Nathan Newman writes:
> But it's a good reminder that labor unions were one of the backbones of the
> lobbying and struggle for civil rights in this country
-You're correct if you restrict your analysis to the struggle for civil -rights in the legislative arena . Of course, you simply can't neglect -the world of the shop floor, where labor was virtually loathe to -do anything that would upend union enforced racial hierarchies.
The analsis gets more interesting there, but many unions, especially in the CIO, were quite militant in ending segregation in workplaces. And just by instituting seniority rules and other bars to arbitrary dismissal, they undermined racial workplace rules that had always made blacks the first fired. Blacks often had to struggle to get into higher prestige jobs, although some unions were good on addressing that problem, but just the seniority rules prevented easy retaliation against those activists struggling for change within the workplace.
There is little question that the rise of unionized workplaces had a major impact on raising incomes and the status of large numbers of black families. The deindustrialization and deunionization of many cities was a serious blow to blacks in cities and industrialized areas across the country.
Yes, the building trades were abysmal on racial issues - although even there were exceptions, but a broad brush downplaying of the role of unions in advancing racial justice on the shop floor misses large areas of praiseworthy work by union leaders.
-- Nathan Newman