Confrontation in Pittsburgh
Plastrik, Stanley
THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, as anyone knows who has tried to build himself even the tiniest summer place, is one of the most backward in the country. Obsolete building codes, "political...
...Will the new methods and materials, including a further breakdown of job specialization, be given full play...
...Apart from the sources of funding, there are two power The writer wishes to express his thanks to Mrs...
...Michael Dismond, the executive director of the Bidwell Cultural and Training Center in Pittsburgh —a training program center for "self-help," financed by the Richard A. Mellon Foundation— strongly believes that prefab, modular, and other new construction technologies are part of the answer to the problem of getting minority workers into the industry...
...These unions have built up high wage scales and an elaborate structure of job-related benefits, mostly by a strict rationing of admissions...
...The unions reply by citing "impossible demands" and a black desire to bypass their apprenticeship training programs...
...This could apply to hiring halls, seniority systems, and apprenticeship programs and standards...
...Yet, if any group needs a special helping hand it is the black ex-cons...
...Not if the building unions have their way...
...they come down and try to tell us what to do...
...T HIS ATTITUDE is echoed up and down the entire labor movement, starting with George Meany who frequently expresses his conviction that there aren't "enough" skilled black workers anyway...
...Finally, it is under challenge in the courts and in the federal hierarchy itself as an unlawful quota system, proscribed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
...There are any number of black spokesmen who consider control over the training process the most important aspect of their movement...
...We confront here a complex clash of personalities, differing work attitudes, and, above all, differing social goals...
...The Negro community, he adds, may find itself at war with the labor movement, a disaster for all...
...For example, the first week's training consisted of meeting Smith at 7 AM every morning at the local bus stop...
...However, the totals include the Teamsters, which boasts a 24 percent black membership this year, and the Construction General Laborers Union with a 49 percent black membership...
...The worst moment came after Pittsburgh's Mayor closed down public construction projects for a short period, during which negotiations were supposed to be carried out...
...2, stymied by lack of funds and by conflicts within the black and union movements...
...and succeeded in drawing attention to itself on a STANLEY PLASTRIK national scale...
...Especially acute is the training issue, since educated blacks with some experience in training people are convinced that briefer training periods are possible, that the new technology can compartmentalize most of the old craft skills, if not replace them with assembly-line techniques...
...The demonstrators had much support among the people...
...Not so familiar is the event that set the BCC in motion: the black-run training program known as Operation Dig initiated by a militant, black, "natural-born" leader, Nate Smith...
...Mr...
...New York Times, September 14, 1969 WORKERS, BLACK AND WHITE representative on the other side of the table as an ally against black middle-class leaders who, they point out, know little or nothing about the construction industry (least of all about working in it) and who, of course, will never operate a bulldozer or lay a brick...
...In no city is there a more clear-cut case of discrimination by the building trades unions...
...Pittsburgh had never before known such tension...
...The dangers of a prolonged impasse are obvious: a growing embitterment and drawingapart of all parties...
...He charges the union leadership with "racism," and with proposing to maintain a labor scarcity in order to maintain high wage rates...
...According to one BCC leader who attended the negotiation sessions, the unions "conceded nothing," bringing the talks to a state of collapse...
...Mr...
...The Pittsburgh Building and Construction Trade Council withdrew from the Allegheny County Labor Council after Gilbert Teitel, president of the Council, spoke with some sympathy about the black cause...
...A new round of agitation, confrontation, demonstrations, and—eventually—negotiation is in the making...
...centers in the industry: the builders and contractors, who enjoy some of the highest profit rates in American industry—and the unions...
...1 did show what can be done with will and determination...
...Pittsburgh (with a population of 650,000, going down rapidly as the white exodus continues, and a black population of 17 percent or over 100,000) needs, in addition to new construction, rehabilitation of 8,500 onefamily homes and 35,000 apartment-building units...
...There are twenty-six such unions in the Pittsburgh area, with a total membership of about 32, 000...
