The Local 77 chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is a Duke University labour union established in August 1965.
What seemed like a promising step towards civil rights efforts faded as soldiers returned at the end of the war to reclaim their positions in society.
He learned to always speak up for himself.” In 1943, Harvey worked at the Krueger Bottling Company in Durham where he successfully led efforts to integrate the segregated black and white unions.
[2] Eight years later, Harvey began work as a night time janitor at Duke University where he encountered a discouraging atmosphere for social change.
[4] Despite Duke University's reputation as an institution for higher education and its growing expertise in preparing its students for the professional society, the working environments and attitudes towards black, blue-collar workers had not changed.
[7] In the case of Hattie Williams and Viola Watson, members involved with Local 77 and African-American housekeepers who had worked for at least four years, were fired without warning in the winter of 1966.
However, in his letter to university president Douglas Knight, Harvey proposed that “if Duke truly wishes to be fair in its dealings with employees, a disinterested third party should constitute the final appeal on grievances.” [11] The primary goal of Local 77 was to gain impartial arbitration as a way to settle disputes objectively, allowing the participation of a third party to discern final judgments.
In the spring of 1966, Shirley Ramsey, one of the first black food service workers to be promoted to cashier, was requested by a supervisor to perform pie-cutting duties in the dining hall, a task outside the range of her job description.
Consequently, Ramsey filed a claim through the grievance procedure, believing that race was a determining factor for the reason that she was singled out by her employer to perform a task outside of her job description.
[12] In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, the issue of race as a factor in Ramsey's case attracted the support of students and faculty, along with media coverage.
Despite the overwhelming support, the judges of Ramsey's case rejected her complaint at the last stage and denied the association of race with her firing, stating that “successful operation of the dining halls depended upon the willingness of the employees to respond to rapidly changing situations caused by the very nature of the business.” [13] Cleverly avoiding the matter from the standpoint of race relations, the administration solely regarded the relocation of Ramsey as a matter of employee compliance to their supervisors.
Nevertheless, the collective effort of the entire Duke community behind Ramsey's case encouraged workers to continue challenging the work conditions based on race.
In response to a faculty supporter's letter urging him to comply with the black workers' demands, university president Douglas Knight denied any support stating, "It is far more important both for the University and the region to make certain that salaries continue to rise for more skilled people than those who receive minimum compensation" and continues to propose an offensive solution to the problem by "eliminating employees who can work only at a minimum level of effectiveness.
After a week of protests, the university finally agreed to negotiations with Local 77 in establishing a new grievance panel that included the participation of a third party.
[22] After a strike that lasted for thirteen days, attracting national media attention, the administration complied with requests to raise the minimum wage.
More than 80 percent of the student body favored the administration's proposal, despite the fact that the primarily black work force would be earning less than Durham's living wage.
[26] While the Local 77 movement in the 1960s succeeded in extending racial equality towards the predominantly black labor unions, the lack of student support in the following years hindered further improvements for a demographic group with much less power than Duke's administration.
The labor union reached its goals of attaining higher pay, fair treatment in the workplace, and showing that they were “a force within the very institution that had marginalized them.”[27]