Susan Stevenot Sullivan – Southern Changes

Voices and Choices: Workplace Justice and the Poultry Industry

Susan Stevenot Sullivan — Thu, 01 Mar 2001 05:00:01 +0000

Voices and Choices: Workplace Justice and the Poultry Industry

Edited bySusan Stevenot Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 3-7

In an unprecedented move this past November, the Roman Catholic bishops of the Southern United States released a pastoral statement on workplace justice issues. Voices and Choices studies the poultry industry to highlight the plight of “our brothers and sisters whose work exacts an intolerable personal and community cost.” The project took two years and involved hundreds of people, from poultry processing workers and managers to labor and church officials.

Representing the immigration and language issues affecting the poultry industry, Voices and Choices is published in English and Spanish in the same binding. Endorsed by forty-one bishops from Virginia to Texas, it uses scripture and Catholic social teaching to assess the real price of our heaped plates of fried chicken. It includes statistics as well as stories of the workers (with their names changed) whose lives shape the labor and occupational health issues.

But Voices and Choices is not just about one contemporary industry:

“While this letter will focus on the lack of ‘voices and choices’ for many of our brothers and sisters who work in the poultry industry, we do not mean to single out this one productive business as unique. We use the poultry industry as an example of other businesses, in agriculture and manufacturing, which share the same challenges, whether furniture is being made, produce picked, or livestock raised under contract.”

The personal stories that appear throughout the document are an unusual feature for such a church statement. Worker interviews give voice to those who have no “voice or choice” in their workplace:

Maria Moñtez prays the “Our Father” daily, but she says “Padre Nuestro.” She prays in Spanish, the language of her birthplace. Now a senior citizen, she has lived in the United States for many years, the last five of them as a worker in the poultry processing industry. Senora Moñtez is friendly, but shy. When asked about her work, she says several times that she is glad to be employed, that she doesn’t mind working hard. Later she mentions her pain and disability. Moñtez has numbness in her arms and hands from the motions she repeats hundreds of times during every work shift. The pain often keeps her awake at night and she treats her condition by rubbing her skin with alcohol. She has not seen a doctor because the company insurance has a deductible of several hundred dollars which her wages cannot cover. She has asked to be rotated to other tasks with different motions, but has been told she is too dependable in her job to risk a replacement. “A lot of people are also affected with asthma and pneumonia and eye problems,” she says. “That’s what I see the most. People have to leave the plant because of illness. People get fired if they get hurt.”

Like most workers in poultry processing, Senora Moñtez stands for hours at her place on a production line. Chickens, impaled on hooks hanging from a chain which moves the carcasses around the processing area, pass in front of her at a speed which, in a large part, determines the profitability of the operation. The atmosphere is noisy and damp. The floor is wet and the chickens drip on everything and everyone. The moisture contains many chemicals and biological contaminants. Each room is colder than the last as the temperature of the chickens is cooled from “live” to “packed.” Processing involves killing, gutting, cutting, sorting, weighing, and packaging at an urgent pace. One’s task is performed hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand times, per shift, often with sharp blades.

According to a 1996 study by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the incidence of repetitive motion injuries, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, among poultry processing workers is five times the rate seen in manufacturing in general. According to OSHA, health and safety violations involving a substantial probability of death or serious injury increased more than 150 percent between 1997 and 1998 at one of the leading poultry processing companies. The physical effects of this type of employment can be devastating.

Sara Brown’s injuries are not physical. She speaks passionately of the favoritism and manipulation she has experienced from supervisors at her poultry job for the four years she has worked there. She speaks of inter-minority discrimination and prejudice. She is aware of bathroom breaks denied for an entire shift, of time off given to a chosen few, while her excused absences to be with her hospitalized husband are counted toward her possible firing. She, too, has children to support. She takes great risks in complaining to her supervisor, and knows of no avenue of appeal beyond the whims of those immediately in charge. She works hard, she says, is dependable, and deserves better treatment. “Who,” she asks, “will hear me?”

Now in her mid-forties, Beatrice Johnson has worked in poultry processing for more than twenty-one years.

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Repetitive motion injuries disabled her, but company doctors told her that her condition was not job-related. Her family doctor disagrees. Ms. Johnson hoped for worker’s compensation. Instead, she was put on sick leave at a fraction of her normal pay. When her sick leave runs out, she will probably be fired, like other workers she knows. She is still disabled, still in pain, still in need of a way to support herself.

In 1997 the DOL found 60 percent of poultry companies surveyed to be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). More than 51 percent of the plants failed to pay workers for time spent on job-related tasks such as clean-up; more than 30 percent failed to pay for brief breaks during the day, such as restroom use; more than 54 percent deducted money from worker paychecks for protective gear for which the company is required to pay. Employees do not have a “voice” or a “choice” in such policies.

While Voices and Choices–released November 15, 2000–uses the 1997 study, a newly released DOL report shows that 100 percent of the poultry processing plants surveyed in 2000 were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. (See box on page 7.)

The January, 2001 DOL study states that “investigations of fifty-one randomly-selected poultry processing plants located throughout the U.S. led to agency findings across-the-industry of non-compliance under the FLSA.”

Violations cited by the DOL in the new report included: “employees not paid for all hours worked, including overtime hours, due to undercounting hours worked; employees underpaid due to impermissible deductions made from wages; overtime due plant employees as a result of improperly claimed exempt status; overtime not paid to some live-haul crew members (catchers, loaders, drivers); and record-keeping violations as recorded time was not accurate for in-plant or live-haul workers.”

The DOL study also gives details about the underpayment of subcontracted or “temporary” workers–workers who are rarely, if ever, paid the same wages for doing the same work as employees, but who may represent a substantial number of the workers at the plant. “The potential for minimum wage violations affecting workers employed via temporary help firms in processing plants is significant since these workers generally were paid only slightly more than the Federal minimum wage. The lower rates paid to these temp agency workers leave little room before practices of not paying for all hours actually worked

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or making deductions from wages” (for items required to be provided to employees such as ear plugs, clothing, and equipment).

Voices and Choices includes the viewpoint of poultry industry senior management as well, people who have voices and make choices about not only their work, but the work of others.

John Stephens is a senior manager with a poultry company who articulates the industry’s point of view. While he grapples with conflicting priorities and difficult decisions, he has the power to influence corporate policy and to make changes. He must watch the profitability of the operation. It is a competitive business and there are a lot of factors to consider. His single biggest problem, Stephens says emphatically, is employee turnover. As soon as people can find another job, they leave. As in the majority of processing plants, most employees are from minority groups. More and more he must rely on immigrants, many with questionable documentation.

Surveys conducted by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), show that poultry workers are mostly African American and female, though Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the workforce.

