On this day in Labor History the year was 1943.
The United States was in the midst of fighting World War II.
And by 1943 there were more than 9 million people serving as military personnel.
Factories in big cities needed workers to keep up with the demands of War production.
Many men and women from rural areas answered the call.
This included more than 1.5 million African Americans who left the South between 1940 and 1950. This caused Officials in Washington D.C. to worry there would be farm labor shortages. In order to answer that need the United States reached an agreement with the Bahamas to provide farm labor.
Between 1943 and 1965 nearly 30,000 Bahamians participated in the program.
The Bahamian workers called the work “The Contract.”
They worked six days a week, and were guaranteed at least 30 cents an hour, or the prevailing local wage.
For many who participated in the program, the Contract offered them an economic opportunity not available in their home country.
The Bahamian government required that a certain percentage of the workers’ pay go to their families in the Bahamas and some go into savings.
One worker, Samuel Miller, who left The Contract in 1955 had saved $1,800.
Yet the program was not without its problems. Many of the Bahamians were assigned to work in the South, and had to deal with daily Jim Crow racism against black workers.
Typically the workers were assigned to labor camps near the fields. In some cases these camps were over-crowded, had poor food, and strict curfews enforced by armed Military Police.
During the war the US entered similar labor arrangements with Mexico and Jamaica.
Such immigrant workers experiences are too often untold stories of US labor history.
Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show