It is rather ironic that, last week, union bosses used the anniversary Rev. Martin Luther King’s assassination to try to drum up support for the union cause. You see, even after all these years, racism and discrimination within the walls of the House of Labor is still very real. As noted by UnionFacts.com, since 2000, there have been over 4,200 complaints filed against unions for racial discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. In some cities, it is a bigger problem than in others. However, the one area where union racism seems to rear its ugly head the most often is with the construction trade unions, where African Americans are often excluded from work.

Systemic racism in the building trades has been built into the construction industry as Harry Alford, President & CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, has noted.

Due to the Jim Crow laws of the South, there were many Black southern craftsmen who would travel to perform their skills.  Many would go to places like New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc. and would out compete local white contractors who could not perform as well as they did and could not settle for their affordable pricing.  It was because of this, that construction unions in the North were formed to block out Black crews from coming into communities and providing a better service for a cheaper price.  Soon after the unions were formed they set in motion the Davis-Bacon Act (named for two New York congressmen).  This act set up arbitrary labor wage scales so that Black craftsmen could no longer under price their white counter parts.  They all had to pay a certain price, prevailing wage, at a minimum and competition became no more.  With the price competition out of the way, the whites moved in through political favor and blatant racism.  This would be followed with Project Labor Agreements which meant some projects would be declared “Union Only”.  With the construction unions discriminating against Blacks, PLO’s [sic] would also mean “Whites Only”.

This exclusionary racial system is still prevalent today and has been the subject of much controversy in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. (more…)

When it formed in 2005, the Change to Win coalition was heralded as a dynamic organizing force that would rejuvenate the labor movement and swell membership rolls for constituent unions.  However, U.S. Department of Labor figures show that only one union organization has benefitted from its affiliation with Change to Win while the others have lost out.

The Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) membership has risen from about 1.5 million to more than 1.8 million and its annual receipts are up to about $75 million since 2005, according to government records. SEIU has in turn contributed $5.7 million to support the coalition, which is far more than any other coalition member. By contrast, the other six unions that split off from the AFL-CIO to form Change to Win have either flatlined or declined.

In 2006, the first year Change to Win filed Labor Department financial disclosure forms, the coalition claimed over 5.3 million members but its most recent filing in 2008 shows it had less than 4.8 million members; that’s a decline of almost 11 percent. In 2006, Change to Win listed $11.7 million in assets, a figure that dropped to $8.8 million in 2008. During that time, liabilities spike by more than 130 percent from about $550,000 in 2006 to more than just $1.25 million in 2008.

Annual receipts have also plummeted, falling from $18.7 million in 2006 to just $6.5 million in 2008. In 2006, revenues far exceeded expenditures, but this ratio was turned upside down in 2008 with Change to Win’s spending outpacing its revenues.

“Despite being a coalition of several unions, Change to Win has been of material benefit to one union only, and that is the SEIU,” Glenn Spencer, the executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative with the Chamber of Commerce has observed.   “The coalition started with great fanfare and was meant to be an alternative to the AFL-CIO – the new front of labor organizing, but it just hasn’t worked out that way.  It’s now an organization struggling to justify its existence.”

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