James Suffridge
" A clerk is as tall as anybody else."
The modern labor movement owes a great deal of gratitude to the work of James A. Suffridge, who served the Retail Clerks International Union as president from 1944 until 1968. Suffridge's innovative approach to organizing and outspoken opposition to gender and racial discrimination positioned the Retail Clerks to become one of the most influential unions in the U.S.
When Suffridge assumed leadership of the Retail Clerks in the 1940's, not only was he a relative unknown, but the union itself was continually overshadowed by better known, industrial unions in the country. By his retirement, the Retail Clerks Union was recognized as a progressive union with an important role in the labor world, as well as within political, social and economic realms.
During his term, Suffridge fought for equal pay for equal work for both women and minorities, specifically focusing on bringing union representation to Asian Americans, a minority group that had yet to be organized by an American labor union.
Suffridge credited his union's success during his presidency to large scale organizing of grocery store chains such as Safeway. Instead of focusing only on the high-commission clerks that had typified the union's constituency before his presidency, Suffridge envisioned a union composed of a wide variety of workers. When Suffridge heard of the Retail Clerks' reputation as being less tough then other more blue-collar unions, he said only; " A clerk is as tall as anybody else."
Suffridge began his career with the union while working as a grocer after graduating from high school in Oakland, California. He joined the clerks local, and learned first-hand the fights the clerks had to wage in order to get the respect they deserved from other unions, specifically the Teamsters and butchers.
During the 1930's when Asian Americans and other minority workers were being excluded from union contracts, Suffridge declared, "If you won't organize them, I will."
By the end of his presidency, Suffridge had also won the respect of many important political figures, including Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. During a worldwide goodwill tour he and Johnson took in 1961, they were greeted in Manila with a sign welcoming Vice President Johnson, and an even larger sign reading, "Welcome President Suffridge."
Upon his retirement in 1968, Suffridge had transformed the Retail Clerks from a fledgling 60,000 member union, to a modern labor union half a million strong. At the time of its merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union to form the UFCW, the Retail Clerks Union was recognized as a union with a rich history of innovative organizing methods and strong leadership that workers could truly take pride in and rely upon for a better working environment.
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