Word: charlestoning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...ordeal of Charleston had seemed impossible to remedy. During the 100-day strike by nonprofessional black hospital workers, there were mass arrests, curfews, patrols by the National Guard, the threat of a sympathy strike that would have closed the port and the ever-present possibility of serious racial violence. Every attempt at settlement collapsed-until last week...
From the beginning, the issues in the Charleston, S.C., hospital strike have been union recognition and official intransigence. For three months the walkout by 360 black workers-most of them women of limited skills earning only $1.30 to $1.60 per hour-has disrupted the gracious antebellum city with the threat of racial violence...
Authorities of Medical College Hospital and Charleston County Hospital, initially backed by the state, took the position early in the dispute that they could not legally bargain with a union of employees paid out of public funds. Gradually the anti-union tradition crumbled under strong pressure. A 9 p.m. curfew enforced by National Guardsmen cut the spring tourist trade. A Negro boycott of white businesses also did economic damage to the city. National publicity was mostly unfavorable and the strikers drew support from national labor and civil rights groups...
...week's end, the strikers were gearing for a bitter struggle. They vowed to make night marches through white neighborhoods all summer. The International Longshoremen's Association privately told McNair that it would close down the busy port of Charleston if the strike is not settled promptly...
...Given Rights. Medical College Hospital and Charleston County Hospital have remained open, but the community is cruelly split over the issue. Volunteers, both black and white, are helping to keep the hospitals going. The city's newspapers have editorialized against the strikers, accusing them of "playing the racism theme" and being "the victims of professional agitators"-an allusion to support from the New York-based Local 1199, Drug and Hospital Employees Union. Almost submerged is the far more relevant question of how to cope with stoppages by public employees in institutions affecting the public welfare. To Dr. William McCord...