S7's History
When injustice & inequality becomes too much to bear, something's got to give. The patience of a determined few oppressed workers of Knoxville's American Book Company had run out. In July of 1999, seven poor workers came together to make a stand against racial and gender-based discrimination, poverty wages, wrongful termination, lack of training, lack of placement, lack of promotion, lack of benifits and unethical treatment.
Theresa Reed, Terry Taylor, Felice Thompson, Kenneth Glass, Ronald Grant, Shannon Matthews and Perry Redd began what would turn out to be a movement to teach and motivate workers of color in the South.
The Sincere Seven was born out of a faith in God, who serves justice for those who serve Him. They knew that it would mean serving others. The fellow workers in the community who had suffered under the abuses of their employer were the target. Getting out the word of the law was a challenge to the S7, who just a few months earlier, didn't know themselves.
Through education from reading, labor consultants, labor union representatives and networking, the Sincere Seven gained enough knowledge to oragnize a labor drive to unionize in their workplace. Perry Redd, Terry Taylor and Theresa Reed filed charges with the State of Tennessee Human Rights Commission (THRC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Reed and Redd were still employees of the company when they filed these discrimination charges. Along with International Representative, Dave McIlwaine of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the struggle to unionize was on.
In 1999, the Sincere Seven sponsored the first "Rally for Rights" in front of the American Book Company. The company was dismayed and sent it's employees out of back doors. Confrontation ensued.
The oppressive employer fought back by hiring the highest-priced, labor busting lawyers in the country. Instead of paying fair wages, as the predominantly African-American laborers asked, 8 days before Christmas, 1999, the comapny paid the lawyers well over $100 per hour and fired the employees. 17 workers were fired by ABC and the company made it virtually impossible for those employees to collect unemployment compensation from the State of Tennessee under the guise of seasonal lay-offs (which the comapny quoted to Knoxville's local press, WVLT cahnnel 8), but conveyed to the State unemploment office that the employees were fired. Theresa Reed of the S7 was one of those fired.
Perry Redd filed charges under the National Labor Relations Act and the American Book Company/PW Books/Publisher's Warehouse awarded him (not to Perry's satisfaction) a cash settlement for only back wages. The S7 learned how unfair, even our government can be when it comes to making a wrong, right.
The election was held for a union in March of 2000 and the company won with employee bribes and pay raises right before the date of balloting. The remaining employees had the power, but worked in fear. Eventually, the company won the vote.
Next, the company has fired the majority of the employees who turned against the Sincere Seven. The company ended up giving a semblence of health benifits and every remaining employee recieved at least a $1.25 raise due to the efforts of the Sincere Seven.
The Martin Luther King Day parade of 2002 in Knoxville saw ABC/PW participating and giving their employees a PAID day off!!! Since setting up shop in Knoxville, the company had never done that--so the work of the S7 paid off for the employees that were left...another S7 victory!
That fight led to the production of a cable access television show, Knoxville's "Workplace Talk" where the Sincere Seven educates and informs it's community about workplace law and workplace injustice. The S7 is evidence that overcoming oppression can lead to self-empowerment.
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