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Crystal Lee Sutton (née Pulley; December 31, 1940 – September 11, 2009), formerly known as Crystal Lee Jordan, was an American union organizer and advocate who gained fame during the early 1970s. She was fired from her job at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, for trying to unionize its employees. ==Early life and career== A 1979 film, ''Norma Rae'', is based on her biography, published in 1975. Poor working conditions/wages at the J.P. Stevens factory caused Crystal Lee and her fellow employees great suffering. This compelled her to join forces with Eli Zivkovich, a union organizer, and attempt to unionize the J.P. Stevens employees. “Management and others treated me as if I had leprosy,” she stated. Sutton was earning $2.65 an hour folding towels ($12.57 in today's dollars).〔http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp〕 According to the May 2013, US Department of Labor Statistics, the average textile worker in the U.S. makes $12.52/hour. 〔http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes516099.htm〕 She received threats and was finally fired from her job. But before she left, she took one final stand, filmed in ''Norma Rae''. “I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word UNION on it in big letters, got up on my work table, and slowly turned it around. The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet…” 〔("Welcome to the Crystal Sutton Collection" ) Official website of Crystal Lee Sutton〕 Sutton was physically removed from the plant by police, but the result of her actions was staggering. On August 28, 1974, the 3,133 workers at the Roanoke Rapids plant voted to allow The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) to represent them by a slim 237 vote margin. However, because of the intractability of J. P. Stevens, workers at the plant continued without a contract until 1980. Thanks to a coalition of African American and white women employees of the mill, Sutton's national speaking tour, and local organizing on behalf of workers among religious groups, J. P. Stevens and ACTWU agreed to a settlement in 1980.〔http://www.corporatecampaign.org/downloads/stevens%20settlement.pdf〕 Sutton became a paid organizer for the ACTWU and went on a national speaking tour as "the real Norma Rae."〔http://southernspaces.org/2014/good-faith-working-class-women-feminism-and-religious-support-struggle-organize-j-p-stevens〕 Sutton was the 13th recipient of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1980. The honor was named after a 1963 encyclical letter, ''Pacem in terris'' (Peace on Earth), by Pope John XXIII, that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Today, the ACTWU is a small affiliate of the huge service employees union. J.P. Stevens was bought out and split up a few years after the successful union drive, selling for $1.2 billion 〔http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/26/business/3-month-battle-for-jp-stevens-ends.html〕 (the equivalent of $2.37 billion in 2014). The American garment and textile industry, which employed 2.3 million people as recently as 1976, has all but disappeared.〔http://forward.com/articles/136018/union-that-grew-in-the-triangle-fire-s-ashes-is/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crystal Lee Sutton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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