J.P. Stevens

4 Pages 1057 Words

J.P. STEVENS

“An embarrassment to the business community.”
-Fortune magazine, 1978, describing J.P. Stevens Co.1

In 1963, Shirley Hobbes was employed at J.P. Stevens cotton
plant in Roanoke Rapids, South Carolina. Her job was to sort
napkins into firsts and seconds. Hobbes was good at what she
did, and on an average day, she could sort and count 8,500
napkins. On October 6, 1963, she wrote a letter to J.P. Stevens
informing the company that she had joined the union’s organizing
committee. Three days later, Shirley Hobbes was summoned by the
company supervisor, who told her that she was being discharged
for having been several napkins short in her count.
Months before Shirley allegedly undercounted her napkins,
James Walden decided to become one of the first J.P. Stevens
employees to join the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA).
Soon company officials posted his name on a shop wall, and one
week later James Walden was fired for tying doubles at Stevens.
The day after Walden was fired, three of his coworkers told J.P.
Stevens management that they had offered their resignation to the
union. The three were then told that they would have to prove
themselves by disclosing information on union activities.
Idolene Steel, Charles Knight, Arthur Knight, and two others
were the first five Stevens workers to join TWUA in 1963. Their
names were subsequently posted on the company bulletin board by
mill managers and the next day all five were discharged.
According to the company, C. Knight and Steel lost their jobs for
failing to clean their equipment properly. There was no evidence
that any Stevens worker had ever been fired for this reason
before. A. Knight lost his job for allegedly having neglected to
piece together the ends of certain materials. Knight later
testified that he knew of no other worker who had been fired on
these grounds.2
In 1963, when J.P. Stevens first learned that th...