 6/2/47 and references cited there.


[3] This meeting was a follow-up to Mitchell’s appearance before the Civil Service Commission Board of Appeals and Review in behalf of complainants who alleged discrimination by the Post Office in New Orleans. Mitchell informed Roy Wilkins that although the appeals representatives “listened attentively” to the complaints, they gave no indication of planning to resolve the problems except when one of them mentioned President Truman’s speech to the NAACP Annual Conference at the Lincoln Memorial on June 29, 1947. Mitchell memorandum to Wilkins, 7/7/47, MP.


[4] At its November 10, 1947, meeting, the NAACP board voted to express its concern that there were no African Americans on the LRB, the body that supervised the loyalty review boards in each department. White relayed this concern to the CSC, headed by Harry Mitchell. Minutes, 11/10/47, and Report of the Secretary, 12/47, 1–2, EC.


[5] This meeting between Mitchell and Schwellenbach occurred on August 14. Supporting Mitchell’s proposal that the Department of Labor accept the transfer of the apprenticeship training function and place it in the ATS, Walter White told Schwellenbach that with the current needs in the building trades, the construction industry was “a good place to give emphasis at this time.”White to Schwellenbach, 8/29/47, and Mitchell’s letter to White, 8/29/47, both in NAACP II: A-591, DLC.

The Apprenticeship Training Service (ATS) was established under the National Apprenticeship Act (or Fitzgerald Act) of 1937 to encourage the formation of workplace apprenticeship programs and the application of labor standards to apprenticeship contracts. During the war, the ATS was transferred to the Federal Security Agency (FSA) and then to the War Manpower Commission (WMC). In 1945 the national apprenticeship program was returned to the Department of Labor, where it was administered by the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training throughout the postwar period. Congress and the Nation 1220–21.


[6] This transfer was also related to the postwar reorganization of the federal government. Congress and the Nation 1456, 1458. For the history of the apprenticeship program, see Congress and the Nation 1220–21.


[7] See also 6/26 and 10/31/47.


[8] National Tube Company, Case No. 8-R-2476. The formal complaint to the NLRB was filed by Marian Wynn Perry, assistant special counsel, NAACP LDF, 1/30/48. It drew heavily on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co. and the Tunstall v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen cases, where it was established that no union acting pursuant to authorization by a federal agency under a federal statute could lawfully engage in discrimination. NAACP IX: 215, DLC.

On June 20, 1947, Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley labor bill; on June 24, the Senate joined the House in overriding the veto, thus making the bill law. New York Times 6/21/47, 1,2, and 6/26/47, 1. See also 3/1 and 6/2/47.


[9] Mitchell said the occurrence of the problems represented by the National Tube Company was “one of the things we predicted would happen under the Taft-Hartley Law.” Consequently, the Thirty- eighth Annual Conference of the NAACP passed the following resolution: “The Taft-Hartley anti-labor law is an incredible attack upon the rights of organized labor. It is false and misleading to consider any part of this measure as beneficial to colored people. We instruct the Labor Department of this Association to give its full support to plans and programs for the repeal of this law.” Mitchell’s letter to Meyer Bernstein, 7/16/47, Research Department, United Steelworkers of America, Pittsburgh, NAACP IX: 215, DLC.


[10] Mitchell reported, at 6/2/47, that this case—Standard Wholesale, Phosphate, and Acid Works— was filed on March 4, 1947. Even though he indicated some progress at 10/2/47, the NAACP legal department continued to press the case with the NLRB for more comprehensive reforms. See note at 10/2/47.


[11] This question pertained to Section 8 of the Taft-Hartley labor law. Mitchell memorandum, 7/2/47, to chairmen of Labor Committees, NAACP II: A-332, DLC. Thurgood Marshall, NAACP special counsel, with the concurrence of Roy Wilkins, NAACP assistant secretary, advised Mitchell to add the following language to make it easier for the layperson to understand his memorandum:

There has been some discussion that the Taft-Hartley Law has a “little F.E.P.C. provision” which will protect Negroes and other minority groups in employment opportunities. The answer to this is simple. There is nothing in the Taft-Hartley Labor Law which prohibits segregation by unions. There is nothing in it that will protect Negroes as such in their basic rights. There is nothing in it that has even a faint substitute for F.E.P.C. legislation and we hope that our branches will not be misled by this type of propaganda. (Marshall memorandum to Wilkins, 7/11/47, NAACP II: A-332, DLC)


[12] Mitchell told the Catholic Tri-state Congress in Grand Rapids that as far as the 4 million agricultural and domestic workers were concerned, the 80th Congress might as well have not been in session. “In the rush of a blind and selfish return to the normalcy of special-interest legislation,” he said, Congress had “ignored a permanent fair labor employment act.” He stated it failed “to consider broadening the social security act for the coverage of domestic and agricultural workers.” Congress pigeon-holed bills to raise minimum wage levels to more nearly meet the cost of living. Furthermore, he said that aside from church leaders, labor organizations, and groups such as the NAACP, few people were “giving attention to the great social problem presented by underpaid migrant workers and domestics.” Only when there was a “strong and certain demand from the people” would their plight be remedied. New York Herald Tribune 9/16/47, 7.


[13] For the continuing struggles in this area, see 12/30/46, 2/1, 6/2, 7/3, and 12/1/47, 3/1/48.