“The poultry industry in the U.S. is not an employment of choice for people,” Mr. Stephens says. “The work is very hard physically and repetitious,” that is “part of the problem.” He has future employees bused in from other areas, oversees company housing that shelters some of them and wonders how he will keep the line functioning with a full complement next week. He knows that training supervisors to treat employees well and training employees to rotate through several jobs to relieve or prevent repetitive motion injuries are keys to the future of the operation. He says he is working on implementing such improvements. “The higher the quality of supervision, the better the work environment. The quality of supervision is a key to turnover and absenteeism. We need to improve the way people are dealt with; the way we take care of their needs is most important.”

Processing is only one part of the poultry industry. Chicken catchers are another group who work an unhealthy, repetitive job for low pay and who face irregularities in their employment. A study of Delmarva chicken catchers shows that average daily compensation has declined since 1985. Additionally, over 60 percent of plants surveyed by the DOL in 1997 failed to pay overtime to chicken-catching crews for hours worked in excess of forty per week.

Poultry Growers Question Contracts

It may not be easy to view fluffy, white chicks as a social justice issue, but growing the chickens is another facet of the industry that provides controversy. Those who raise poultry often find themselves in unfair situations. The contract they sign with a poultry company is written to leave the major decisions in the hands of the company. The grower must spend large sums of money to build, and later update, the facilities where the birds will be raised. In the case of smaller growers, such investments usually call for a mortgage on the family farm. The antibiotics, feed, and other supplies, including the chicks themselves, come from the company. The company weighs the feed and the finished chickens. The company also decides what the grower will be paid per pound of bird, once expenses for supplies are deducted. Unhealthy chicks, illness in the flock, weather problems, waste disposal, and runoff problems are all risks for the grower, not the company. Current contracts are often written to specify arbitration as the only mode of redress, omitting the possibility of class action lawsuits which have been successful for some growers in the past.

Roy and Mary Stein are growers with sixteen years experience. They say that most grower families must send someone to work at another job to generate adequate income for the family. Often the rate of return promised by the company falls short, particularly once the company begins to demand expensive changes or improvements in equipment as a condition of continuing the contract. If the contract is not renewed, the family farm may be foreclosed. Selling a farm without the promise of a similar contract for a potential buyer, is often impossible.

“The only thing you’ve got control of is signing the contract,” says Roy Stein. “They can break it any time they want to. You can’t, but they can.”

“This is contract labor,” adds Mary Stein. “You are not a partner. A partner is supposed to have something to say about your business.” The couple says growers are afraid to speak up, because “everything they own is mortgaged.”

According to the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission, poultry companies gain about 16 percent on their investment, while poultry growers gain about 4 percent. Delmarva poultry growers surveyed in 1997 echoed the concerns of the Steins: 43 percent said they did not trust their company’s feed delivery weights, 41 percent didn’t trust the figures on their pay statements, and 57 percent believed the company would retaliate if they raise concerns.

Voices and Choices also tackles the immigration aspect of the poultry industry, noting that most people in the United States are themselves descendants of immigrants, who also arrived in search of a better life.

Different in look, customs, and language, newcomers are often discriminated against. Such people have faces and futures. One young man sits quietly, his heavily muscled arms folded across his chest. A friend coaxes

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him to speak, promising that his real name will not be used. Gradually, Julio Lopez relaxes, unfolds his arms and extends a huge, gentle hand. The hand is deformed with scar tissue; its shape distorted. He speaks reluctantly, through a translator, of a poultry-processing injury, which required more than seventy stitches to close. Weeks later, his use of the hand is still impaired. He is told by the medical people available to him that nothing more can be done and that he is not authorized to see a specialist. He has not been compensated for the injury. He is concerned that the disability is permanent, but he will not make a fuss for fear of losing his current job in the processing plant, the job that feeds his family back home. He is desperate to support them, so desperate that he crossed the border into this country illegally. What will happen if he is sent back? Like others who are undocumented, he says it is safer to be silent.

While laws regarding immigration and immigrants are to be respected, what can be done to aid and protect this most vulnerable and exploitable group? Many of these immigrants are fleeing civil conflicts in Latin America in which the United States is a political player. Whatever their country of origin, most are without a voice as they attempt to support themselves and their families by whatever means is available, no matter what the conditions. Their understandable reluctance to seek help from government authorities becomes another factor in the circumstances which many such people must face.

Although Voices and Choices builds upon statistical information throughout, the difficulty of obtaining statistics is overshadowed by the common experiences of workers in the industry facing challenges of earning a living wage, establishing worker rights and human dignity, and dealing with immigration. The stories told by workers are consistent and disturbing, often overwhelming.

Voices and Choices also includes a lengthy treatment of the biblical roots of neighborliness. It cites more than one hundred years of Catholic social teaching concerning such topics as human rights and dignity, the organizing of workers, just wages, appropriate working conditions and solidarity. The bishops’ document does not take a simplistic view of the global economic forces at work. Even so, it says, complexity is not an excuse for lack of awareness or for inaction.

Vertical integration, in which the same company owns and/or controls every step of production from the most basic components, such as feed grain, to the final product, such as boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the grocery store shelves, has become a dominant force in the economy. The ramifications are too numerous to treat here, but according to the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, “factory farming” affects prices, wages, natural resources, and the future of family farming, placing enormous power in the boardrooms of a few companies.

The economic forces which shape the work of peoples’ daily lives are intricate and interconnected, extending to matters of environment, use of hormone technology and genetic engineering, foreign policy, global monetary policy, and international imbalances of resources, debt, and wealth.

Structural change and legal protections are essential tasks for government and business entities. “Still,” argues Voices and Choices, “we may not abdicate our concern and responsibility for such matters to the anonymous group. The ‘group’ is made up of individuals. Structural change begins with the conversion of each heart.” While the bishops’ statement stops short of suggesting specific action, it strongly states that all voices in the workplace need to be heard and responsibilities and benefits shared.

From 1987 to 1997, the value of poultry production has doubled; broiler industry operating profits exceeded one billion dollars in 1996. The USDA poultry processing “line speed” limit increased from seventy birds per minute in 1979 to ninety-one per minute by 1999 while average real wages for poultry workers have declined from 1987 to 1997. Poultry work is both the lowest paying and largest employing segment of the entire meat industry.

Having a voice can lead to having a choice about wages, working conditions, job safety, medical care, and other benefits. It is often difficult for workers to achieve this sharing of responsibility with owners and managers, which is why, for decades, the Catholic Church has supported the right of individuals to associate in groups organized to see that voices and choices become a reality.

Because of the high turnover, vulnerable status, and

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isolation, poultry industry workers are not easy to organize. Once formed there are further obstacles.

One poultry processing plant has had a union since 1996, yet today, there is still no contract to protect the workers. “This struggle has gone on for a long time,” says organizer Juan Sanchez. “People are tired, but they want to be organized. It’s the only way to get the company’s attention when they are abused by supervisors or overburdened with work. They want to protect themselves.”