...His approach is a simple empirical one: train the men but first get a union commitment admitting them to membership when training is completed...
...Needless to say, in insisting upon maintaining control over apprentice training, the union leadership also insists on clinging to its drawn-out training techniques which are central to its approach to the industry...
...the views expressed are of course his own...
...If the building trades cannot bring about the necessary changes themselves, these changes indeed may be forced upon them by the federal authorities...
...each issue raises a host of related questions and seems to challenge and menace the established union system...
...It is now several months since negotiations broke off, when the Black Coalition refused to discuss an industry offer proposing a limited number of black jobs over an indefinite time period...
...Minority groups, now fighting for union membership, could be drawn into a prefab and modular work force, two-thirds of which would consist of previously unskilled workers now rapidly being trained to semi-skilled status...
...T T HANKS To nationwide publicity, formation of the Black Construction Coalition (BCC) in Pittsburgh is a familiar story...
...There was some talk, especially from leaders in Detroit, about "our own unions," and motions to consider the formation of a nationwide black union were adopted...
...Michael Dismond, of the Bidwell Cultural and Training Center, holds the unions responsible for the failure of all past negotiations and for their failure to resume them...
...And, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study, if the Negro share of the construction work force were proportionate to the black share of the population, there would be 37,000 more Negro carpenters, 45,000 more laborers, 97,000 more mechanics, 82,000 more metal craftsmen and 112,000 more construction foremen...
...Jones & Laughlin, United States Steel, the Aluminum Company of America are all deeply involved in experiments with modular construction units...
...This involves training, status and membership...
...One form this desperation takes is in loose and irresponsible talk about "independent black unions" that will deal with black builders and compete contractually with white unions.* Last October the Pittsburgh BCC organized a meeting of black leaders from similar coalitions across the country...
...A violent internecine war would break out between blacks and unions, with disastrous results for all...
...Then by sheer personal determination, and even though half of the original trainees dropped out and had to be replaced, Nate Smith turned them into heavy-equipment operators who were guaranteed journeymen membership in the Operating Engineers' Union...
...This 12-month training program was costly, but it will ultimately pay for itself through the life earnings of those who went through it...
...There is a thoroughly adamant feeling in the unions and among the builders' associations against black control of training programs...
...Still more serious, the President's 75 percent cutback in federal funding of building and construction (and the Philadelphia Plan applies only to contractors doing business with the government) undermines any practical effect it may have had...
...The coalition had put forward its demands: a minimum of 1,130 jobs—excluding laborers— with union cards...
...He recruited 70 of "the toughest guys I could find"—half with police records, 40 percent on welfare, poolroom WORKERS, BLACK AND WHITE habitues, demoralized older hard-core unemployed, etc...
...Without for a moment joining forces with the white-dominated union locals, they feel that an agreement, perhaps only a preliminary agreement, might have been forthcoming but for internal divisions among the blacks who were present...
...it is often positively stony...
...And in most cities there is a tacit understanding between contractors, union bosses, and political figures to maintain the status quo in this industry which is so sorely in need of reform...
...66 of the Operating Engineers' Union, had a dream: to teach other blacks how to operate heavy equipment, road-construction machinery, and then get them union cards and onto jobs...
...We have already suggested the first reality to be faced: the technological revolution now underway in building...
...The federal government, builders' associations, finance organizations, etc...
...Perhaps the key issue in the struggle between black groups and the unions is, who shall control the training process...
...Smith's tough but honest (although often criticized) method of training was a kind of "stick...
...One could add many more details all leading to the conclusion that the industry is poised on the edge of a technological revolution capable of resolving the chronic housing shortage within a few years' time...
...By sliding the prefab units into a steel skeletal framework, these units can be stacked into low-cost housing units, or luxury dwellings, town houses, and even high-rise apartments...
...If the association is to participate in any program, it will insist on professional management," declared Mr...
...White union leaders often appeal to the black worker Apprentices "As of 1968 only 3 percent of registered apprentices were Negroes...
