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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 15, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Black workers sue Army Corps of Engineers

'It's modern-day slavery'

By Monica Moorehead

The story was on page 22 of the New York Times on May 2.

It wasn't seen or heard of elsewhere in the "free press."

It's a story of vicious racism on the waters of the mighty Mississippi River. Not just one or two incidents, but a pattern over a course of years.

This didn't take place during 19^th-century slavery. It happened as we near the 21^st century in a country that now calls itself a bastion of "freedom and democracy."

But finally some heroic African American workers on the Mississippi River dredge known as the Hurley blew the whistle on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They sued their white officers for racist, discriminatory practices.

These workers provided documentation in horrifying detail about the years they were humiliated and subjected to racist epithets, jokes and other behavior by these officers. Their thoroughgoing documentation and pressure forced the Department of Defense to carry out an investigation of the complaints and to conclude that racism does exist on the Hurley.

However, the report stopped short of saying that racism is endemic within the corps, as if this were an isolated situation.

This is the second such public complaint made by African American workers on an Army Corps of Engineers dredge. This past February the corps agreed to pay $800,000 in damages in a court settlement won by Black workers based in Pittsburgh.

Segregation in the 1990s

The experiences of the Black workers on the Hurley, which dredges the Mississippi north of Baton Rouge, La., are vivid reminders that apartheid-like conditions still exist in the U.S.

Randy C. Galloway stated that conditions on the Hurley were "modern-day slavery."

"All they wanted Blacks to do was make their beds, cook their food and clean their toilets and walkways," said Galloway. Chancey Wilson, a worker with 17 years of corps experience, stated, "They wanted you just to be a houseboy."

The Army Corps of Engineers performs a variety of services connected with the infrastructure in the U.S. and worldwide to serve military and business objectives. It has a sordid history of racist promotional practices when it comes to Black workers.

In the 64 years of the Hurley and its predecessor ship the Burgess, the corps has promoted only two African Americans from seasonal work to full-time status. Full-time jobs mean a higher salary, a guarantee of year-round employment, and higher eligibility for retirement benefits-which whites have come to enjoy almost exclusively.

Of the two African Americans promoted, the report indicated that one was advanced as a "reward" for not taking part in the discrimination suit against the white officers. The other man was promoted to mask their racism.

The Black workers stated that while the Burgess was in commission up until 1993, every facility was segregated, from the sleeping quarters and dining rooms to the bathrooms. White workers stayed in semiprivate quarters in the front of the ship while Black workers slept 10 to 12 in a room in the rear. These kinds of complaints were not addressed in the Defense Department investigation.

So what will happen to these complaints? The investigation? And these Black workers? The National Federation of Federal Employees is representing them. Union lawyer Joshua Bowers indicated his clients want to be fully compensated by the corps, want the kind of training that would qualify them for advancement, and want to have the white officers punished for their inhumanity.

What chance do these men have to win these justifiable demands? Bowers stated, "The offer (by the corps) was not serious. In fact, it was outrageous." The case will be taken to federal court if need be.

Let their voices be heard

What could be done to serve justice? There should be a public expos‚ of the racism that permeates every inch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Defense Department. The complaints put forth by these Black workers should be printed in full in all the major press. This is the tip of the iceberg. To uncover this racist conspiracy, the workers should be invited to present their experiences throughout the electronic media.

The press does not hesitate to report in depth on the trial of a Black army sergeant accused and convicted of sexual harassment and rape of young recruits. But, in reality, he is only a scapegoat. The military brass continues to cover up the sexual exploitation of women that exists within its agencies and ranks.

Racism and sexism have been business as usual for those who run the Pentagon and the capitalist government. The struggle of the Black workers on the Hurley for some justice shows that won't go unchallenged.

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