LDF Article on Westinghouse

    Willie Foster

"They can show you a hundred thousand differ-
ent ways where you don't want the job or you
can't do the job. They can't show you one way
where you can."

Willie Foster, like Walter Culbreath, was the would-
be victim of a technique geared to make blacks fail
when they accepted new, better work at Westing-
house. Like Mr. Culbreath, Mr. Foster's own intelli-
gence and talents saw him through the difficult time
when he was given the job of coil winder, and then
left to sink or swim on his own, without the training
or help normally given by fellow employees.

"I have been working for Westinghouse since March
16, 1959. One of the reasons that I'm here (at a meet-
ing of the Neighborhood Advisory Council) is be-
cause during the past twenty years that I worked
there I have seen a lot of discrimination in jobs and
wages. They give the jobs to certain peoples. And
some of these jobs you apply for, you got too much
education, or you don't have enough education.
And some they just don't want you to have. The
foreman may dislike you and give you a runaround.
They can show you a hundred thousand different
ways where you don't want the job or you can't do
the job. They can't show you one way where you
can. And in my opinion, right up to this day, this
situation still exists and I would like to see it
stopped. That's my reason for being here.

"I started out as a sweeper, which was the only
way a black man could get a job in the plant at that
time. Well, I'm a coil winder, a class 7 coil winder at
the present, but when I started working there, I
couldn't wind no coil. I didn't never have no train-
ing, but I had worked in the section and I knew

enough about winding coils that I was able to make
it. When I went to coil winding, the man came and
showed me how to turn the machine on. He turned
the machine on and walked off, and I ain't seen him
since. I didn't have any training."

You have read just a few of many statements made
at a recent meeting of the Neighborhood Advisory
Council. For 40 years, LDF has been helping people
like these in legal struggles to affirm, establish and
advance civil rights.

LDF has won many major victories to secure
equal educational opportunities, voting rights, fair
housing and equal employment opportunity. The
case in Athens, Georgia, is one of many in which we
are presently involved, not just in the South, but in
any part of the nation where blacks are oppressed by
racial discrimination.

Only the support of concerned men and women
across the country makes LDF's extensive court
battles possible. Please join us in this important
work, work which affects the lives and well-being of
so many, by sending LDF as generous a contribu-
tion as you can today.

When victims of discrimination
turn to LDF for help, LDF
turns to you.

Please send your tax-deductible gift to:

THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
P.O. Box No. 13,064
New York, N.Y. 10049

(Office address: l0 Columbus Circle, Suite 2030,
New York, N.Y. 10019)

JANUARY I98O

Supported by voluntary contributions, THE NAACP LEGAL
DEFENSE FUND selects only those job-bias cases which can im-
prove the lot ofsubstantial numbers of black workers. It is hoped
that these key cases, numbering in the hundreds, can serve as the
fulcrum on which wages and working conditions are raised for
black workers generally.

In settling l8 cases between October of I978 and July of 1979,
LDF secured more than $5,000,000 in back pay for thousands of
black workers. Such settlements encourage revised personnel
practices throughout industry and thus move black workers a step
closer to parity with white workers. Fair employment policies are,
however, still far off as the decade of the 1980s opens.

"My niece was told that she had a job as
a Westinghouse secretary. But when she\
went to Westinghouse and they fourid
out she was black, they told her they had
filled the job."

Robert Gilham,
West inghouse emp lo ree,

Athens, Georgia

,

Robert Gilham, center, and other victims of employment discrimination meet to discuss their class
action lawsuit against Westinghouse Electric Corporation's plant in Athens, Georgia. Joseph Pat
Nelson, one of their Legal Defense Fund cooperating attorneys, is seated at left.



Racial Discrimination at Westinghouse

In 1958 x'hen the huge Westinghouse plant opened in Athens, Georgia, onl.t'.janitorial .jobs v'ere
oyailable to blocks. While some intprovements have been mode sinc'e that time, emplo_t'ment dis-
t'rintination remains an e-\trentel.t' serious problem .for blacks u'orking or seeking .jobs there.

The Legal Defense Fund and LDF cooperating attorneys Joseph Pat Nelson, David Russell
Sweat, and Kenneth Dious are in the midst of a massive class action lawsuit against the Westing-
house Electric Corporation's plant in Athens, Georgia. The plant produces overhead electrical
transformers - those big cylindrical objects at the top of every third or fourth telephone pole.
Westinghouse is charged with widespread and long-standing discrimination against blacks in hiring,
firing, testing, training, job assignment, promotion, and discipline. Here are the stories of some of
those who have suffered because of that discrimination.

highest ranking black employees at the plant, but he
will not be satisfied until all blacks are treated
equally by Westinghouse. He is vice-president of
the Neighborhood Advisory Council, an organiza-
tion of members of the class suing Westinghouse.