...And the BCC's demand that 25 percent of newly admitted black trainees and journeymen be drawn from a pool of black men with prison records is considered particularly outrageous by white unionists...
...Impasse is the word to describe the present state of affairs...
...The threat of federal government action in the form of compulsory arbitration and mandatory wage-price controls, to say nothing of the urgency of a program to meet the approaching revolution in mass production technology, seemed not to disturb the Executive Council of the AFL–CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department...
...All sides are clearly unhappy but see no immediate way out...
...By using the so-called modular system of construction—the stacking of prefabricated rooms or entire apartments on top of one another, like huge boxes—apartments and replacement rooms now can be built inside a factory or on an assembly line...
...At this moment, the future of Dig No...
...Among the results of such a "modular building revolution" would be the fact that significant financing and interest savings are possible as construction time would be dramatically reduced...
...There is no need to reiterate the details of the demonstrations that took place and drew counterdemonstrations by white construction workers...
...the issue was sharply drawn, violence broke out on several occasions, and more than once downtown Pittsburgh was close to a bloodbath...
...The Revised Philadelphia Plan requires contractors doing business with the government to accept a "definite standard" of minority employment in seven trades according to flexible criteria such as the current extent of minority participation in the trade, availability of minor STANLEY PLASTRIK ity workers, need for training programs in the area, etc...
...The Labor Department, contractors, union officials, local antipoverty personnel pitched in to help provide financing...
...This form of revolutionary building uses allsteel wall systems, studs, and frames...
...Can it now be succeeded by bigger and more sophisticated Digs...
...Whether this criticism is true or not, Dig No...
...Bayard Rustin is right when he suggests that, regardless of who is right or wrong, such a situation tends WORKERS, BLACK AND WHITE to undermine intelligent leadership on all sides and to play into the hands of racial extremists...
...Were the building unions receptive toward this revolution, they would realize the advantages to be gained...
...would like nothing more than dual unions to tear apart entrenched craft unions...
...Their unanimously-adopted statement on equal employment opportunity reaffirmed previous pledges to increase Negro employment in the industry, but without any change in procedures or policies...
...Obsolete building codes, "political peddling," restrictive practices of builders and contractors, the practices of the building trades unions— these are but a few of the problems...
...Both sides have hardened their stance...
...It is basically a union town (there are thousands of black steel workers), and still a small city with a degree of communal harmony that has long since vanished in places like New York...
...Smith told us that his objective with Dig No...
...There must be a facing-up on all sides to often cruel facts before any headway is possible...
...We might note that the Revised Philadelphia Plan—issued on June 27, 1969, by Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher as a more vigorous attempt to bring black workers into the trade—is considered "tokenism" and insufficient by most black leaders since, among other weaknesses, it is applicable only to seven unions...
...All who took part in the latest round of negotiations agree they were good meetings (if often heated and violent) in the sense that basic issues were discussed at length...
...These are a few of the questions recently posed in Pittsburgh in what amounted to a rehearsal of the issues before the industry...
...Charles C. Robb, editor of the Pittsburgh Point, a local weekly with a liberal appeal, explains why the BCC won quick support among Pittsburgh blacks: They have good reason to fight...
...Dismond, the present white union leadership rose from the ranks by superior muscle and brawn, not precisely the requirement for facing problems of the new technology...
...The Pittsburgh BCC, along with similar movements in Boston and Chicago, places little stock in federal schemes such as the Philadelphia Plan...
...These proposals were considered negotiable, not final...
...They also insist that each craft must be employed on every construction job...
...Before, he had earned $2 an hour as a laborer...
...The Nation, September 22, 1969 P P ITTSBURGH'S BLACK COALITION spearheaded a nationwide movement of blacks (Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, etc...
...Finally, much objection is made to "extravagant" demands by militant blacks as to members to be accepted, job percentages, etc...
...On the other hand, says Mr...
...The short-run interest of the black now is first of all a job, but he also keeps in mind his future in the industry...
