Arms and L’eggs: Workers Organize Around Job Ailments

Carpal tunnel syndrome — a disabling occupational disorder caused by scarring and swelling damaging the nerve in the central passage, or carpal tunnel, of the wrist — is only one of a number of ailments lumped together as ​“repeated trauma disorders.” Tendonitis and bursitis are other examples. All are caused by the repeated stresses of the grasping, turning, twisting and pushing of assembly line work, such as the garment, auto, electronics and other industries.

Although recognized for at least four decades by occupational health experts, unions and workers have only recently focused on these potentially crippling illnesses. ​“These disorders are as serious to garment workers as roof fall-ins in a coal mine or explosions in a chemical factory,” said Eric Frumin, health and safety director of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers (ACTWU). ​“It can do damage that prevents a worker from earning his livelihood.“

Two nuns from the Sisters of the Divine Providence are leading the investigation of tendonitis and related problems at Hanes plants. Sisters Imelda Maurer and Bernie Galvin sought the assignment that led them to Bennettsville in 1981. Bennettsville is a poor town of 9,000 in the center of a region where cotton farming was recently mechanized, driving many people from agricultural work. As Maurer and Galvin made the rounds of homes there, they found many women and men who had been working in the Hanes hosiery factory suffered from similar pains, numbness, weakness, temporary paralysis and swelling in the hands, wrists and arms.

They began to investigate and concluded that Hanes was drastically under-reporting the incidence of tendonitis. In the year ending July 3, 1982, Hanes claimed there were only 29 cases among its 18,000 workers. But a survey made by employees of just one-third of the 6,100 workers in eight southern plants turned up 137 instances of tendonitis-like symptoms. An occupational health specialist, Dr. Peter Orris, reviewed Hanes’ Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, which some workers regard as incomplete. On the basis of symptoms reported there, he estimated that it was likely there were at least 150 cases among those 6,100 workers.

The two religious women organized a Citizens Commission on Justice at Hanes that convened on March 21 in Chicago, home of the corporate parent of Hanes, Consolidated Foods Corporation. There Maurer charged that Hanes was involved in a ​“coverup” — failing to record some cases, using descriptions such as ​“painful left hand” instead of tendonitis — and that the company was trying to deny workers’ compensation for some afflicted workers.

Now they are working with allies from women’s groups, labor and others to force Hanes to open itself to investigation by an independent fact-finding commission and to improve health and safety conditions in their factories.

But the campaign has significance beyond improving the lives of Hanes workers and making the public more aware of a new occupational danger. If workers organize themselves to defend their well-being, they may conclude that it is worth remaining organized — in a union.

One of the strongest local workers groups fighting tendonitis is in Galax, Va. ACTWU won a union election at the Galax Hanes plant in 1979, but the National Labor Relations Board overturned the victory on the basis of union leaflets attacking the company’s lawyer as a ​“shyster.“

Galax worker Mary Jennings, the sole support of her family, told the Commission how tendonitis affects her. ​“I have had wrist pain on and off for the last year or so,” she said. ​“The pain is almost a pain where you want to cry. It is a really sharp pain starting in my wrist and then shooting up to my elbow. The pain is so sharp that it can keep me awake all night, just like a toothache. Ordinarily I cook, wash dishes and do other chores. When the pain gets bad, I can’t do anything.“

When she complained, the company eventually cut the work, but also the pay of Jennings and every other worker in the department. ​“I guess they thought that this was a good way to discourage workers from reporting tendonitis problems by cutting all their fellow workers a dollar or more an hour.” She also said that she knew dozens of people who clearly had tendonitis problems that were not listed on company safety logs.

Maurer says that tendonitis problems are particularly bad at Hanes because the company has pushed the minute division of labor and old principles of ​“scientific management” to greater extremes than at most comparable factories. When that is combined with piecework pay, which starts with a low base of $4.50 an hour, the chances of developing tendonitis are accentuated.

Hanes is the leading women’s hosiery maker (L’eggs, Underalls and Hanes Too!) and the second biggest men’s underwear manufacturer in the U.S. Consolidated Foods, which bought Hanes in 1979, is a major consumer products company, with a return on investment of 17.3 percent in the 1982 fiscal year on sales of more than $6 billion. Among their products are Sara Lee, Electrolux, Popsicle, Shasta soda, Fuller Brush and other common brands.

Such a high-profile company is vulnerable to public opinion, although a boycott is not yet planned. But women’s groups in particular have been recruited, not only because of conditions for Hanes factory workers in the South, but also because of alleged discrimination in pay and promotion for drivers and sales personnel in urban centers and because of criticism of Hanes advertising by Women Against Pornography.

Although Hanes officials declined to testify before the Citizens Commission, the corporation flew three top officials and a consultant from the South to be available to answer reporters’ questions. Hanes was cited by OSHA in 1980 for using work methods that produced tendonitis, and its own consultant and its insurance company criticized various procedures. Although engineering changes were made, on March 7 the Virginia state OSHA found continuing problems and a need for more engineering changes to meet ​“the spirit of the agreement.” Surgery can relieve some tendonitis problems, but the only cure and prevention is change in the work.

Robert C. Radcliffe, Hanes vice-president for Human Resources, said the charges by the two nuns and the workers were ​“unsubstantiated.” ​“If we’re doing something improperly, we need to know about it,” he said. ​“We don’t challenge the issue that there are things to be addressed. We are in the forefront. We’re not involved in a coverup. In the end, we’re not a bad company.“

Although Sisters Maurer and Galvin and the campaign for worker health at Hanes have no direct connection with the union, workers’ experience in organizing themselves could make them more willing to join ACTWU, which quietly continues to reach workers in the Hanes mills. Although engineering changes are needed and may help, many occupational health experts as well as union organizers contend that changes in the organization of work, the workload, the pay system and workers’ ability to challenge management are necessary to address the problem. Now many workers report that they do not mention health problems because they fear losing pay or even their jobs.

​“I’m anti-union, but the company has made me pro-union,” Rose Bennett said, as she sat with elastic bandages wrapped around her lean Black arms. ​“With this company I think we’ll have to have an outsider.”