Crystal Lee Sutton, the Real "Norma Rae," Was a Fighter to the End

Our nation has lost a great hero and champion of working people. Crystal Lee Sutton was a courageous woman who stood up for herself and her coworkers under the most difficult circumstances. She was an inspiration to organizers in this union and beyond, particularly Southern women who went on to lead their own campaigns after learning from her example.

It's well known that Crystal's story was the inspiration for the academy award winning 1979 film Norma Rae, but I wish more people knew the real story of Crystal Lee Sutton and her co-workers, and the strength and honor they showed as they fought to organize the textile giant JP Stevens. They stood up and proved that workers in the South could organize and change their jobs and their lives against all odds--across racial lines, and over the objections of anti-worker companies.

For decades, JP Stevens called the shots in Roanoke Rapid, N.C., paying poverty wages and offering deplorably unsafe working conditions. Workers routinely lost fingers, inhaled cotton dust, and lost hearing due to the deafening drone of machinery. JP Stevens was so vehemently anti-union that it systematically purchased small unionized textile mills in the south only to close them down. But as determined as JP Stevens was to keep its workers down, Crystal Lee Sutton was even more determined to lift them up and bring them a union.

Sutton knew that she and her co-workers deserved more out of their employer, and in 1973 she found a way to bring that change when she agreed to help organize the plant with the assistance of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) and its lead organizer, Eli Zivkovich.

JP Stevens mounted the most vigorously hostile union-busting efforts ever seen in US history, amounting in over 122 unfair labor practice findings. But Sutton could not be deterred and at the end of a 10-year boycott, the 3,000 workers at JP Stevens won their 17-year fight with a strong contract.

She fought her whole life for working people, and as she fought cancer, she continued to be an advocate for the needs of working people. Once again, Crystal's story is of both an extraordinary woman and of every woman. Like so many other working families, after a lifetime of paying premiums her health insurance failed her. She took her challenges head on, and never stopped fighting for what was right. While she fought cancer she spoke out about the struggle she had with the health care system and the toll it was taking on her family.

Crystal Lee Sutton is an inspiration to every worker who holds out hope and is prepared to fight for justice and respect at work. Our condolences go to her family, but they should know that we will not forget her, and she continues to inspire our union and workers throughout the world.

Comments

[ImissBush]

Y isnt this a front page story here???

pathetic

[Byron Clemens]

remember Sol Stetin from Norma Rae campaign . . .

Stetin, 95, Labor Leader Who Unionized J. P. Stevens, Dies
May 24, 2005 from NY Times
He led the drive to unionize the J. P. Stevens , died in St. Louis. He was 95.
The cause was complications of leukemia.

In leading the organizing drive at J. P. Stevens, he spearheaded one of the most ambitious campaigns and one of the most publicized unionization. The effort, organized 3,500 workers at 12 t mills.

In 1975, he arranged for his 174,000-member union to merge with the larger Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. He pushed for the merger because it would make more money and manpower available for the Stevens campaign, on which the 1979 movie "Norma Rae" was based.

Sol Stetin was born 1910, in what is now Poland, near Lodz, that country's silk manufacturing center. When he was 10, his family immigrated, settling in Paterson. After quitting high school, Mr. Stetin became an amateur boxer and semipro basketball player, even though he was just 5 feet 4 inches tall.

He became active in the nationwide textile strike of 1934. He became a shop steward, organizer and director.

In 1968, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the Textile Workers Union, and in 1972 he became its president.,


After retiring he helped establish the labor museum, and taught university students how to organize unions.

At tge age of 95, he was still taking part in union protests, attending a rally in St. Louis.

[JGreenman]

Let the sunshine of truth help make Health Reform a reality!!!
WHAT is the name of the "Insurance Company" who initially denied Crystal Lee's treatment?????

[SayBlade]

This is a couple of days late, but I couldn't resist the question. It seems to me that this is a service issue. Services paid for were denied or were of poor quality.

While others continue the struggle to get some means of health care in the United States where no one goes without coverage and no one goes into bankruptcy here's a strategy:

Find out the name of the insurance company. Get Crystal Lee's family onside. Organise a boycott of that insurance company. Start a website documenting service levels of health insurance companies across the US. *Try* to reward companies that give better service.

Go very, very public.

[TMcKeon]

Ms. Sutton's fight to unionize her mill changed our nation. We've come a long way from the days when farmworkers were forced to "flag" cropdusters and use the fields as their bathrooms. The days when miners were forced to stay underground for shift after shift, never paid overtime and their lives as dispensible as an insect's. Today, most of us have reasonable working hours with at least a minimum wage and some benefits, but we're still taking it in the shorts from other directions: Health insurance companies, credit card companies, and banks. We all need to remember Crystal Lee and honor her life by continuing to fight injustices perpetrated by those in power. Rest in peace, Ms. Sutton. Your story shaped my character 30 years ago, which in turn has shaped the character of my daughters. You live in them.