Segregation and the Labor MovementJuly 27, 2009By Richard Trumpka
You know, of all the challenges the NAACP has taken on over these last 100 years few have been as necessary – few have been as important – as the crusade this organization led to end segregation in the American labor movement. The NAACP understood something that a lot of labor leaders didn't. In July, 1929 – exactly eighty years ago – W.E.B. Du Bois warned that, unless organized labor took a critical look at itself and abandoned segregation, it would face what he called "irreparable loss." And history proved him right. At a time when unions in countries were mobilizing to win universal health care and a new social contract, a lot of union leaders here were more concerned with keeping a "whites only" sign posted on the door of the American labor movement. At the very time they should have been building one movement of white workers, and African-American workers, and Latino workers, and Asian-American workers – and women workers of every color – they were fighting to keep them out. Du Bois captured the tenor of the times when he wrote that: "Whatever ideals white labor today strives for in America, it would surrender … before it would recognize a Negro as a man." Well, we can't change the sins of the past. But we can learn from them – and build a new kind of labor movement for the future. A labor movement that goes beyond gestures, beyond rhetoric and tokenism. A labor movement that understands that being inclusive isn't just a matter of kicking in a few dollars to UNCF or having an article about Black History Month in the union newspaper. No. We can't just talk the talk; we have to walk the walk. We can't only preach about change; we have to make change happen. And that means investing the time, the energy, the talent, and the resources it's going to take to begin the work of organizing five million (4.8 million) poverty wage African American workers so they can have the paycheck, the benefits… and the opportunities -- that can only come with a union contract! Is it possible? The labor movement can't do the job alone, but together – with the NAACP – I'm convinced that we can. Together, a new alliance between the labor movement and the NAACP can begin the work of transforming poverty wage work into jobs with a future. Together, working as partners – at the grassroots -- we can make the promise of collective bargaining real to a new generation of African American workers. Working together, we can begin to grow the African American middle-class. I know that's always been a priority of the NAACP – and, after September, it's going to be a priority at the AFL-CIO, too. |
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