Norma Rae Is Dead

You probably think I meant the title figuratively. I could have but I didn't.

This is one of the most famous scenes in movie history: Norma Rae (Sally Field, of course) standing on a table in the middle of the factory just before she gets thrown out for union organizing.

It's a scene that few who saw it could get out of their heads for days or weeks, a powerful moment when a lone figure stands against the rich and powerful and her co-workers shut down their machines in recognition that there are some things that are just plain wrong and no matter dangerous it may be, we have to stand against those things or lose our humanity.

Not an idle statement. We haven't stood against torture or the war on the poor or the destruction of workers or the scamming of the middle class or the predatory scavengers of Wall Street and we have, indeed, paid the price. We have lost our humanity to selfishness and fear. Where were the Norma Rae's?

Ahhh, that's just a movie.

Actually it's not "just" a movie. Take a good look at that picture and remember that scene while you digest this tidbit you probably don't know because after the movie won its Oscars it was old news and nobody in the media cared any more: It Really Happened. Just the way it did in the movie. Except it wasn't Sally Field standing there, it was this woman:

Her name was Crystal Lee Sutton. In 1973 she worked at JP Stevens in North Carolina, along with WR Grace one of the most notoriously anti-worker corporations of the time, viciously anti-union. She was fired for handing out union fliers and when the company brought security to throw her out, Crystal Lee jumped on a table with her quick, crude sign. The machines stopped, just like they do in the movie.

She died last week of brain cancer. She was still fighting - her insurance company.

In an interview last year with the Burlington Times News, Sutton described battling her health insurance provider for the care she needed.

[Sutton] went two months without possible life-saving medications because her insurance wouldn't cover it, another example of abusing the working poor, she said.

"How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."

Sutton eventually received drug and chemo therapy and underwent two operations. The AFL-CIO took up donations on her behalf and her husband worked two jobs to pay for the care she needed.

I doubt Fox covered this story. I know the NYT didn't. But somebody should have. Crystal Lee will always be an inspiration for anyone who thinks workers should be treated fairly. She deserves to be remembered with respect and admiration.

Here's to Crystal Lee Sutton.

Union.