Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 17:30:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Labor & Racism: Construction Trades



One area of organized labor that has remained all but untouched by the
feminist and civil rights struggles of the past decades is the building
trades.    At least this was true til the other day,  but even now
ameliorative programs designed,  ostensibly,  to correct years of
discrimination remain poorly conceived and ineffective.

A personal reminiscence;  when I returned from Vietnam and was separated
>from the Air Force in the early '70s,  there was a freeze on signing new
members into the carpenters' union (in my case,  Local 94 in Providence).
Several African Americans from the area who had served with me were told to
come back in "about two years" and their applications would be "considered".
My family,  however,  had a long tradition as Rhode Island carpenters; my
father had been a shop steward at Quonset Point Naval Air Station for Local
94 for several years before WWII.   My great-grandfather was a founding
member of Local 342 in Central Falls late in the last century.    Four days
after my separation from the armed services,  I was on the job laying
sub-flooring at the Providence Civic Center,  and two days later the
Business Agent dropped off my "book" all fiiled out and paid up.    

That's how it was and is done today.    There are virtually no black members
in the carpenters' union anywhere in New England,  except Bridgeport and
Boston,  and there they are used primarily for "hazardous duty" (e.g.
asbestos removal) in jobs that are usually--at least in good times--shunned
by whites.    The same is largely true of the allied trades--painters,
bricklayers,  sheet metal workers,  operating engineers,  iron workers,
etc.    The laborers is somewhat better--they have paid out quite a bit in
successful discrimination lawsuits.     But the rest of the industry remains
mired in racism and cronyism.     

Affirmative action has had some effect,  primarily in bringing white
women--mostly the wives,  daughters,  and girlfriends of long-time union
members or affiliated contractors into the ranks of organized labor.    In
Chicago,  some enterprising community activists tried to block access to a
major redevelopment project near the Cabrini-Green housing project.    They
were bought off by the city and the contractor who provided a few jobs
(which went to politically--connected "poverty pimps" and social service
lackeys) and a substantial sum to the activist themselves for "development
training".    When the project was completed,  there were several dozen
inner city youths with welding certificates and...no jobs.    This scenario
was reenacted last year in Los Angeles and Baltimore and,  in early 1996,
in Hartford and Cincinatti.    I imagine it is fairly common.    

An important task of Marxists and progressives in the labor movement is to
squarely face this phenomenon--which has its echo throughout much of the
labor movement.     There is much truth,  unfortunately,  to the
charge--leveled by MIM,  Rakesh,  and others,  that the labor movement in
America is,  indeed,  permeated with the privileges and the perogatives of a
"labor aristocracy",  acting hand in hand with the employers and against the
interests of the world's (largely impoverished) workers. 

The question is:  where do we go from here?


Louis Godena



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