Os Cangaceiros
29th March 2012, 23:19
Sometimes it's difficult to see racism (as an economic policy) really spelt out in explicit terms, but here's a good example of one time that it was, which I found interesting, from "Fall of the House of Labor" by David Montgomery.
background: during the late 1890s, longshore workers in New Orleans established the hours they worked (9 hours a day), had the highest wages of dockers anywhere in the USA, and kept gang bosses (foremen) in check. A lot of this came about through the alliance of the black longshoremen's union and the white longshoremen's union, and generally a spirit of cooperation among black and white workers that transcended some of the racism of the south at that time. After a major strike
a Port Inquiry Commission was established by the state to examine the entire fabric of work relations in the port and propose remedies for those practices that made shipping from it more expensive than from it's rivals, Galveston-Houston, Mobile, and Pensacola. After the major steamship lines, unions, and the mayor proved unable to constitute a civic committee for this purpose, the state legislature created a Port Inquiry Commission of two state senators and three state representatives. It was through this governmental intervention that new contractual rules defining a "fair day's pay" were established.
Finally, the commission's final report identified the port's greatest problem as it's lack of racial segregation. "One of the greatest drawbacks to New Orleans is the working of the white and negro races on terms of equality," it concluded. "The Commission believes that this has been the fruitful source of most of the trouble on the New Orleans Levee." The commission denounced the half-and-half system as "altogether degrading for the white man" and recommended seperation of the races on the docks for "sociological reasons."
background: during the late 1890s, longshore workers in New Orleans established the hours they worked (9 hours a day), had the highest wages of dockers anywhere in the USA, and kept gang bosses (foremen) in check. A lot of this came about through the alliance of the black longshoremen's union and the white longshoremen's union, and generally a spirit of cooperation among black and white workers that transcended some of the racism of the south at that time. After a major strike
a Port Inquiry Commission was established by the state to examine the entire fabric of work relations in the port and propose remedies for those practices that made shipping from it more expensive than from it's rivals, Galveston-Houston, Mobile, and Pensacola. After the major steamship lines, unions, and the mayor proved unable to constitute a civic committee for this purpose, the state legislature created a Port Inquiry Commission of two state senators and three state representatives. It was through this governmental intervention that new contractual rules defining a "fair day's pay" were established.
Finally, the commission's final report identified the port's greatest problem as it's lack of racial segregation. "One of the greatest drawbacks to New Orleans is the working of the white and negro races on terms of equality," it concluded. "The Commission believes that this has been the fruitful source of most of the trouble on the New Orleans Levee." The commission denounced the half-and-half system as "altogether degrading for the white man" and recommended seperation of the races on the docks for "sociological reasons."