Voices and Choices ends with the following exhortation and with the signatures of the forty-one bishops: “We love and serve in our daily lives through encounters with others. How might we be advocates for the needs of our brothers and sisters who lack voices and choices? How might we “speak out for those who cannot speak”? (Proverbs 31:8). Let us begin with our own hearts and our own awareness as we journey together through the new millennium. Let us seek to encounter the presence of the divine in every person, and respond accordingly, for “just as you did it to one of the least of these. . . you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

S. Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 p. 7

Sidebar: Will Bush’s DOL Enforce Wage and Hour Laws?

A statement of concern was presented to U.S. Department of Labor administrators in six locations around the country, including Atlanta, on May 24-25, 2001. The “open letter,” organized by the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice (NICWJ), asked the new Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, to vigorously enforce Wage and Hour laws designed to protect 250,000 poultry plant workers and to hold poultry industry accountable for violations of labor law.

Chao has met with representatives of the poultry industry and received a letter from sixteen U.S. Senators reportedly asking her to reduce enforcement and industry accountability. NICWJ was unable to arrange a meeting with the secretary.

In Atlanta, ten representatives of religious and labor groups, spearheaded by the Georgia Poultry Justice alliance, met with Alfred “Hap” Perry, Southeast Regional Administrator, and Joe Villarreal, Southwest Regional Administrator, of the DOL Wage and Hour Division. The group presented Perry and Villarreal with a copy of the NICWJ letter, signed by 150 leaders of justice and religious organizations, and with copies of Voices and Choices, the poultry justice pastoral document form the Catholic Bishops of the South.

Perry cited a 2000 DOL study, released in January, 2001, stating that all fifty-one of the poultry processing plants investigated were in violation of Wage and Hour laws. A previous DOL study, in 1997, showed only 40 percent of the plants to be in compliance.

“I don’t think the industry changed (between the 1997 investigation and the 2000 investigation),” Perry said. “I think we did a better job with the 2000 study. The industry has been doing the same things for twenty years.” One of the “things” includes requiring workers to “don and doff” required protective clothing without any pay, resulting in about an hour of unpaid work per shift.

Response by the DOL to such studies can include “doing nothing” or filing lawsuits against the companies and/or assessing penalties against the companies, Perry said. He prefers the education option, when feasible, which makes employers and employees aware of labor laws.

Perry said his office is preparing a response to the poultry industry’s position. “I have a personal interest in this,” he said.

He asked those presenting the NICWJ statement to help the DOL connect with poultry workers, offering to make DOL representatives available for educational presentations as often as weekly to workers in the poultry industry.

–S. Sullivan

This essay was excerpted and adapted from Voices and Choices and edited by Susan Stevenot Sullivan, a member of the team that developed the pastoral statement. Sullivan is a writer, editor, and photographer based in the Atlanta area. Voices and Choices is available in printed form from St. Anthony Messenger Press (1-800-488-0488) or on the web at: www.americancatholic.org/News/PoultryPastoral/default.asp.

Voces y Opciones: Justicia en el Lugar de Trabajo en la Industria Avícola

Susan Stevenot Sullivan — Thu, 01 Mar 2001 05:00:02 +0000

Voces y Opciones: Justicia en el Lugar de Trabajo en la Industria Avícola

Edited by Susan Stevenot Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1, 2001 pp. 8-12, 26

En una movida sin precedente, el Noviembre pasado, los Obispos Católicos Romanos del Sur de los Estados Unidos pusieron en circulación una declaración pastoral sobre temas injustas en el trabajo. Voces y Opciones estudio la industria avícola para exponer el dilema de “nuestros hermanos y hermanas cuyo trabajo exige un costo personal y comunitario inaceptable.” El proyecto se llevo a cabo durante dos años y involucro cientos de personas, desde trabajadores y gerentes de procesadoras avícolas a oficiales de labor y oficiales de la Iglesia. Representando los temas de inmigración y de lenguaje que afectan la industria avícola, Voces y Opciones es publicada en Ingles y en Español en el mismo libro. Respaldado por cuarenta y uno obispos desde Virginia hasta Texas, usa las escrituras y enseñanzas social Católicas para determinar el precio verdadero de nuestros platos amontonados con pollo frito.

Incluye estadísticas y historias de los trabajadores (con los nombres cambiados) cuyas vidas moldean los temas de ocupación y de la salud. Pero Voces y Opciones no es nada mas de una industria contemporada:

“Aunque esta carta se centrara en la falta de ‘voz y opción’ para muchos de nuestros hermanos y hermanas que trabajan en la industria avícola, esto no significa que señalemos este productivo mercado como caso único. Usamos la industria avícola como un ejemplo entre otros negocios, como agricultura y fabricación, los cuales comparten los mismos desafíos, ya sea fabricando muebles, cosechando verduras, o criando ganado bajo contrato.”

Las historias personales que aparecen por todo el documento son una característica rara para tal documento. Entrevistas con los trabajadores dan voz a los que no tienen “voz y opción” en su lugar de trabajo.

María Montez reza diariamente el “Our Father,” pero ella dice “Padre Nuestro.” Reza en su lengua nativa; el Español. Es una señora de edad avanzada que ha estado en los Estados Unidos por muchos años, y desde hace cinco años trabaja en la industria avícola. La Señora Montez es amigable, pero tímida. Cuando le preguntamos sobre su trabajo, nos respondió repetidas veces que esta muy contenta de estar trabajando, y que no le importa trabajar duro. Luego menciona su dolor e incapacidad física. Sus brazos y sus manos están dormidos debido al movimiento repetitivo que realiza cientos de veces durante sus jornadas de trabajo. Con frecuencia el dolor la mantiene despierta por la noche y para aliviar su condición se frota alcohol sobre la piel. No ha consultado a un doctor porque el deducible del seguro de la compañía es de cientos de dólares, el cual no puede cubrir con su salario. Ha solicitado alternar su trabajo con otras labores de movimientos diferentes, pero sus supervisores le han manifestado que debido a que es muy responsable con su trabajo, no quieren arriesgarse a reemplazarla. “Mucha gente ha sido afectada por asma, pulmonía, y problemas de la vista,” manifestó. “Eso es lo que más veo. La gente tiene que salir de la planta por enfermedad. Si la gente se hiere la despiden.”

