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J. P. Stevens controversy refers to one of "the ugliest episodes in labor history in the United States which took place from about 1963 to 1980 during which J.P. Stevens & Co. Inc[1]—"one of the nation's oldest corporate dynasties."[2] Stevens "repeatedly harassed or fired union activists, and the union countered with a four-year boycott of Stevens products and a campaign to isolate the company by pressuring companies that dealt with Stevens or had Stevens officers on their boards."[1] J.P. Stevens was the "second-largest textile manufacturer in the United States after Burlington Industries. It became a symbol of union resistance. Stevens famous run with the union was documented in the Academy Award winning movie Norma Rae based on real-life story of textile worker Crystal Lee Sutton who worked at one of Stevens mills in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.[1]

History

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"According to company legend," during the War of 1812 Nathaniel Stevens "noticed that textiles in those days were largely handmade and, convinced that he could produce them more efficiently by machine," opened a small wool flannel factory in an "old grist mill in North Andover, Massachsetts" and called it Nathaniel Stevens & Son.[2] Under the leadership of Nathaniel's son Moses, it became one of the largest textile companies in the United States.[3] He was the grandfather of John Peter Stevens (1868-1929)[4][3] who established the J.P. Stevens dry-goods commission house in 1899 in New York City which "prospered by selling the products of his uncle Moses' company. He had mills in New England he was one of the "first textile industrialists to invest heavily in mills in the South."[3]

John Peter Stevens Jr (-1977) was the president of a member of the Raritan Township/Edison Township Board of Education from 1940 to 1959, and was President of the Board from 1943 to 1958.[5] "John P. Stevens Jr. was President of John P. Stevens & Co. the largest textile manufacturer in the US, and one of the oldest companies in America. (Today in 2010 you would say he was head of a “Fortune 500” company.) He was also on the board of major corporations, and large charities."[5]

In 1964 J.P. Stevens High School was named after J. P. Stevens Jr.(-1977)? as suggested by fellow Board member, Mr. Schoder and Mr. Anderson.[5] A, Robert T. Stevens' brother? who served on the school board from 1940 - 1959 when he was also CEO of J. P. Stevens & Company[5] J. P. Stevens Jr. died in 1977.[5]

Robert T. Stevens

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In William F. Buckley, Jr.'s God and Man at Yale questions Robert Ten Broeck Stevens's politics.[6]: 107  Robert T. Stevens was born July 31, 1899 in Fanwood, NJ. His brother was John P. Stevens II who graduated from Yale 1919. Robert T. Stevens was a 2nd Lieutenant, Field Artillery in WWI. Since 1921 he worked at J.P.Stevens & Co Inc NYC-manufacturers and distributors of textiles. In 1924 he was director and assistant treasurer. He was president from 1929-1942. In June 1940 he became head of Textile Section of the National Defense Advisory Commission. In 1942 he joined Quartermaster Corps. From 1943-45 he was Deputy Director of Purchases of clothing, textiles and general supplies for the Armed Services. By October 1945 he had the rank of Colonel. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Service Medal. From 1934-1942 he was director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 1948 he was again the director of Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was a member of the board of directors of many companies. He married in 1923 four sons, Robert T Broeck Jr. who graduated from Yale 1945, Whitney, William and Thomas.[6]: 107 

On January 26, 1953 Time Magazine featured an article on Robert T. Stevens, whose firm made a "third (about $125 million a year) of its business with the Defense Department, mostly in cloth for uniforms."[7]

Monday, Jan. 26, 1953 His wife Dorothy was a member of the PGC.[8]

"Robert Ten Broeck Stevens, a textile manufacturer, was appointed Secretary of the Army. His firm, J. P. Stevens & Co. of New York City, does a third (about $125 million a year) of its business with the Defense Department, mostly in cloth for uniforms. It is a family firm. If he sold his stock, management might pass to other hands, the firm might have to be completely reorganized, with consequences that would extend far beyond any personal sacrifice Stevens might have to make. The Stevens firm, however, sells to the Government on the basis of competitive bids, while General Motors has a number of large development contracts and other dealings in which discretion is necessarily in the hands of Government officials and finally in the hands of the Secretary of Defense himself."

He was Secretary of the Army under President Eisenhower from 1953 to 1955.

John Peter Stevens and Edna Ten Broeck's son, Robert Ten Broeck Stevens (1899-1983)[9]—known as Robert T. Stevens—had a fifty-year career with J. P. Stevens & Company.[4][3] By the age of thirty Robert T. Stevens was president of the company.[4] During his tenure it was "one of the world's largest, most diversified textile organizations."[4] He left Stevens for two-years to serve as Secretary of the Army and by July 1955 he returned to Stevens where he remained until his retirement.[10] He became director emeritus in 1974.[4]

Whitney Stevens, son of Robert T. Stevens and great-great-grandson of Nathaniel Stevens, was the last of the Stevens family to head the company that had survived for 175 years.[2] He earned $754,000 in 1987. He collected "$2.6 million in severence benefits under his employment contract, plus $12.2 million more when the Stevens stock sold."[2] "He is also co-trustee of another $8 million of Stevens's stock in a trust established by his late father, Robert T. Stevens, Secretary of the Army under President Eisenhower and former chief executive of Stevens. By 1987 Stevens reported sales of $1.6 billion.