...Present building methods are obsolete, and there is strong resistance to those new materials and techniques which alone could bring down the costs...
...also, that movements such as the BCC are "irresponsible," without structure, and thrive on threats of violence and intimidation...
...The usual attitude is that no real black leadership is available with whom the unions can properly negotiate, as black leaders are "unable to say no" to their own constituency...
...It is safe to conclude that any massive construction in the future will have to face up to the challenge of this technology...
...1 was a relatively unsophisticated program, and one charge made against it is that it cannot be repeated in Pittsburgh or elsewhere...
...Now, more than 500 men are on a waiting list for Dig No...
...There is Nate Smith's comment, for example, that "they [the official black leaders] act just like whites...
...About 2,200 of these are black, or just under 7 percent...
...In addition to the conventional answer that the unions are doing all they possibly can to enlarge their percentage of black card holders, the union leadership tends to be highly critical of black leadership—that is, when it admits that this leadership exists...
...Little wonder that the often aggressive demands and actions of the Black Construction Coalition are frequently seen as a demonstration against the union movement...
...There are thousands of contractors (many of them small, often merely individual builders)— and the unions, which represent more than two dozen crafts and thus have control over skilled labor...
...All programs for America—Freedom Budget, Democratic party platform, etc.—call for mass construction of housing, schools, hospitals, public transport...
...Tova Tive of Pittsburgh for her invaluable help in preparing this report...
...O. H. Martison, a Master Builders official...
...20 percent of the trainees to be recruited from among men with prison records...
...Dismond's aim is to get blacks into the existing unions and to change their internal structure...
...The second reality to be faced is the danger of government intervention (reactionary in itself and evidence that the unions have failed) in the collective bargaining process...
...Dig No...
...What will happen to craft unions unwilling or incapable of expanding fast enough to supply workers or meet the demands of minority group workers...
...THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY, as anyone knows who has tried to build himself even the tiniest summer place, is one of the most backward in the country...
...During the demonstrations in Pittsburgh, the pride of the construction trade marched to City Hall chanting "Wallace in '72" and pausing along the way to complain that the Pittsburgh Pirates had too few white players...
...Reiterating its well-known standpoint that union locals in the industry should invite applications of qualified minority journeymen for membership, the real thrust of the statement is directed against government intervention, particularly in the form of the so-called Philadelphia Plan: The Executive Council of the Building and Construction Trades Department is of the considered view that the failure of the communications industry and the government to maintain an objective attitude is inflammatory and prejudicial to the sound and proper solution of the racial issue in the building and construction industry and other segments of American life...
...Smith, a former professional fighter who 18 years ago miraculously had gained entry into the then all-white Pittsburgh Local No...
...Probably an unavoidable area of misunderstanding exists here, which shows through in spontaneous and somewhat angry recriminations...
...W W HERE DO WE GO from here...
...In Pittsburgh the Black Construction Coalition (BCC) was launched to crack this policy and its major institutional defender, the Building Trades Council...
...This statement refers to the fact that where in 1960 census statistics showed that nonwhites made up 2.5 percent of the 85,000 apprenticeships in the country, in the first half of 1968 almost 10 percent of the 26,156 newly-enrolled apprentices came from minority groups...
...How shall massive construction work be undertaken...
...the black worker may be right back where he began, further embittered by his knowledge of job opportunities he has been denied...
...How can the need be met by antiquated unions, incapable either of expanding rapidly enough to do the job or to increase the job market...
...This raises an important if delicate issue: there is a clear difference between blacks who come out of the working-class and ghetto communities and the middle-class black spokesmen representing various Negro organizations such as the NAACP...
...The Bidwell Center is training blacks to work with prefab methods, and a 78-unit low-middleincome housing development in a black fringe area of Pittsburgh will employ this group of trainees when their program is completed...
...Now these nonunion workers and small builders—blacks, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and poor whites—are forced to eke out a marginal existence through building small suburban and rural homes...