Al igual que muchos trabajadores en las procesadoras avícolas, la Señora Montez se mantiene de pie en la línea de producción por largas horas. Los pollos, que cuelgan enganchados de una cadena que los mueve alrededor del área de procesamiento, pasan frente a ella a gran velocidad la cual determina en gran parte la ganancia de la operación. El ambiente de trabajo es ruidoso y húmedo. El piso se mantiene mojado y pollos salpican por donde quiera. La humedad contiene muchos contaminantes químicos y biológicos. Cada cuarto es mas frío que el anterior, ya que los pollos empiezan a ser enfriados desde que están “vivos” hasta que pasan a ser “empacados.” El procesamiento consiste en sacrificar, eviscerar, cortar, ordenar, pesar, y empacar los pollos a paso rápido. Cada uno realiza su tarea cientos de veces y hasta mas de mil veces en un turno con cuchillas muy afiladas.

De acuerdo al estudio efectuado por el Departamento de Trabajo (DOL) de los EEUU en 1996, las lesiones ocasionadas por movimientos repetitivos que incide entre los trabajadores de las procesadoras avícolas, como lo es el síndrome de “carpal tunnel,” son cinco veces mas que en las manufacturadoras en general. Según OSHA, las violaciones de salud y seguridad que llevan la considerable probabilidad de muerte y lesiones graves, incrementaron mas de 150 por cien entre 1997 y 1998 en una de las principales compañías de procesamiento avícola. Los efectos físicos de este tipo de trabajo pueden ser devastadores.

Las lesiones de Sara Brown no son físicas. Ella habla ardientemente sobre el favoritismo y la manipulación que ha experimentado de parte de sus supervisores durante sus cuatro años de trabajo en la avícola. Ella habla de la discriminación y prejuicio entre minorías. Durante el turno de trabajo, no todos los trabajadores están autorizados para hacer uso del baño, sino unos pocos que gozan el favoritismo. Su ausencia del trabajo se debe a la hospitalización de su esposo, y esto se suma a la posibilidad de ser despedida. Además tiene niños que mantener. Así también, sabe que toma un gran riesgo al quejarse al supervisor, pero tampoco

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tiene otras vías donde apelar mas allá de los caprichos de sus superiores inmediatos. Ella dice que trabaja duramente, es responsable, y merece mejor trato. Y se pregunta, “¿Quien va a escucharme?”

Beatrice Johnson es una mujer de cuarenta y tantos años que trabaja en la procesadora avícola desde hace mas de veinte uno años. Esta incapacitada debido a las lesiones de movimientos repetitivos y los doctores de la compañía le han dicho que su condición no esta relacionada con el trabajo que realiza. Él medico de su familia no esta de acuerdo con eso. Ella esperaba recibir compensación laboral, pero le dieron permiso por enfermedad, el cual paga solo una fracción del salario normal. Su permiso por enfermedad ya esta por terminársele y cuando eso suceda probablemente será despedida, al igual como les ha pasado a otros trabajadores que ella conoce. Continua inhabilitada, todavía con dolor, y con la necesidad de ganarse la vida para su propio sostenimiento.

En 1997 por el DOL encontro que el 60 por ciento de las compañías avícolas encuestadas transgredieron el Acta de Trabajo de Medidas Justas(FLSA). Mas del 51 por ciento de las plantas no les pagaron a los trabajadores por el tiempo que utilizaron haciendo limpieza y otros quehaceres relacionados con el trabajo. Mas del 30 por ciento no les pagaron por pausas breves durante el día, como lo es el uso del baño; mas del 54 por ciento les descontaron dinero del cheque a los trabajadores por el costo del equipo protector, en circunstancias que es la compañía la que esta obligada a pagar por eso. Los empleados no tienen “voz” ni “opción” en las políticas empresariales.

Mientras Voces y Opciones-puesto en circulacíon el 15 de Niviembre del 2000- usa el estudio de 1997, el reporte del DOL muestra que 100 por ciento de las plantas procesadoras de avícola encuestadas en el 2000 estaban en violación del Acta de Trabajo de Medidas Justas.

El estudio de Enero del 2001 del DOL dice que “investigaciones de cinquenta y un plantas procesadoras de avícola localizadas a través de los Estados Unidos resultaron en el descubrimiento que la industria no cumple con las reglas bajo el FLSA.”

En el nuevo reporte, violaciones citadas por el DOL incluye: “trabajadores no son compensados por todas las horas de trabajo, incluyendo horas extras, debido al contarles menos de las horas actualizadas; trabajadores no compensados lo actual debido a descuentos no permitidos de su pago; horas extras se les debe a los trabajadores a resultado de error en reportar su estado social: horas extras no se les paga a miembros del equipo

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(atrapadores, cargadores, choferes); y violaciones en el mantenimiento de los registros del tiempo de los trabajadores.”

El estudio del DOL también da detalles sobre la falta de compensar el trabajo actual de trabajadores temporales o sub-contratados, trabajadores a quien casi nunca se les paga el mismo salario por hacer el mismo trabajo que los empleados, pero que tal vez representan un numero sustantivo de trabajadores en la planta. “La potencial de violaciones de salario mínimo que afecta a trabajadores empleados por medio de agencias temporales en plantas procesadoras es significante debido a que a estos trabajadores se les paga por lo general tan solo un poco mas del sueldo mínimo Federal. El salario pagado a estos trabajadores temporales deja poco lugar ante la practica de no pagar por las horas actualizadas de trabajo o de hacer descuentos del salario” ( por artículos requeridos que se les provea a los trabajadores como, tapones para los oídos, ropa y equipo).

John Stephens es uno de los principales gerentes de una compañía avícola qué da el punto de vista de la industria. Mientras lucha con prioridades conflictas y decisiones difíciles, él tiene el poder de influir en la política empresarial y de hacer cambios. El debe velar por la rentabilidad de la operación para mantenerse a sí mismo y a otros en el trabajo. Es un mercado competitivo y hay muchos factores que considerar. Expresó enfáticamente que uno de los grandes problemas que él afronta es el constante cambio de personal. En cuanto la gente puede encontrar un nuevo trabajo, se va. Como en la mayoría de las plantas procesadoras, un gran numero de empleados son de grupos minoritarios. Cada vez mas depende de los emigrantes, y muchos de ellos poseen documentación cuestionable.

De acuerdo con las encuestas realizadas por United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), los obreros avícolas son en su mayoría Afroamericanos y mujeres, sin embargo, los Latinos son el sector de crecimiento más rápido de la fuerza trabajadora.

El Señor Stephens agrega, “La industria avícola en los Estados Unidos no es la opción de empleo de preferencia para la gente. El trabajo es muy duro físicamente y repetitivo, y eso es parte del problema.” Él tiene futuros empleados traídos en buses de otras partes, también supervisa un alojamiento de la compañía el cual hospedara a algunos de ellos y se pregunta como mantendrá la línea funcionando con la totalidad de empleados la próxima semana. Por lo tanto sabe que entrenar a los supervisores para tratar bien a los empleados y entrenar a los empleados para ir rotando en diferentes labores a fin de aliviar o prevenir las lesiones ocasionadas por movimientos repetitivos, son la clave para el futuro de la operación y el esta trabajando en la implementacion de tales mejoramientos. Enfatizo que, “Mientras más alta es la calidad de supervisión, mejor es el ambiente del trabajo. La calidad de supervisión es la clave para evitar el constante cambio de personal y el absentismo. Tenemos que mejorar la manera de tratar a la gente, y lo más importante es como satisfacer sus necesidades.