Context

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By August 28, 1978—shortly after Sutton was fired after trying to unionize employees—Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) began to represent workers at the plant.[11] “On October 19, 1980, J.P. Stevens approved their first collective bargaining agreement with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU)—a textile labor union that was founded in 1914. By 1981 "The company continued to battle the union's organizing efforts at its other non-unionized Southern mills and to fight its way through a snarl of legal cases, the legacy of its years of unrelenting opposition to Amalgamated." By 1981 ten of J.P. Stevens & Co. Inc's 80 mills—which were mainly in the Southeast—were union mills. Seven of Steven's mills were in Roanoke Rapids.[1]

In the 1980s, a Stevens' off-and-on mill-worker since she was 20, Mildred Ramsey, a 55-year-old grandmother, founded an anti-union organization called Stevens People and Friends for Freedom in Greenville, South Carolina.

By 2005 J. P. Stevens was part of WestPoint Home—a conglomerate of three the three oldest textile giants—WestPoint Manufacturing Company established in 1880 in Georgia and Pepperell Manufacturing Co established in 1851 in Maine.[12][13] WestPoint Home is now owned by Icahn Enterprises, L.P.[14][15][16]

James A. Hodges—now professor emeritus, College of Wooster, Ohio—did a study in 1994 of the important and highly publicized J. P. Stevens campaign in the 1960s and 1970s. According to Zeiger, Hodges "emerging work on the J. P. Stevens controvesy is one of the few full scholarly historical studies to examine "post-1960 [textile workers]."[17]: 124 [18]: 53–64, 246–249 [19][20][21][22]: 251–272 [23]: 26–31 [24][25]: 282–298 [26][27]: 707 

Aftermath

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After a takeover battle for J. P. Stevens & Company that lasted three months an agreement was made on April 25, 1988 that ended "one of the nation's oldest corporate dynasties."[2] Georgia-based West Point-Pepperell Inc. textile producer purchased J. P. Stevens—one of its biggest competitors—for $1.2 billion.[2] It was anticipated that there would be layoffs of "Stevens's corporate staff at its Manhattan headquarters and at the production center in Greenville, S.C." but that there were no plans to "close any of Stevens's 59 plants," most of which were in the South.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Salmans, Sandra (October 18, 1981), J. P. Stevens: One year after the truce, retrieved March 31, 2016
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Cole, Robert J. (April 26, 1988). "3-Month Battle for J.P. Stevens Ends". New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d "J. P. Stevens". Encyclopedia Britannica. nd. Retrieved 2 April 2016.
  4. ^ a b c d e "J.P. Stevens Dies. A Textile Leader. President of Commission House Bearing His Name Stricken at Age of 61. Director On Many Boards. Former President of Cotton Merchants' and Woolen Manufacturers' Associations". New York Times. October 28, 1929. Retrieved 2013-12-23.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Why is the high school named for John P. Stevens" (PDF), The Metuchen Recorder, February 13, 1964, retrieved April 2, 2016 Cite error: The named reference "metuchen-edisonhistsoc" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Buckley, William F. (1951), God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom', Regnery Publishing, ISBN 089526692X
  7. ^ "The Administration: Conflict of Interest", Time, January 26, 1953
  8. ^ http://andyswebtools.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-pa.cgi?d=plainfield-garden-club&type=4338
  9. ^ Robert D. McFadden (February 1, 1983). "Robert T. Stevens, Former Army Secretary, Dies At 83". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-12-23.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference bell1992 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Fink, Joey (July 15, 2014). "In Good Faith: Working-Class Women, Feminism, and Religious Support in the Struggle to Organize J. P. Stevens Textile Workers in the Southern Piedmont, 1974–1980". Southern Spaces. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  12. ^ "WestPoint Stevens, Inc. - Company Profile", Funding Universe, November 17, 2011, retrieved March 31, 2016
  13. ^ "WL Ross-Led Group Seeks to Acquire WestPoint Stevens", Textile World, April 2005, retrieved March 31, 2016
  14. ^ "WestPoint Home to Shutter Greenville, Ala., Facility, Textile World, February 8, 2011, 11/17/11
  15. ^ "WestPoint Stevens to Open Shanghai Office, Receives Filing Extension", Textile World, June 2004, 11/17/11
  16. ^ Brent Felgner"Why Icahn Needs Westpoint", Home Textiles Today, March 6, 2008, 11/17/11
  17. ^ Patton, Randall L. (1999), "Carpet capital: the rise of a new south industry", University of Georgia Press
  18. ^ Hodges, James A., Fink, Gary M.; Reed, Merl E. (eds.), J.P.Stevens and the Union: Struggle for the South, Race, Class, and Community in Southern Labor History, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
  19. ^ Conway, Mimi (1979). Rise Gonna Rise: a Portrait of Southern Textile Workers. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
  20. ^ Daniel, Clete (2001). Culture of Misfortune: an Interpretive History of Textile Unionism in the United States. Ithaca, NY: ILR.
  21. ^ Guzzardi, Walter Jr. (June 19, 1978), "How the Union got the upper hand on J. P. Stevens", Fortune, pp. 86–89, 91, 94, 98
  22. ^ Hodges, James A. (1997), Zieger, Robert H. (ed.), The Real Norma Rae, Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995, Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press
  23. ^ Kovler, Peter (April-March 1979), "The South: Last Bastion of the Open Shop", Politics Today {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ Minchin, Timothy (2005). Don’t Sleep with Stevens!:: The J.P. Stevens Campaign and the Struggle to Organize the South, 1963-1980. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. ISBN 0813028108.
  25. ^ Toplin, Robert Brent (Spring 1995), "Norma Rae: Unionism in an Age of Feminism", Labor History
  26. ^ Truchil, Barry E. (1988), Capital Labor Relations in the U.S. Textile Industry, New York: Praeger Press
  27. ^ Minchin, Timothy (November 16, 2006), Arnesen, Eric (ed.), J. P. Stevens Campaign (1963-1980), Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-class History, vol. 1, Routledge, ISBN 10: 0415968267 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
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