Labor Union
Being able to see the racing industry from the business end, he developed a feeling that drivers deserved a better deal for their role in the sport. Together with Fireball Roberts and Tim Flock, he attempted to organize a union for them, the Federation of Professional Athletes, in 1961. According to The Washington Post: "His aims are for better purses, a share in broadcasting rights and retirement benefits for the drivers." Unfortunately for him, NASCAR has never looked favorably on an organized union for the drivers, and Turner was banned for life.
Turner continued to race under other sanctioning bodies, including the Midwest Association for Race Cars (MARC), even promoting his own 100-mile event on the dirt at Lakewood Speedway, Georgia, in October 1961. Tim Flock finished second in that event. Turner and Flock sued NASCAR and its president Bill France "seeking $200,000 punitive damages each and restitution for loss of earnings." "Attorneys for the drivers claim the ban represents a violation of state right to work laws because test driving contracts involving $150 a day plus expenses were canceled as a result of the action. NASCAR and France's attorneys contended the ban isn't a right to work violation because it doesn't involve an employer-employe relationship. They said Flock and Turner are individual contractors and not employes of NASCAR or any track."
Read more about this topic: Curtis Turner
Famous quotes containing the words labor and/or union:
“I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests.... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape ... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.”
—Marilyn French (b. 1929)