Join BookitisSave favorites, build lists, and follow creators.

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991

Work detail

Bookitis Pick
Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991
OH
Daniel H. Pollitt1 editions

This is the sixth interview in a nine-part series of interviews with civil liberties lawyer Daniel H. Pollitt. In this interview, Pollitt describes in vivid detail the UNC food workers' strike of 1969. He begins by establishing local and national factors involved in the strike. Pollitt notes that during the late 1960s, a wave of similar strikes swept universities nationwide. The civil rights movement, he adds, contributed to the growing awareness of African American food workers at UNC of the unjust nature of working conditions: low pay, long hours, the perpetuation of racial hierarchies that made promotion impossible, and the failure of management to use courtesy titles for African American workers. Pollitt focuses on interactions between the striking food workers and their supporters and opponents among the faculty and students. As a member of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the chairman of the Faculty Advisory Committee to Chancellor Carlyle Sitterson, Pollitt played an active role in supporting the strikers. Pollitt outlines the growing tensions between the strike supporters and the state, and he describes how tensions escalated after the food workers established an alternative cafeteria on campus. This led to work on the part of the faculty to establish resolutions that Pollitt and the AAUP proposed, including the establishment of a grievances process. The interview concludes with Pollitt's retelling of how the resolution of the strike, which included higher wages and back pay for the workers, was compromised when UNC outsourced the cafeteria to an outside food provider, leading to a second strike. Pollitt briefly discusses the second strike, describing its impact on university solidarity and the administration's perceived responsibilities to the campus and the community.

Overview

Shared work-level identity and catalog context.

1 credited authorSearch language english

Bookitis keeps work pages focused on the shared book identity and the editions that actually belong to it. Unrelated books should not appear here as primary content.

Contributors

People credited with this work in the active catalog.

  • Daniel H. Pollitt

    Author profile in the active Bookitis catalog

    Open Author

Editions

Publication-specific versions linked to this work only.