Union Leader’s Tactics Backfire

RALEIGH — Perhaps the proudest achievement of labor organizer Bruce Raynor — the real-life basis of a character in the film "Norma Rae" — was the unionization of six Pillowtex-Fieldcrest-Cannon mills in the Kannapolis area. After four failed votes, the first one in 1974, Raynor's union finally succeeded in 1999. But a year later Pillowtex was in bankruptcy, and after briefly emerging in 2002 went out of business in July 2003. He is blamed in many corners for scuttling a corporate acquisition that could have salvaged some of the union’s Pillowtex jobs. Instead, Raynor went for broke to try to save most of the jobs, but came up empty-handed.