...The BCC was composed of Operation Dig, the Bidwell Training Center, and almost every other black organization in the city, with the local NAACP as spearhead...
...There is also the controversial matter of the Model Cities Act of 1966, which has scarcely gotten off the ground and whose major weakness is that, while offering the possibility of training to the black worker, it does not and cannot assure him that he will receive a journeyman's union card in the craft...
...The unions, insisting that apprenticeship and training remain solely under their domination, are adamant in their refusal to admit to membership large groups of blacks who claim they already have adequate training...
...Therefore, tens of thousands of workers have been denied union membership and the unions' financial and other benefits...
...The blacks talk about unacceptable "token offers," about the stubbornness of the unions and the contractors, and about the issue of control over the training procedure as the main roadblock to progress...
...A weekly salary of $100 acted as a "carrot" to keep most of the trainees coming...
...Whatever the strength of such groups, such talk has undesirable consequences...
...A minority of the black negotiators, particularly Nate Smith of Operation Dig, sounds an interesting note...
...Some officials in Pittsburgh have charged the BCC with containing "gangster elements...
...You train men as you see fit, not according to rules laid down by some guy who was never poor...
...In the end, 90 men received their union cards and an opening to a new life at $5.00 per hour...
...2 would be the training, in a twoyear program, of 110 blacks in bricklaying, carpentry, electrical work, and other construction trades...
...When these two noncraft unions are excluded, the percentage of black journeymen in the building trades unions drops to about 1.5 percent...
...The face presented to the blacks by most of the construction unions is far from amiable...
...Most responsible black lead * A far better way of coping with this problem is the apprenticeship program for various skilled trades set up in New York City by the Workers' Defense League in cooperation with the unions...
...In the impasse that now exists, the BCC continues to hold fast to these demands as its preliminary bargaining position...
...Debates still go on as to who walked out on whom...
...The unions would then have only themselves to blame...
...The first four-unit prototype was erected on a site in approximately three hours—after delivery on flatbed trucks—erected and ready for occupancy...
...How this affected the percentage of the total number of apprentices is not made clear...
...After the demonstrations the Mayor brought both sides to three-andonehalf weeks of daily, and thus far fruitless, negotiations...
...Except for radicalized middle-class whites, however, this support did not reach the point of activity...
...STANLEY PLASTRIK Whenever there is a shortage of a given skill—rather than training new local workers who might belong to one or another minority —workers will be brought in from other sections of the country...
...Once a Model Cities project is completed (and mighty few have even begun...
...Here we touch upon a severe difficulty in negotiations...
...But black leaders like Nate Smith insist that black control is essential if efforts to train hard-core jobless blacks are to succeed...
...The annual convention of the AFL-CIO construction unions this year was dominated by a smug and self-congratulatory tone that could only discourage those hoping for changes...
...This opinion is echoed by the unions...
...if one craft is left out, the others also will stay away...
...training programs limited to eight months, and, finally, the qualifications for journeyman status to be determined by a committee which would include Black Coalition representatives...
...it also received wide support from traditionally liberal and radical white organizations...
...Not only do the construction unions hold to their strategy of keeping in short supply the number of available workers with a given skill...
...How shall we create a labor force equipped to meet the demands of this technology...
...Dig is the best thing that ever happened to me in my life," 42-year-old Carl Richardson, now working as a roadgrader, is quoted as saying...
...ers, such as Michael Dismond, oppose separate black unions, but acknowledge that the issue may emerge in the future and split the coalitions...
...2 is doubtful...
...The building trades unions have long deemed it advantageous to keep skilled labor in short supply...
...This recently has become a major issue in New York's public housing program...
...within two years, a minimum of 40 percent black membership in each craft union...
...The building industry absorbs about $90 billion dollars a year, of which roughly onethird comes out of public funds...
...This program seems to be a model of its kind, and with greater funding it could become a major contribution...
Vol. 17 • January 1970 • No. 1
