Cannon Mills and Kannapolis: Persistent Paternalism in a Textile Town

11. Cannon Mills and Operation Dixie

Chapter 11 Cannon Mills and Operation Dixie In the summer of 1946, the Congress of Industrial Organizations launched its ambitious drive to unionize the South. The CIO modeled Operation Dixie, as the southern campaign became known, on the organizing pattern it had employed successfully in the North. This strategy concentrated efforts on the main industry in an area and targeted the premier or bellwether company of that industry. Organizing the bellwether firm first, organizers believed, would reduce opposition to unionization in the rest of the industry. Thus the hard work would be finished early in a quick drive that minimized expense. Operation Dixie, therefore, needed to focus on the South’s key industry, the textile industry, and concentrate its resources in the main textile state of North Carolina. As the bellwether company in the textile industry, Cannon Mills became the target of the CIO organizing campaign.1 CIO president Philip Murray chose Van A. Bittner to lead Operation Dixie. George Baldanzi became the deputy director and set up headquarters for the campaign in Atlanta. Baldanzi, in turn, appointed state directors, including William Smith for North Carolina.2 The southern drive began optimistically with what seemed impressive resources. Close to one million dollars funded the efforts of 250 workers in the southern organizing drive.3 North Carolina received 57 of those organizers , the largest number assigned to any of the twelve southern states. From its Charlotte headquarters, the leadership of the North Carolina campaign included a director, a public relations director, and two secretaries . The remaining workers were divided into four regions, each headed by an area director. Cannon Mills fell into the Southern Area, headquartered 124 @ Cannon Mills and Operation Dixie in the Independence Building in Charlotte and led by Draper Woods. The Southern Area’s main focus became Cannon Mills in Concord and Kannapolis, with a secondary drive two counties to the west in the combed yarn industry of Gastonia. Experienced organizer Dean Culver directed the drive against Cannon from his office in Concord. Ten organizers usually worked in the Concord-Kannapolis area, but at times the regional director temporarily assigned Culver’s workers to help in Gastonia.4 State director Smith highlighted the importance of organizing Cannon Mills as part of the CIO southern strategy: Of all the campaigns under progress, we consider the campaigns in the Cannon chain and in the combed yarn industry of Gaston County our major projects. . . . It has long been a recognized fact in the industry that the pattern set by the union mills is always duplicated by the Cannon Chain. The Cannon interests are the employer of the largest single group of textile workers in the industry, and we feel that it is important that these workers assume their natural position of union leadership, thereby furthering the progress towards better wages and working conditions. We have our largest concentration of workers in this situation.5 Dean Culver seemed a wise choice to organize the Cannon Mills for the CIO-affiliated Textile Workers Union of America. Born in Iowa, Culver had come to North Carolina in 1936, worked at the Alcoa Aluminum plant in the company town of Badin, thirty miles from Kannapolis, and organized the plant for the CIO. Having lived in North Carolina for ten years and having successfully battled one paternalistic firm, Culver seemed the ideal candidate to tackle Cannon Mills.6 Yet nothing in his past had fully prepared this thirty-two-year-old labor activist for his confrontation with Charles Cannon. In June the Cannon Mills organizers began their work. They could not find space for a proper union hall in Cannon-controlled Kannapolis, so they secured a hall in the Ritz building in Concord. The CIO had five distinct objectives for June. First, organizers had to familiarize themselves with the area. As none of the new union staff in Concord came from Concord or Kannapolis, they had to learn the layout of the town of Kannapolis and the Cannon plants.7 Second, organizers had to contact workers who had signed union cards during the minor 1944 drive, when workers at the Thomasville Amazon Mill had organized and tried to convince them to sign new union cards. Workers who signed up under the Operation Dixie drive paid a one-dollar initiation Cannon Mills and Operation Dixie ^ 125 fee, while World War II veterans signed without paying the fee. Not surprisingly , this policy caused some confusion among...