The 1945–1946 Charleston Cigar Factory strike was a labor strike involving workers at the Cigar Factory in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. The strike commenced on October 22, 1945, and ended on April 1 of the following year, with the strikers winning some concessions from the company.
The strike took place at the Cigar Factory, a production facility owned by the American Tobacco Company (ATC). The company had been operating the plant since 1903 as a racially segregated workplace, with white and African Americans working in different positions and for different pay. During World War II, workers at the plant unionized under the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, becoming FTA-CIO Local 15. The union agreed to not conduct any strike action for the duration of the conflict, and in turn the company agreed to institute pay raises after the war was over. By that time, the factory was employing about 1,400 employees, a majority African American. However, after the war's end in September 1945, the company reneged on its agreement and refused to negotiate with the union. Additionally, the company was slow in issuing backpay to workers that they had earned during the war. This, coupled with the firing of an African American worker in a move viewed by many employees as racially charged, led to a series of sitdown strikes and walkouts. Finally, on October 22, workers at the Cigar Factory went on strike. They were joined by FTA workers at other ATC plants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey, who went on solidarity strikes with the Charleston workers, and the national union instituted a boycott against ATC products. In addition to demands regarding pay and protections against racial discrimination, the strikers also pushed for the Cigar Factory to become a closed shop.
While a majority of the people on strike were black women, maintaining solidarity along different racial lines was seen as crucial to winning the strike, and the local union began to hold integrated meetings, something they had not previously done. Additionally, the strikers were able to garner support from a wide array of sources in Charleston, including among African American activists and white progressives. This support proved essential for continuing the strike into the winter months. Despite a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board that mandated the company to issue backpay on November 8, the union decided to remain on strike until all of their demands were met. As a result, the strike continued until March of the following year when the company finally agreed to some concessions, including an 8 cent per hour raise and agreements to ease the racial barriers that barred many African Americans from higher-paying positions in the company. By this point, the number of strikers, which had been around 1,000 at the beginning of the strike, had diminished significantly, and the union quickly accepted the deal, with the strike ending on April 1.
The strike is noted by historians as one of the few examples of a united biracial coalition in the Southern United States at the time, with the Preservation Society of Charleston stating that "the Cigar Factory strike was revolutionary in its illustration of the power of a unified voice". However, this coalition would not be sustained in the following years, as anticommunist and segregationist sentiments eroded support for Local 15 among many of the white workers, who organized their own local union. By the 1960s, due to changes in the tobacco industry, the plant experienced massive layoffs. It was closed permanently in 1973. The strike is also notable as the place where the modern version of the gospel hymn and civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome" was first performed.
Background
The Cigar Factory
During the late 1800s, influential business leaders and boosters in Charleston, South Carolina, sought to encourage increased industrial development in the city. At the time, Charleston was the economic center of the state, but was not developing as rapidly as some other major cities in the Southern United States, and much of the state's textile industry was based in Upstate South Carolina. In 1882, as part of this push for industry in South Carolina, the Charleston Manufacturing Company began operations at a newly built cotton mill in the city's Hampstead neighborhood, which would eventually become known as the Charleston Cotton Mills. This five-story building, which was constructed in the Victorian style, occupied an entire city block at the intersection of East Bay Street and Columbus Street, several blocks away from Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and overlooking the Cooper River. When it first opened, the plant only hired African Americans in custodial positions, while textile jobs were performed by local white Americans under the supervision of experienced workers from cotton mills in the Northern United States. However, in 1897, due to poor business, the plant began to accept African American workers to certain positions that had previously been off-limits. The plant closed shortly thereafter, and an effort to revive the plant two years later with a workforce that included black women from the nearby Sea Islands also failed.
