10,000 Mill Workers on Strike in Charlotte, Concord, Kannapolis, June 9, 1921

10,000 Mill Operatives On Strike. . . Charlotte, Concord and Other Towns Affected

Charlotte, June 1—Charlotte, Concord and Kannapolis are the centers of the textile strike movement originated this morning at 10 o’clock when it is estimated that more than 10,000 mill operatives in these three centers left their looms and spindles, and instituted the strike which for weeks has been impending.

In Charlotte, the mills notably affected are those owned by the Chadwick-Hoskins company, a string of five mills, four here and one in Pineville; the Johnston Manufacturing company and the Highland Park Manufacturing company, the mills owned by C.W. Johnston and associates. The Cannon mills in Concord and Kannapolis are under the ownership and management of J.W. Cannon.

Three or four thousand operatives are idle in Charlotte and immediate vicinity. Concord reports that the strike in that town and in Kannapolis involves more than 6,000 employes, Gaston county mills, nearly 100 of them, are unaffected, and so are those in Cleveland, Lincoln and Union counties.

The reason that the strike fell so heavily upon Charlotte, Concord and Kannapolis and so lightly upon other mill centers in the state is explained because of the strength of the United Textile Workers of America in the first three named communities. The union is not in all fours in Gaston county where its ranks, it is said, have become seriously worried by conditions prevailing in the textile industry during the past 12 months. The same is the situation with the Cleveland mills. Union strength in those establishments is so outweighed by non-union forces that the strike could not be put on there. Where the local union of the United Textile Workers of America represents to a maximum strength of the working forces in the textile mills, the strike was instituted; is those other centers were non-union strength prevails, the strike was not ordered for obvious reasons.

The strike of textile workers in the Charlotte district is in connection with the nation-wide protest against wage reduction began Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock. Employes of the Chadwick-Hoskins system and the Highland Park system were the first to walk out.

From the front page of The Mount Airy News, June 9, 1921