Metodología empleada

Despite the unresponsive and at times abusive nature of management, a significant part of the collective identity promoted by management at the Firestone plant in Gastonia was that it was a sort of “family.” Most of the workers at the plant were employed there because their relatives

77_{Wanda and Phillip Goble, interviewed by Claude Wilson, King’s Mountain, NC, September 28, 2019.} 78 _Ibid.

were employees. Wanda Goble recalled a number of her relatives who worked alongside her at the plant: “my step-father-in-law, my ex-husband… his brother, my brother, my sister-in-law… Firestone was known as a family affair.” She added “if you graduated from high school, you went right on to Firestone.” The familial nature of the plant’s workforce manifested frequently in the messaging deployed by management and opponents of the union within the plant.

Workers who opposed unionization, such as Alfred Hardee, drew on this rhetoric of

Firestone as a “family.” As he told the Gastonia Gazette in March 1, 1987, “We’re just one big, happy family. It’ll work its way out. Family squabbles usually do.”79 This reflects the core

message of the anti-union line supported by plant management, that the Firestone Company’s interests are in line with those of its workers and that the company has a paternal interest in its employees’ well-being. When the company takes actions that harm its employees, such as through layoffs, pay cuts, or stretch-out, then this is, according to management, because of economic necessity. Implicit in this “family” framing was that the company and management are the patriarchs responsible for decision-making, and employees were wives and children in subservient roles, effectively emasculating male workers and reinforcing patriarchal attitudes towards female workers.

Building off of this framing of the Gastonia Firestone plant as a holistic “family,” management characterized the union as outsiders intruding and disrupting this harmonious arrangement. On January 15, 1988, workers at the plant received a letter from plant manager “Juggy” Anand and Firestone Fibers and Textiles division president Martin Yonas that attempted to dissuade employees from supporting the union. The letter reminded workers that “we have had many meetings and have had the benefit of your suggestions, comments, and criticisms in

developing the changes which have been necessary to improve our plant’s efficiency. We want to continue communicating with you, and without an outside union group between us.”80 This

rhetoric frames ownership, management, and employees at the Gastonia plant as part of a single entity with the same interests, which was emphasized by the repeated description of the

processing plant being a “family.” Meanwhile, it positioned the union as an interloper and an unnecessary middleman.

The assertion that the union was not needed at the plant was complicated by the appearance that management at the plant only began holding these meetings seeking employee feedback after the union began organizing at the plant. “The campaign has straightened things out up here. They [management] will talk to you now, and they wouldn’t before,” pro-union employee Paul Hallman, Jr. told the Gastonia Gazette.81 This seems to indicate that management was holding

these meetings and seeking “communication” as a part of their union avoidance campaign, as it was only once the union begins organizing at the plant that management begins directly engaging with its workers.

Labor organizers and union supporters at the plant pushed back against the “union as outsider” narrative by calling into question the alignment of the interests of the workers and management. On February 29, 1988, United Rubber Workers representatives Jim Austin and Randy Hinkley responded to a letter previously sent by Anand and Yonas that characterized the driving force of the unionization effort as “outside organizers.” Austin and Hinkley end the letter with a retort: “The two organizers involved in this campaign are both from North Carolina. Can

80 _{Letter from J. Anand and M. Yonas to Firestone Employees Concerning Union, January 15, 1988.}

https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/24422

you and Marty say the same, Juggy?”82 This rhetoric was used to both undermine the

characterization of the organizers as being mere “outsiders,” while also turning the accusation back onto management, implying that they instead are the “outsiders” with interests that are contrary to those of the local workers.

Another means by which union supporters attacked management’s characterization of the union as an outsider disrupting the harmony of the plant was by emphasizing the democratic nature of the union, and that it was effectively an extension of the workers’ collective will rather than an autonomous “third party.” One pro-union flyer issued during the build-up to the 1988 union election made this explicit. “Who runs the Union? You do! In the United Rubber Workers, you and your fellow employees run the union,” reiterating the fact that “you are the union.”83

This rhetoric framed the narrative as a struggle between the workers and the company without any “third party,” the union instead being the manifestation of the workers’ collective organized will.