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.

Sen. Hagan (D-NC) introduced Amendment 200 for the health care reform bill being discussed in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), called the Affordable Health Choices Act. Her amendment would exclude from the definition of employees any temporary or seasonal agricultural workers . . . for the purposes of determining the size of an employer. Agricultural employers of seasonal farmworkers would not be required to participate in the system because they would be considered to be too small. Seasonal farmworkers would be denied health care coverage.

Seasonal agricultural workers earn an average of $12,500 to $15,000 per year . They put food on our table by cultivating and harvesting fruits and vegetables, raising chickens, herding sheep, cutting flowers, and harvesting our Christmas trees. They work in the second or third most dangerous occupation. They cannot afford health insurance. It's morally wrong -- and it's counterproductive economically -- to exclude farmworkers from the plans for a reformed health care system.

Call the Capitol Switchboard and ask for Sen. Hagan's office, 202-224-3121.

Ask Sen. Hagan to withdraw her amendment number 200 to the health care reform bill because farmworkers and their family members need health care coverage and health care reform.

Please also call your Senators on the HELP Committee. Ask them to oppose the Hagan amendment in the Senate HELP Committee to the health care reform bill, amendment number 200, that would deny seasonal farmworkers coverage under the new health care system. It is unfair, immoral and economically counterproductive.

You may call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

HELP COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Democrats by Rank
>Edward Kennedy (MA)
>Christopher Dodd (CT)
>Tom Harkin (IA)
>Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
>Jeff Bingaman (NM)
>Patty Murray (WA)
>Jack Reed (RI)
>Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
>Sherrod Brown (OH)
>Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
>Kay Hagan (NC)
>Jeff Merkley (OR)

> >Republicans by Rank
> >Michael B. Enzi (WY)
>Judd Gregg (NH)
>Lamar Alexander (TN)
>Richard Burr (NC)
>Johnny Isakson (GA)
>John McCain (AZ)
>Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
>Lisa Murkowski (AK)
>Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK)
>Pat Roberts (KS)

Amount Alabama lost in federal stimulus money to expand unemployment benefits because it declined to carry out the required program modernization: $100 million

Number of states that have overhauled their unemployment programs since the stimulus bill passed: 25

Number of states that rejected the money over the modernization requirement and a requirement that would have extended benefits: 2

Number of those states that are in the South: 2

Unemployment rates in those two states -- Alabama and Mississippi -- respectively: 9.8% and 9.6%

The national unemployment rate: 9.5%

Maximum weekly unemployment payment in Alabama: $255

Maximum number of weeks one can receive it: 59

Maximum number of weeks one could receive unemployment before Alabama took some of the federal stimulus money last year: 26

Maximum weekly unemployment payment in Mississippi: $230

Maximum number of weeks one can receive it: 59

Maximum average weekly unemployment payment for the South*: $346

Maximum average number of weeks one can receive it: 67

Maximum average weekly unemployment payment nationwide: $425

Maximum average number of weeks one can receive it: 69

Number of jobs shed by the U.S. economy in June alone: 467,000

Total number of U.S. long-term unemployed: 4.4 million

Average length of unemployment nationally: 24.5 weeks

Percent of those who've been out of work for six months or more: 29

Percent of workers who reach the end of their state jobless benefits without finding work: 49.2

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