Atlanta Daily World

Shipbuilding Jim Crow
Corrected By FEPC

NEW YORK (ANP)—Discriminatory employment practices of more than 50 shipping companies have been corrected through intervention of the New York Regional office of the FEPC according to Edward Lawson, regional director.

Mr. Lawson stated that as a result of 10 months of special attention to complaints of discrimination involving the maritime industry and unions, the majority of operators and labor organizations are now hiring qualified seamen without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. A public hearing against major holdouts to the government's non-discrimination policy is contemplated for this fall.

During the past year the FEPC regional office has received more than 100 complaints involving the maritime industry. Of 43 cases where discrimination was clearly established by investigation, 38 have been adjusted, with the operating companies agreeing to hire seamen whom they had previously rejected. Ninety-seven per cent of the cases handled alleged discrimination against Negroes, while the remainder involved Chinese, Japanese-American, Honduran and Jamaican workers.

Mr. Lawson gave major credit for the FEPC's successful effort to Samuel Risk, regional staff examiner who has handled the majority of maritime cases for the agency.

Of the major complaints remaining unsettled nearly all involve maritime labor unions, several of which have traditionally insisted upon excluding American Negroes. However, some of the most important recent gains of Negroes in the industry have been through the efforts of other unions in the field, several of which have made refusal by their members to ship with other seamen because of their race, creed, or color the basis for disciplinary action.