"l started working at Westinghouse April 21, 1958
as a sweeper. I worked in the maintenance depart-
ment and I was cleaning rest rooms for 7 months. In
November 1958, I went to the coil winding depart-
ment and held the job of storeroom attendant.

"Everything went fine until I applied for a job as
coil winder in 1961. All our winders were white men,
and everybody was angry at me. I had to go to the
employment office and take another test. I done
good on that test, and the supervisor told me that I
had passed all the qualifications for becoming a coil
winder. So I got this job and no one would help me
do anything. I had to do it all on my own. That was
a rough job because you didn't have anyone to ex-
plain anything to you. If it was something you didn't
know, you had to try and figure it out for yourself.

"Then the trouble started. I would take a break
and if I was running high voltage wire, which was
running at a fast speed, I'd come back and some-
body would have put the machine in reverse. At that

time I was winding six coils, and when this thing
goes backwards, all this wire unravels, and I had to
straighten out all that mess.

"They would also take a pair of needlenose pliers
and crimp the high voltage wires just enough so that
when I put tension on it, it would break. And some-
times they put goo on my stooland all over my tools
so I'd get allthis mess on my hands. That's one of the
hardest situations in my life, to stand there and you
look up and everybody is looking at you. You know
you want to knock hell out of somebody, but you
don't know who to hit.

"l'd stand there, and I caught myself a lot of times
crying, wondering sometimes where those tears
come from, just out of the blue, you know. And then
I'd get off in the afternoon and go out and find a flat
on my car. You had to change tires with it 90 some-
thing degrees out in the parking lot.

"But I didn't give up. I kept on going. I was one of
the guys who helped integrate the water fountain
out there, and it's a funny feeling to drink water out
ofa fountain, and you stand up and there's about 20
or 25 whitc guys staring at you.

"Today, I'm a winding technician, labor grade 9
right now. I have more time and experience in the
coil winding department than any other technician
there. We have six technicians. The other five are
white, but the same guy that used to walk around
and call me S.O.B. for using the fountain, he's my
supervisor. The discrimination when I worked there
in 1958 is still here right now."

Members of the Neighborhood Advisory
Council meet ever.l, three weeks at St. Mary's
Baptist Church in Athens, Georgia, to discuss
their emplo),ment discrimination suit against
Westinghouse. With help from the Legal
Defense Fund, their case goes to trialin Federal
District Court later this year.

Major D. Callaway

"l want to be given a chance. Who's to say I
couldn't have done better if they,'d given me a
chance?"

Major D. Callaway was one of the leaders among
the black employees who got together in May 1969.
Together they filed a complaint against Westing-
house with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, which seven years later found that
there was reasonable cause to believe that the
charges of employment discrimination were true.
Mr. Callaway quit Westinghouse later in 1969 after
being denied several promotions because he "lacked
drive." He later opened his own business and now
runs a successful transmission shop. He remains an
active participant in the suit.

"The reason I started this thing was because of dis-
crimination. Blacks had one restroom there, and
that's a very large plant. I was pushing one of these
big trash boxes and something got in my eye. I was
right next to a rest room when it happened, but it
didn't say 'Colored.' I went in there anyway'cause
otherwise I would have had to walk across the plant
to the'Colored' rest room to see what it was. When I
got out, there was a bunch of white men standing
around who started hassling me for going in there.

"I was mechanically inclined from the start, and I
felt I was qualified for one of the higher positions
out there. But ifyou ever spoke up or requested any-
thing, they marked you down as a troublemaker. It
was very difficult. You walk out there, somebody
scratched your car, poked holes in your tires, try to
run you off the road, all kinds of stuff. It was just
like going into hell. It just came to the point I almost
got a divorce. I'd come home, wasn't making but
560, $65 a week. Couldn't hardly live.

"l'd rather be dead than go through that again. I
want better working conditions, and I want to be
given a chance. Who's to say I couldn't have done
better if they'd given me a chance?"

Walter M. Culbreath, Sr.

"l caught myself a lot of times crying, wonder-
ing sometimes where those tears come from.
just out of the blue. you know."

Walter M. Culbreath, Sr., has worked for Westing-
house for nearly 22 years. Today he is one of the

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