El procesamiento es solamente una parte de la industria avícola. Los atrapadores de pollos son otro grupo que tienen un trabajo peligroso y repetitivo, con salarios bajos y que enfrentan irregularidades en su trabajo. Un estudio de “Delmarva” muestra que la compensación diaria normal para los atrapadores de pollos ha ido declinando desde 1985. Además, en 1997, el DOL encontró que mas del 60 por ciento de las plantas encuestadas no le pagaron al equipo de atrapadores el correspondiente tiempo extra por trabajo realizado en exceso de las cuarenta horas semanales.

Los Criadores de Pollos Expresan Interrogantes Sobre Los Contratos

Es difícil ver a pollitos blancos mullidos como el tema de justicia social, pero criar pollos es otra realidad de la industria que trae controversia. Los que crían los pollos se encuentran frecuentemente en situaciones injustas. Los contratos que firman con la compañía avícola están escritos para dejar las mayores decisiones en manos de la compañía. El avicultor debe gastar grandes sumas de dinero para construir, y después modernizar las instalaciones donde criaran a los pollos. En el caso de péquenos avicultores, generalmente, inversiones requieren de una hipoteca sobre la finca familiar. La compañía avícola provee a los avicultores con los pollitos de cría, antibióticos, alimento, y otras provisiones. La compañía pesa el alimento y el peso final del pollo. La compañía también decide cuanto pagara al avicultor por libra, después de deducir los gastos por suministros. Pollitos enfermos, enfermedades en el gallinero, problemas por el clima, eliminación de desperdicios, y otros problemas son riesgos del avicultor, no de la compañía. Los contratos se limitan a la acción de arbitraje como la única manera de enfrentar los problemas, negando la posibilidad de demandas judiciales de clase que han sido exitosas para algunos criadores de aves en el pasado.

Roy y Mary Stein son criadores de aves y cuentan con dieciséis años de experiencia. Ellos expresaron que la mayoría de las familias criadoras envían a uno de sus miembros a trabajar a otro lugar para tener un ingreso adecuado para la familia. Muchas veces la tasa de ingreso prometido por la compañía esta por debajo de la realidad, especialmente cuando la compañía exige cambios costosos o mejoras de equipo como condición para continuar el contrato. Si el contrato no es renovado, la granja de la

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familia puede perder el derecho de la hipoteca. El venderla sin la promesa de un contrato similar de parte de un comprador potencial, es casi imposible.

“La única cosa sobre la cual uno tiene control es la firma del contrato. Ellos pueden darlo por terminado en el momento que quieran; usted no puede, pero ellos sí,” dice Roy Stein. Mary anadio, ” Este es un contrato laboral. Usted no es un socio. Un socio tiene algo que decir sobre su negocio.” La pareja dice que los granjeros avicultores tienen miedo de hablar abiertamente porque “todo lo que ellos poseen esta hipotecado.”

De acuerdo a Security and Exchange Commission, las compañías avícolas ganan cerca del 16 por ciento sobre sus inversiones, mientras que las granjas criadoras ganan cerca del 4 por ciento. Granjas avicultoras Delmarva encuestadas en 1997 dieron a conocer las mismas preocupaciones de los Steins; el 43 por ciento dijeron que ellos no creen en el peso que les es entregado por parte de la compañía, 41 por ciento tampoco creen en las cifras que aparecen en sus estados de paga, y 57 por ciento creen que la compañía tomara represalias si los criadores de aves expresan se descontento.

Voces y Opciones también acometa el aspecto de la industria avícola, anotando que la mayoría de personas en los Estados Unidos son descendentes de emigrantes, quienes también llegaron en busca de una vida mejor.

Distintos en aspectos, costumbres, y lenguaje, los recién llegados frecuentemente son discriminados. Estas personas tienen cara y un futuro. Un hombre joven esta sentado tranquilamente con sus brazos fornidos cruzados sobre su pecho. Un amigo lo persuade para hacerlo hablar, prometiéndole que no se usara su verdadero nombre. Paulatinamente, Julio López se relaja, abre sus brazos y extiende su mano gentilmente. Su mano esta deformada, llena de cicatrices y su forma contrahecha. A través del traductor, habla renuentemente sobre la herida que sufrió procesando pollos, la cual requirió mas de setenta puntadas para cerrarla. Semanas después, aun no puede hacer uso de su mano herida. El personal medico que lo ha atendido le ha dicho que no hay nada mas que se puede hacer y que no tiene autorización para ver a un especialista. Tampoco ha sido compensado por la lesión. Su preocupación es de que el daño sea permanente, pero no se queja por miedo de perder su trabajo en la planta procesadora, ya que con este alimenta a su familia en su país. Esta desesperado por ayudarlos, tan desesperado que cruzo la frontera de este país ilegalmente. ¿Que pasara si él es enviado de regreso? Al igual que muchos otros que están indocumentados, el expreso que es mejor quedarse callado.

¿Mientras que las leyes concernientes a inmigración y a inmigrantes deben ser respetadas, que se puede hacer para ayudar y proteger a este grupo vulnerable y explotable? Muchos de ellos han huido debido a conflictos civiles en Latinoamérica, en los cuales han incluido a los Estados Unidos en un papel político. Su repugnancia de pedir ayuda de las autoridades del gobierno es comprensible, y pasa a ser otro factor en las circunstancias que mucha gente debe afrentar.

Aunque Voces y Opciones se mantiene de información estadística, la dificultad en obtener estadísticas se oscurece por las experiencias comunes que enfrentan los trabajadores de la industria. Ellos enfrentan muchos desafíos en común, entre ellos cuestiones de salario adecuado y otros derechos de los trabajadores, de dignidad humana, y de asuntos de inmigración. Las historias que los trabajadores cuentan son consistentes y casi devastadoras. Estos trabajadores parecen no tener voces ni opciones en su situación de trabajo.

Voces y Opciones también incluye un largo trato de raizes bíblicas sobre el prójimo. Habla sobre mas de cien años de enseñanza social Católica sobre principios como el da la vida y dignidad de la persona humana, el organizarse de trabajadores, pago justo, condiciones apropiados en el trabajo y solidaridad. El documento del obispo no toma una opinión simplistica sobre las fuerzas económicas

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globales en el trabajo. Aunque dice, complejidad no es excusa por falta darse cuenta o por no tomar acción.

