'Norma Rae' dies at 68

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090914/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_norma_rae_inspiration

RALEIGH, N.C. – Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film "Norma Rae," has died. She was 68.

Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday.

"She fought it as long as she could and she crossed on over to her new life," he said.

<snip>

In 1973, Sutton was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at J.P. Stevens when a manager fired her for pro-union activity.

In a final act of defiance before police hauled her out, Sutton, who had worked at the plant for 16 years, wrote "UNION" on a piece of cardboard and climbed onto a table on the plant floor. Other employees responded by shutting down their machines.

get made today...all the studios would be afraid of such a "controversial" subject.

And doesn't it seem we are having to fight those battles all over again? There's still a lot of union busting and manipulation and intimidation going on.

RIP, Ms. Sutton.

Interesting how *this* isn't in that story.



Two months.

Two months with brain cancer is a lifetime.