The plant remained dormant for several years until the property was leased to the American Tobacco Company (ATC), which converted the plant from a cotton mill to a cigar factory. By 1912, the company purchased the plant outright, and it would eventually become known locally simply as the Cigar Factory. Like the cotton mill before it, this plant hired both black and white people, with black workers performing separate tasks from the white workers, such as creating cigar boxes or processing tobacco leaves. By the 1930s, the plant employed about 1,400 people, of whom 60 percent were women, and had an annual payroll of approximately $1 million. At its peak of production, the plant was creating 1.5 million cigars per day. The plant attracted many African American workers as it offered some of the highest wages available to them in the city, though they had to contend with both the physically demanding nature of the work and constant racial discrimination from management.
FTA-CIO Local 15 In the 1940s, during World War II, workers at the plant organized under a local union of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), a labor union affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The UCAPAWA changed its name shortly after the Charleston workers organized with it, becoming the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA), with the local union at the Cigar Factory becoming FTA-CIO Local 15. On September 1, 1944, they voted to approve their first union contract, and leaders of Local 15 began to negotiate with ATC management. The union agreed to abide by a guideline set by the National War Labor Board (NWLB) that barred the union from engaging in any strike action, and while the company did not institute immediate pay raises, they did agree to raise workers' pay after the war was over. Under the terms of the agreement, black workers would receive a pay raise from 25 cents per hour to 40 cents per hour, while white workers who were machinists and supervisors would be paid 65 cents per hour.
During the war, despite an excess profits tax, the ATC experienced significant growth and record profits, with their workforce at the Cigar Factory expanding to almost 2,000 employees. Additionally, following the war's conclusion in 1945, the company received roughly $1.3 million in refunds from the excess profits tax. With World War II over, the Cigar Factory employed about 1,400 workers, of whom about 900 were black women, and roughly 1,000 were Local 15 members. On September 24, 1945, Local 15 members voted to approve a new contract that called for increased wages and backpay that had been guaranteed during the war. The following month, the NWLB also ordered ATC to pay their workers some wages that had been withheld by the company from December 1944 to October 1945. However, company executives ignored the order and Harold F. McGinnis, the manager of the Cigar Factory, also refused to honor the local union's contract. On October 1, McGinnis fired a black male employee after his white female supervisor accused him of "taking familiarities" with some of the female employees in the plant, a move that many Local 15 members saw as racially charged. With the firing and the failure to honor their contract, tensions increased dramatically between the company and the union, and on October 3, Local 15 president Reuel Stanfield organized a sitdown strike. Over the next two days, about one hundred workers participated, remaining idle by their workstations to protest the company, and on October 4, about 900 African American employees performed a walkout after the fired employee was not given his job back. In light of these events, on October 5, McGinnis met with Stanfield to discuss the workers' grievances. However, during the meeting, McGinnis offered no firm plans on how to handle their grievances, and following the meeting, the company's process for issuing backpay was slow. This was not an issue that was unique to the Cigar Factory, as workers at other ATC plants in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey, also voiced their displeasure at backpay issues and discrimination. As a result of this, the FTA decided to initiate a solidarity strike at all three of these ATC plants, and on October 15, workers at the Philadelphia plant became the first to go on strike. Workers at the Charleston plant would go on strike as well one week later, on October 22.
Course of the strike The October 22 strike action at the Cigar Factory involved a walkout of about 1,000 workers, a majority of whom were black women. The workers' demands included a 25 cent per hour raise, the issuance of backpay, and a closed shop model for the plant that would have required new hires to join the union. Picket lines were established outside of the factory, with strikers carrying placards that stated their demands and singing spirituals. During these pickets, the strikers faced harassment from police officers and segregationists, and on several occasions there were physical confrontations between the strikers and strikebreakers that the company had brought in to keep the plant operating. Additionally, the union launched a boycott against ATC products. On October 25, several days after the Charleston workers went on strike, workers at the ATC plant in Trenton also joined the Philadelphia and Charleston workers in a solidarity strike. The following day, on October 26, Local 15 held its first integrated meeting at the Morris Street Baptist Church. Prior to this, the local had often held separate meetings for its black and white members, but strike leaders felt that maintaining solidarity among the union members was crucial to winning their demands.