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459
Howard's car testified to the fact that the CIO's Eastern Shore thrust was no
picnic.)60
Other victories of importance occurred at the center of the region in
Baltimore itself. The Textile Workers Organizing Committee negotiated a closed
shop agreement at the strategic Woodbury Mills; the Mine, Mill, and Smelter
Workers made headway organizing the workers on the Montebello tunnel; the
IUMSWA campaign at Maryland Drydock was picking up steam; and SWOC at
Eastern Rolling Mills renewed its contract. And as if to underline the increasing
importance of Black workers to the CIO effort, the overwhelmingly African
American workforce at American Sugar Company organized into the United Sugar
Workers, Local 276, and swept over their AFL competitors in an NLRB
representational election by a vote of 486 to 67. Additionally, although Jones did
not mention it in his report, the Baltimore CIO attempted to directly aid
unemployed workers through its new Baltimore Committee on Unemployment and
Social Security, founded at the ACW hall and chaired by NMU leader Pat Whalen
(who was also, in 1938, elected president of the Baltimore Industrial Council).
Finally Jones even made a somewhat overly optimistic claim to progress at
Bethlehem Steel, noting that the company was working with CIO grievance
committees. *
Schematically speaking then, while 1936 saw the founding of the CIO in the
Baltimore region and 1937 was its heroic period of explosive activity, 1938
represented a forced consolidation with some growth. As the beginning economic
recovery of late 1938 was transformed into the accelerated economic activity of
1939, CIO activity again picked up velocity on many fronts. The Textile Workers
and the ACW made more gains; the NMU revived its fighting spirit with a series of
ship strikes, ending the year embroiled in a major coast-wide battle against four
major shipping companies - enlisting the Baltimore CIO as a whole in support
activity through the BIC in the process. The Shoe Workers kept up their protracted
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