Real ‘Norma Rae’ Dies of Cancer After Insurer Delayed Treatment
September 24th, 2009 | Sue Sturgis
The North Carolina union organizer who was the inspiration for the movie “Norma Rae” died on Friday of brain cancer after a battle with her insurance company, which delayed her treatment. She was 68.
Crystal Lee Sutton, formerly Crystal Lee Jordan, was fired from her job folding towels at the J.P. Stevens textile plant in her hometown of Roanoke Rapids, N.C. for trying to organize a union in the early 1970s. Her last action at the plant — writing the word “UNION” on a piece of cardboard and standing on her work table, leading her co-workers to turn off their machines in solidarity — was memorialized in the 1979 film by actress Sally Field. The police physically removed Sutton from the plant for her action.
But her efforts ultimately succeeded, as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers won the right to represent the plant’s employees on Aug. 28, 1974. Sutton later became a paid organizer for the union, which through a series of mergers became part of UNITE HERE before splitting off this year to form Workers United, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.
Several years ago, Sutton was diagnosed with meningioma, a type of cancer of the nervous system. While such cancers are typically slow-growing, Sutton’s was not — and she went two months without potentially life-saving medication because her insurance wouldn’t cover it initially. Sutton told the Burlington (N.C.) Times-News last year that the insurer’s behavior was an example of abuse of the working poor:
“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.”
Though Sutton eventually received the medication, the cancer had already taken hold. She passed away on Friday, Sept. 11 in a Burlington, N.C. hospice.
“Crystal Lee Sutton was a remarkable woman whose brave struggles have left a lasting impact on this country and without doubt, on me personally,” Field said in a statement released Friday. “Portraying Crystal Lee in ‘Norma Rae,’ however loosely based, not only elevated me as an actress, but as a human being.”
Field won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of the character based on Sutton. The film in turn was based on the 1975 book “Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance” by New York Times reporter Henry P. “Hank” Leiferman.
Sutton was only 17 when she began working at the J.P. Stevens plant in northeastern North Carolina, where conditions were poor and the pay was low. A Massachusetts-based company that for many years was listed on the Fortune 500, J.P. Stevens is now part of the WestPoint Home conglomerate.
In 1973, Sutton, by then a mother of three, was earning only $2.65 an hour. That same year, Eli Zivkovich, a former coal miner from West Virginia, came to Roanoke Rapids to organize the plant and began working with Sutton, who was fired after she copied a flyer posted by management warning that blacks would run the union. It was that incident which led Sutton to stand up with her “UNION” sign.
“It is not necessary I be remembered as anything, but I would like to be remembered as a woman who deeply cared for the working poor and the poor people of the U.S. and the world,” she said in a newspaper interview last year. “That my family and children and children like mine will have a fair share and equality.”
For more on Sutton’s life and work, visit the website of the Alamance Community College’s Crystal Sutton Collection.
(Photo of Sutton speaking in Minnesota in 1988 from the Crystal Sutton Collection.)
About the Author: Sue Sturgis is Editorial Director and Co-Editor, Facing South. She joined the Institute in November 2005. A former staff writer for the Raleigh News & Observer and Independent Weekly (Durham, N.C.), she is co-author of the Institute reports “One Year after Katrina” (August 2006) and “The Mardi Gras Index” (February/March 2006). Sue holds a Masters in Journalism from New York University.
This article originally appeared in Facing South on September 14, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.
Related Posts:
Tags: crystal lee sutton, health care, health insurance, labor, North Carolina, Sue Sturgis, union organizing, unions
September 24th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I believe that the best monument to the lady who inspired the “Norma Rae” movie would be to expand the scope of labor relations and to encourage all states to adopt META–the Model Employee Termination Act, which would give those workers without union representation at least a greater voice in fighting back against perceived grievances. Right now most are stuck if they don’t have reprsentation with no viable means to fight back. I personally had a situation where I believe untrue allegations were made, but so far am lacking a convincing fight-back mechanism because I have been told by three lawyers that I don’t stand a chance because the employment at-will laws are strong enough that there seems to me no means of penetration. It might not win back anybody’s job, but adoping META would at least assure that sufficient due process is achieved.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
What would truly be a tribute to this remarkable woman would be for the US to FINALLY pass univeral health care! If we had universal health care, she would have received the medication she needed to head off the spread of her cancer.
This is a travesty and unacceptable for a country like the USA.
September 26th, 2009 at 10:40 am
My grandfather was a business agent for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. I didn’t realize until reading this article that “Norma Rae” was with the ACWA.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
It’s a travesty and should be criminal that the worlds richest country cannot take care of it’s own. We are one of the only countries in the world that has a profit based health care system. When will the US PEOPLE wake up. This woman literally has died in vain. Our leaders know the answer, it is us who are fearful and uneducated. The insurance companies in the US love us, we are the world profit centers and many more lives will be lost as we continue to be their profit base.
September 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
My first question is if the plant that “Norma Rae” helped to organize still in operation, or like so many union organized plants, has been closed due to high wage and benefit costs? Union organizers promise lots of things, but often the plants don’t survive in the long term. My second question is, since Crystal Lee was a paid organizer (employee) of the Union, it was apparently Union insurance that delayed her medication. Somehow that isn’t mentioned……….