choices for black labor:
As we enter the 21st century, Black labor is in disarray. Within the ranks of organized labor, the various institutions that have often spoken on its behalf have ossified. Black caucuses in various unions have stepped back from challenging and pushing the union leaderships and instead have in all too many cases degenerated into social clubs or step-ladders for individuals to get positions in the union structure.
(...) Suffice to say that the economic crisis affecting Black America, a crisis that became very evident in the mid-1970s, cut the ground underneath a major portion of the Black working class. Combined with political attacks on Black America by the Right, we went on the defensive. In organized labor, the declining percentage of workers organized in unions, along with the brutal climate built up during the Ronald Reagan years, worsened the conditions under which struggle could take place.
(...) Yet in my humble opinion what was particularly lost by Black labor leaders was vision. The vision that was articulated beginning in the 1930s with the growth of the National Negro Congress and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and advanced in the 1950s with the National Negro Labor Council and, later, by the A. Philip Randolph-led Negro American Labor Council, and in the 1970s with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, justifiably emphasized the inclusion of Black workers at all levels of the union movement.
(...) Nationally, the prevailing emphasis, even among many younger activists, is on individual solutions to problems that are mainly collective. Within the Black working class there is a less of a sense that unions are the instruments to deal with the larger problems facing Black America. This does not mean that unions are disregarded, but it does mean that there is little sense that they can or do have an expansive role.
(...) Gaining considerable attention over the last few years has been the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment within Black America, including within the Black working class. The fact that much of this sentiment has been actively fueled by white, right-wing anti-immigrant groups is secondary to the fact that the fear of competition and displacement on the part of the Black working class has made it susceptible to ‘nativist’ arguments. Black labor leadership has, for the most part, failed to engage and rigorously challenge this sentiment with much more than platitudes. As the Black working class faces continued battering, the immigrant—documented and/or undocumented—becomes, for many, the target of convenience for our anger. Rather than understanding the nature of the problem we face as lying within capitalism itself and the search by business for cheaper and more vulnerable workforces, the immigrant becomes the safe and convenient enemy of the moment.
(...) Black labor has historically played an interesting role, something akin to the irritant in the oyster that brings forward a pearl. Whether we organized independent unions when we were refused entry into the American Federation of Labor, or when we and Chicanos became decisive supporters of a new labor movement, as in the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in the 1930s and 1940s, Black labor has little history of passivity. The time has come for Black labor to step back into that role of irritant to the oyster, but with a 21st century frame of reference.
(...) To this should be added that the Black Freedom Movement has nearly always been an essential ally for other efforts to expand democracy and oppose injustice and inequality. This core—the fight for consistent democracy/opposition to injustice and inequality—must remain the guiding principles for Black labor and its challenge to organized labor today. The implications are quite profound in that what is being asked of Black labor—as a contingent of both organized labor and the Black Freedom Movement—is to push for a reconstructed and redefined labor movement that is emphasizing social transformation.
(...) Jobs do not necessarily begin high-wage. They can, however, become high wage through worker organization. This means that organized labor must have a program to organize economically depressed regions—such as our central cities—to transform the jobs. This, again, becomes a community affair.