La “integración vertical,” aquella en que la misma compañía posee o controla cada paso de la producción desde los elementos más básicos, como lo es el gran o alimentación, hasta el producto final, como pechugas de pollo deshuesadas y sin piel en las estanterías del supermercado, ha llegado a ser una fuerza dominante en la economía. Las ramificaciones son demasiado numerosas para tratarlas aquí, pero de acuerdo a la Conferencia Nacional de Vida Rural Católica, la “granja-fabrica” impacta los precios, salarios, recursos naturales, y el futuro de las granjas familiares, dando un enorme poder a las altas autoridades de unas compañías.

Las fuerzas económicas que moldan el trabajo en la vida diaria de cada persona son complicadas y entrelazadas, extendiéndose en asuntos ambientales, uso de tecnología hormonal, ingeniería genética, política exterior, política monetaria mundial, desproporción internacional de recursos, deuda y riqueza.

El cambio estructural y las protecciones legales son tareas esenciales para las entidades del gobierno y de las empresas. “Aun” averigua Voces y Opciones, ” no podemos dejar nuestra preocupación y responsabilidad por tales asuntos en manos del grupo anónimo. El ‘grupo’ esta formado por individuos. El cambio estructural empieza por la conversión de cada corazón.” Mientras la declaración del obispo para antes de sugerir acción especifica, dice firmemente que todas las voces en el trabajo necesitan ser escuchadas y las responsabilidades y los beneficios deben ser compartidos.

Desde 1987 a 1997, el valor de la producción avícola ha duplicado; las ganancias de operación de la industria de asadores excedieron mas de un billón de dólares en 1996.

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El limite de la “línea de velocidad” en la procesadora avícola USDA aumento de setenta aves por minuto en 1979 a noventa y un aves por minuto en 1999. Mientras que el ingreso promedio verdadero para trabajadores avícola bajo de 1987 a 1997. La industria avícola es a la vez la que menos paga y la que mas trabajadores emplea en toda la industria de la carne.

Teniendo una voz puede llevar a tener una opción sobre salarios, condiciones del trabajo, seguridad, cuidado medico y otros beneficios. A menudo es difícil para los trabajadores lograr este compartir de responsabilidad con los dueños y gerentes, y por eso la Iglesia, por décadas, ha apoyado el derecho de los individuos a asociarse en grupos organizados para lograr que las voces y las opciones lleguen a ser una realidad.

Debido al constante cambio de personal, a la situación vulnerable y el aislamiento es difícil organizar a los trabajadores de la industria avícola. Aun formadas hay mas obstáculos.

Una planta procesadora avícola ha tenido tal asociación desde 1996, y hoy, aun no existe contrato para proteger a los trabajadores. “Esta lucha ha continuado por largo tiempo,” dijo el organizador Juan Sánchez. “La gente esta cansada, pero ellos quieren estar organizados. Esta es la única manera de obtener la atención de la compañía cuando ellos son maltratados por los supervisores o cuando se les da exceso de trabajo. Ellos quieren protegerse.”

Voces y Opciones termina con la siguiente exhortación y las firmas de cuarenta y un obispos. “Amamos y servimos” en nuestras vidas diarias a través de nuestros encuentros con otros. ¿Cómo podríamos abogar por las necesidades de nuestros hermanos y hermanas que no tienen voz ni opción? ¿Cómo podríamos hablar por los que no tienen voz?(Proverbios 3:18) Empecemos con nuestros propios corazones y con nuestra consciencia mientras caminamos juntos por el nuevo milenio. Busquemos la presencia Divina en cada persona, y respondamos de acuerdo, “porque así como lo hiciste a uno de esos pequeños…a mí lo hiciste…” (Mateo 25:40).

Este escrito fue sacado y adaptado de Voces y Opciones y redactado por Susan Stevenot Sullivan, miembra del equipo que desarrolló la declaración de los Obispos. Sullivan es escritora, editora y fotógrafa basada an el área de Atlanta. Voces y Opciones es disponible en forma escrita en St. Anthony Messenger Press (1-800-488-0488) o en la Pagina Red: www.americancatholic.org/News/PoultryPastoral/default.asp. Redactado por Blanca Rojas.

Sidebar: ¿El DOL de Bush Cumplirá con las Leyes el Sueldo y Hora?

S. Sullivan

Vol. 23, No. 1 p. 12, 2001

Una declaración de concierne fue presentado a los administradores del Departamento de Labor del los EEUU en seis ubicaciones alrededor del país, inclusive Atlanta, el 24-25 de May del 2001. La “carta abierta” organizada pr el Comité de Interfaith para la Justicia de Trabajador, (NICWJ) por sus mezclas en Ingles, pregunto a la nueva Secretaria de Trabajo, Elaine Chao, que vigorosamente imponga las leyes que Sueldo y La Hora diseñaron para proteger a 250,000 trabajadores de plantas avícolas y que sostenga a la industria avícola responsable por infracciones de la ley del trabajo.

Chao se ha reunido con representantes de la industria avícola y ha recibido una carta de dieciséis Senadores de los EEUU, que supuestamente le piden reducir la coacción y la contabilidad de la industria. El NICWJ fue incapaz de arreglar una junta con la Secretaria.

En Atlanta, diez representantes de grupos religiosos y del trabajo, encabezados por la Alianza de Georgia para Justicia Avícola, se reunieron con Alfered “Hap” Perry, Administrador Regional del Sur este y Joe Villareal, Administrador Regional del Sur Oeste de la División del Sueldo y Hora del DOL. El grupo le presentó a Perry y a Villareal una copia de la carta del NICWJ, firmada por 150 lideres de organizaciones religiosas y de la justicia, además de copias de “Voces y Opciones” el documento Pastoral de los Obispos del Sur.

Perry cito un estudio del DOL 2000, que due puesto en circulación en Enero del 2001, diciendo que las cincuentiuno procesadoras avícolas que fueron investigadas estaban en violación de las leyes del Sueldo Y Hora. Un estudo del DOL de 1997, mostró que solo 40 por ciento de las plantas cumplieron con las leyes.

“No pienso que la industria haya cambiado (entre la investigación del 2000),” Perry dijo. “Pienso que hicimos un trabajo mejor con el estudio del 2000. La industria ha estado haciendo lo mismo por veinte anos. Una de esas “cosas” es requerir que los trabajadores se “pongan y quitan” la ropa protectora sin pagales por este tiempo, resultando en mas o menos una hora de trabajo sin pago por cada turno.

La respuesta por el DOL a estos estudios puede incluir “no hacer nada: o demandar a las compañías y or multar las, dijo Perry. Él prefiere la opción de educar, para que los trabajadores y los patrones tengan conocimiento de las leyes del trabajo.

Perry dijo que su oficina esta preparando uno respuesta a la posición de la industria avícola. “Tengo interés personal en esto,” él dijo.

