CIO Publication No. 85 -WORKING AND FIGHTING TOGETHER regardless of race, creed, color or national origin - produced by the CIO Committee to Abolish Racial Discrimination 1943
A hallmark of CIO organizing was tearing down racial barriers to worker solidarity and union power. The AFL's craft based unionism almost exclusively saw white workers in high paying skill jobs with poor workers of color left unorganized in the mass production industries. The C.I.O. had a huge challenge on their hands, building multi-racial international unions in Jim Crow America. I have read many accounts by organizers with the United Auto Workers regarding just how difficult it was to win white workers over to these new C.I.O. unions. These organizing drives literally transformed communities and racial equality might just be the most radical concept of all the CIO's legacy.
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