Black Workers Inside the House of Labor

Abstract

While both construction and industrial unions have made some efforts to remedy racial discrimination in employment, their failure to come to grips with systematic practices of discrimination has made the federal judiciary the main forum for the resolution of such disputes. Institutional practices that can have a discriminatory impact upon black workers and racial minorities remain in effect. Contrary to public belief about rank and file and local union resistance to national union policies that promote civil rights, it is the official policy of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) not to alter such procedures which are negotiated in the collective bargaining process—and which screen out blacks disproportionately to whites. Even unions with a substantial black membership continue to have lily-white executive boards at the national level. More blacks are moving into leadership positions—especially in the United Auto Workers (UAW) and some of the public employee unions. However, in the interim the phenomenon of black workers in white-led unions is bound to produce discontent, black worker organizations, and, in some instances, industrial strife.