Él pidió a los presentadores de la declaración del NICWJ, que ayudaran a unir al DOL con los trabajadores avícola. Ofreció hacer disponibles semanalmente a representantes del DOL para dar presentationes educativas a los trabajadores de la industria avícola.

S. Sullivan

Marge Baroni: The Awakening of Activism

Susan Stevenot Sullivan — Fri, 01 Mar 2002 05:00:04 +0000

Marge Baroni: The Awakening of Activism

By Susan Stevenot Sullivan

Vol. 24, No. 1-2, 2002 pp. 9-12

Marjorie Rushing Baroni (1942-1986) was in many ways an ordinary Southern woman of the last century. A housewife and resident of Natchez, Mississippi, she was neither wealthy nor famous. She was not killed in the civil rights days, nor were members of her family. She was willing, however, to live what she believed about the dignity of all people. She was an ordinary person who took an extraordinary stance for her time and paid a social and personal price for the rest of her life.

The daughter of poor, white, Mississippi sharecroppers and the mother of six children, Marge Baroni departed from her cultural upbringing to become a civil rights activist in one of the most active Ku Klux Klan areas in Mississippi. By living her faith in God’s equal love for all races, she endangered herself and her family and was ostracized by white society–including relatives, friends, co-workers, and members of her Catholic parish.

Books like Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi by John Dittmer;Silver Rights by Constance Curry; and Civil Rights Chronicle by Clarice Campbell testify to the heroic actions of ordinary people who have helped transform life as it is now lived in the United States. The sacrifices of such people, many acting in isolation and in the face overwhelming pressure to be silent and conform, helped to construct platforms upon which the highly-publicized people and events featured in history books have stood. These stories bring us history with flesh and bone, with feelings and particularity.

The central mystery for all such ordinary, extraordinary lives is “how” and “why.” How is it that Mrs. Baroni stepped-out despite the risks involved, to live her belief that all people are equal in the sight of God? Why did she persist, risking her life and the lives of those she loved?

The clues are in her life and her writings. They are uncovered in the remembrances of friends, family members, civil rights co-workers, and in the recorded history of the South. This article is a first attempt to scratch the surface of the mystery of Marjorie Rushing Baroni’s life.

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The Commerce of Natchez

The world into which Marge Baroni was born had been built, long before, on the backs of slaves. According to Ronald L.F. Davis, in The Black Experience in Natchez 1720-1880, by the 1790s slaves were arriving in Natchez in increasing numbers. He writes, “With the development of the cotton gin, the trickle of slaves coming into the neighborhood became a cascade. By 1810, more than 8,000 slaves lived in Adams County… That number increased to 14,292 on the eve of the Civil War… The old Natchez district had become a slave-populated, plantation economy.”

This plantation economy led to the erection of numerous estate mansions in and around Natchez. Davis describes the economic impact of slave labor in Natchez: “Students of Natchez history contend that district planters ranked among the richest slave masters in the South as well as–in many cases–the nation’s wealthiest citizens.”

As generations passed, the trappings of slavery were discarded, but the system of second-class status remained. Describing the evolution of 20th century race relations in Natchez, John Dittmer in Local People wrote:

“Before World War II, race relations in Natchez resembled the paternalism of the old regime, with organizations like the NAACP tolerated as long as blacks did not challenge the caste system. Now, however, Natchez had become a ‘New South’ city boasting an industrial base anchored by Armstrong Tire and Rubber, the International Paper Company, and the Johns-Manville Corporation. When in the early 1960s black activists began to press for social change, whites responded as they had during the days of first Reconstruction. With a substantial white working-class base, the Ku Klux Klan, under the leadership of E. L. McDaniel, was stronger in Natchez than in any other Mississippi community, even McComb.”

Childhood Challenges

Marjorie Raye Rushing was born August 16, 1924, to Percy Rushing and Clementine Loften Rushing. Margie, the oldest of their five children, was born in Brookhaven, just outside Natchez, on a farm the couple sharecropped.

One of Marge Baroni’s daughters, Mary Jane (Baroni) Tarver said that her mother’s family had a “hard life.” Problems between her grandfather, an often-violent alcoholic, and her grandmother, a “hard-shell Baptist,” created turmoil for the children in addition to the economic challenges.

In an essay entitled, “Whatever Happened to Joseph Edwards,” probably written in the 1980s as the start of her unfinished master’s thesis, Baroni wrote about her upbringing. “When I was growing up, my father moved us often. He was always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We lived in a succession of rental houses in Natchez and in a number of tenant shacks on various farms in Adams County.”

While her hands became callused from months of hard, hot labor. Margie Rushing escaped into her fluid imagination. “My brother and I, as the eldest children in the family–we were eleven and thirteen respectively–were expected to do the work of farm hands, and we did. I remember picking cotton, sticking sweet potato slips into the ground, laying stalks of seed cane along the furrow our father ploughed for them… It was a hard life at times, especially for an adolescent, but in the hot days between the laying of the crops and harvest time, I was able to read for many hours. I always day dreamed, no matter what the chore, and had to be reprimanded often.”

At the age of forty-nine, Marge Baroni recalled the childhood foundations of her profound search for meaning and love.

“I have wanted, so intensely all my life, to live fully. Lying on my back in the middle of the peanut patch–looking at the September clouds and wondering what the future held for me. . . I was twelve years old, a dreamer, romantic, and irrepressible.”

The stress inflicted by her dysfunctional family added urgency to the search for transcendence and new perspectives amid the daily difficulties. It may also have created a sense of solidarity with those targeted by rage-filled abusers who need scapegoats.

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“I knew a little about corporal punishment,” she continued. “We always told each other, ‘You’re going to get a whipping.’ I think I got the most. For one thing I was the oldest of five children and my brother, next to me, was the only son. This automatically acted in his favor. . . . The sense of disapproval, the tension and violence, hysteria and clenched teeth that emanated from my parents’ unhappiness with each other kept my core from forming unscarred.

“. . . At any rate it is this spirit of exploration that has motivated my entire life. This and the search for evidences of love–the love of man for man, for woman, for child, for earth, for every growing thing, every created thing. . . even now the pattern is still growing, it is still becoming clearer.”

The pattern of noticing a difference in the way certain people were treated may have started in the immediate family, with her brother, but it soon widened to include the larger community.

In “Whatever Happened to Joseph Edwards,” she wrote about her growing awareness of inequality. “I knew, when I was a little girl, that something stood in the way of free intercourse among people. Before I recognized differences in skin pigment and came to know what it meant, I knew there was a barrier. I had noted the high, strained pitch of the shopkeeper’s voice when he spoke to a black customer. In the department stores I had seen handsome, dark women poised and austere, their faces closed against the loud questioning of the clerks. . . . “Although my mother never jerked me closer to her when we met blacks on the street, as she did when we passed the Chinese family who ran the grocery store down on Franklin Street, I could tell there was a special etiquette in her conversation with black men and women–even children. She became jocularly condescending, not natural as she when she was among her white friends and relatives.”

Leaving Natchez High School before she graduated, Marge married nineteen-year-old Louis Baroni, the son of an Italian sharecropper family who lived in Adams County. She was seventeen. Louis and Marge relocated as he searched for welding work in booming shipyards of World War II. The first of their six children, Neil, was born within a year. According to Louis, Marge insisted on returning to Natchez for the birth of their first child in August of 1942. The couple would live in Natchez for the rest of Marge’s life.

The Awakening of Activism

A process of personal transformation led to Marge’s conversion to Catholicism in 1947. By the mid-1950s, she became a friend of internationally-known peace and justice activist Dorothy Day, also a Catholic. More than two decades of correspondence and visits testify to a mother-daughter sort of relationship between the two women. The relationship influenced Marge’s activism.

By 1957, Marge stopped attending local concerts and theater events, which she loved and reviewed for the local paper. “The fact that (concerts and plays) were segregated became too much for me,” she wrote. “What was I doing there? How could I justify my belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man if I had no qualms about enjoying privilege because of the color of my skin?”

By 1962, Marge Baroni quit her job as an editor of the , because of their racist editorial policies. She informed her employer, “I could no longer work for a newspaper that purposely overlooked one-half the population, unless there was a murder, rape, or robbery implicating a member of that community.”

She began a public involvement in anti-segregation and civil rights organizations, such as the Mississippi Council on Human Relations. During this decade she established important relationships with such local activists as Father William Morrissey, a Josephite priest and the white pastor of the black Catholic church in Natchez, and others, such as Mamie Lee Mazique, activist and member of the parish. The courageous stories of these local people are intertwined with her own. Like them, Marge felt compelled to conform her life to her beliefs, whatever the cost.

In a 1977 oral history interview, Marge remarked on the challenge of integrity. “The thing is, it was perfectly acceptable for white people to sit down and talk about how black people were mistreated, so long as one didn’t do anything about it, so long as one didn’t attempt to change it. You could deplore it. You could be upset about it. You could say it was wrong. You could point to the Bible. . . You could read the Bible and study your religion, but you couldn’t practice it.”

For Marge, Mississippi’s litany of beatings and murders, legal challenges, and years of struggle all coalesced in the summer of 1964, Freedom Summer. Scores of students poured into Mississippi, as she put it, “to help break the bonds under which black Mississippians labored. . . It was the beginning of the end for the old Mississippi. . . Never before had it been so blatantly obvious that church, state, and local governments, educational and press organizations, and business institutions were dedicated in our state to the status quo based on separation of the races. This condition had existed in every area of life since the territory was first settled by the white man, and the land brought under control by his black slave.”

Her activities in 1964 included integrating the white library in Natchez with Chock Mazique, Mamie Lee Mazique’s son; attending Civil Rights Commission hearings; joining the Mississippi Council on Human Relations, which was meeting at Tougaloo College where she met

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Mickey Schwerner a month before he was murdered; and meeting at Natchez’s Eola Hotel to help integrate the dining room.

Ostracism and Threats

By December of 1964, her efforts triggered ostracism, first by extended family members, then by white Catholic parishioners and the white community as a whole. KKK smear campaigns and threats became common. At least one bombing attempt targeting the family home is acknowledged and shots were fired at the house. “We were always concerned about bombings,” Louis Baroni, her husband, said in an oral history interview in 2000 at his home on Monroe Street.

Louis Baroni who worked at the same Armstrong plant as bombing victim Wharlest Jackson, went in fear of his life for years. Each evening he inspected small pebbles he had placed on the hood of his car at the beginning of the shift, in the hope of detecting the tampering necessary to place a similar bomb in his car, ready to detonate on the drive home from work. For three years, no one at the Armstrong plant spoke to Louis Baroni. He may have kept his job due to his union membership.

In recent oral history interviews, it is clear that the Baroni offspring are, decades later, beginning to come to grips with the impact of these events on their childhoods. Their experiences vary with their ages at the time of the most harrowing events. Some of the younger children were taunted and insulted at times and all were conscious of the family’s isolation and being “different.”

Despite the impact on the children, their mother did not change her beliefs or her activities. Marge Baroni helped spearhead a drive to form the Adams Jefferson County Improvement Corporation (AJIC), a community-action agency conforming to Title II of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964–pioneering outreach efforts included Head Start, high school work programs, and adult literacy programs.

In 1969, Marge left her post as assistant director of AJIC to accept a job as an aide to Mayor Charles Evers of Fayette, the first African American to be elected mayor of a biracial town in Mississippi since Reconstruction. She worked for him for ten years.

The ostracism continued long after the defining years of the Civil Rights Movement ended. The isolation took an emotional and physical toll, which she candidly revealed in correspondence. It is possible that she suffered a nervous breakdown in the early 1970s. She went away for several weeks and two of her sons remember there was uncertainty about whether she would return. She did.

Dorothy Day, her friend and mentor, died in 1980. In 1981, Marge Baroni was diagnosed with colon cancer, a struggle which ended with her death in 1986.

Until the end, she continued her vocation as an activist. Several months before her death, an emaciated Marge Baroni was featured in an article in the weekly paper of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson. The story detailed her work to secure housing for a one hundred-year-old African-American woman.

Questions Remain

Who was Marge Baroni? Much more research is needed to answer that question. She was one of the very human, very ordinary people who took extraordinary risks. Much more of her story, and the stories of people like Father William Morrissey and Mamie Lee Mazique, remains to be told.

Perhaps history is made and hearts are changed one ordinary person at a time. To follow their example, we need to know who they are. “Who our heroes are and whether they are presented in a way that makes them lifelike, hence usable as role models, could have a significant bearing on our conduct in the world,” writes James W. Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong.

Attempting to understand how Marge Baroni, and others, joined this company of extraordinary/ordinary people can help all of us see our own roles more clearly in the challenges that continue today.

A note from Dorothy Day in November of 1974 reads, “Dearest Marge, do excuse my long silence–but I’ve been thinking of you and our plans for the South–a farm in Mississippi somewhere between Natchez and Fayette. Idle dreams maybe but your energies and desires to serve the Lord, your love of people and interracial justice should find expression. . . .You have been a voice in the wilderness and a shining light to the blind!”

Susan Stevenot Sullivan lives in Atlanta, working as a writer and photographer with groups in ministry in the South. She was instrumental in the placement of Marge Baroni’s papers in the archives at the University of Mississippi.

Sullivan continues to piece together Marge Baroni’s story and would appreciate hearing from anyone who can add additional information (write to Susan Stevenot Sullivan c/o Southern Changes at 133 Carnegie Way, NW, Suite 900, Atlanta, GA 30303)