Labor and the Civil Rights Revolution

...Democratic and Republican national conventions have gone on record for Federal fair employment practice laws, yet no such bill has been passed by Congress...

...Yet even here, it was charged, an under-the-table agreement permitted Negro laborers to work only in Negro neighborhoods...

...Recognizing these legitimate concerns, A. Philip Randolph insists that "it does not follow that a merger of a racially segregated union with a white union will always result in a complete elimination of colored officials...

...members are worried about representation at union conventions...

...As if to underscore this point, the first Negro president of an integrated lodge in the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks was elected last January in West New York, New Jersey...

...We want full freedom...

...If labor and the Negro become aware of how inextricably their goals and destinies are intertwined, the current strains between them will soon disappear...

...Unions have furnished a huge amount of volunteer manpower to win these campaigns...

...For the Negro worker is on the march and the great gains already won have only whetted his appetite for full equality...

...Such examples, which could be multiplied many times, help to explain why Negro unionists are still skeptical as to how fast labor will move to wipe out bias...

...Housing for the Negro is still in delapidated slums, in overcrowded rooms at exorbitant rents...

...They are processes, not merely of decay and destruction, but of advance and building...

...As Frederick Douglass, the great Negro abolitionist, wrote 75 years ago: "If there is no struggle, there is no progress...

...Randolph, however, has likened the new American Negro Labor Council to the Jewish Labor Committee and the Italian American Labor Council...

...The court held the Commission's rulings un-enforceable under existing law and upheld the Local's right to exclude Negroes...

...The National Postal Transport Association, spurred on by the AFL-CIO civil rights committee at its 1958 convention, voted by better than two to one to amend its constitution to admit Negroes...

...Negro unionists have been elected to the executive boards of city central bodies and state federations, even in the South...

...Many white and some Negro unionists are fearful lest Randolph's new group become a black caucus which might intensify Negro nationalism and widen racial rifts within the unions, despite their recognition that Randolph himself has always opposed James Lawson's United African Nationalist Movement as well as the anti-white and anti-Semetic so-called "Muslim Brotherhood" among Negroes...

...A good number of locals in the building trades are integrated...

...The result...

...Behind this discord was the paradoxical fact that relations between labor and Negro groups have been HARRY FLEISCHMAN is the director of the National Labor Service of the Institute for Human Relations...

...But the latter has been hampered by a lack of punitive power to remove discriminatory practices— except to recommend expulsion, which it is understandably reluctant to do...

...Last year, labor contributed as much and sometimes more money than did Negro groups to the successful drives to pass FEP laws in Ohio and California...

...Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground...

...And the use of racehate material has become a common — and frequently successful — management practice...

...Speaking at an NAACP convention last July, Randolph cited the following steps toward first-class Negro economic citizenship in the labor movement: • First and foremost, a million and a half Negroes are AFL-CIO members and are awakening both to their rights and their powers...

...Elimination of the "white male" phrase from section 110 of the Trainmen's constitution was introduced by a Southerner, B. Grady Byington of Macon, Georgia, the union's general chairman for the Central of Georgia Railway...

...For almost a hundred years since the Emancipation Proclamation, discrimination has continued...

...That could result not only in the nation's speediest advance toward racial equality, but in a pooling of efforts that could mean a new upsurge of economic reforms—a new New Deal for all disadvantaged workers...

...Just as labor has campaigned to grant state FEPC bodies power to investigate discrimination in an industry or union (even where no formal complaint exists), so where discrimination exists in any union the AFL-CIO should have power to take positive action to bring about full compliance with its antidiscrimination policies...

...or inept in attempting to correct, these situations...

...The program has already opened the door for Orientals and Negroes among tool and die makers, optical technicians...

...Applying Soule's formula to Negroes and the labor movement makes it obvious that we are in the midst of a great civil rights revolution...

...Expanding on the theme, Meany told a Jewish Labor Committee convention in March that, "if we have to lose a vote in Congress on minimum wages, or the Forand bill, or unemployment compensation because we take a stand on civil rights, that is the price we are prepared to pay...

...At the same time, the NAACP labor secretary, Herbert Hill, charged that the AFL-CIO has failed to eliminate even the most obvious instances of racism within affiliated unions and that organized labor seems incapable of overcoming its "habitual discriminatory practices...

...today it is slightly less than twice as much...

...But we never deviated one single iota from our position...

...But they recognize that not only white unionists keep some locals segregated...

...Back in 1932, when conservatives saw the specter (and liberals the hope) of starving masses creating the "revolution," George Soule, writing in Harpers, dissented: "As long as people wait for the downtrodden and the hopeless to produce a revolution, the revolution is far away...

...By Harry Fleischman LABOR AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION Trade union civil rights for Negroes proceed slowly, but AFL-CIO speeds progress WHEN GEORGE MEANY, AFL-CIO president, was quizzed by reporters on Adam Clayton Powell's prospective assumption of the chairmanship of the House Labor Committee, his characteristically blunt reply: "I think it's terrible" exploded on the front pages of the nation's Negro newspapers...

...Meeting in Raleigh, the North Carolina State AFL-CIO put its stamp of approval on the campaign of the Negro student sit-downers in the South against segregation in public eating places...

...It must be a passion, not a part-time process...

...Persuasion, unfortunately, takes a long time, especially when deep-rooted customs are involved...

...In 1939, white workers earned more than twice as much as Negroes...

...For instance, an Urban League census of Negro building trades workers in Cleveland in 1959 counted 57 bricklayers, 80 painters, 6 electricians, 40 plasterers and 9 plumbers...

...Officials of such locals are concerned about their fate in merged unions where the white membership is much larger...

...3. Cooperation with intergroup relations agencies to smooth and speed transition from segregated to integrated locals...

...Interracial housing with a union label is being developed from coast to coast...

...Hailing the move, Randolph, the nation's top Negro labor leader, expressed the hope that the Trainmen's action would stimulate reform by the one rail union still maintaining the color bar...

...Yet this should occasion no surprise...

...Trade union law proved more effective than civil law...

...But the gap is still tremendous—$2,652 a year for the median Negro, $4,569 for the white...

...In Tennessee, one of Jim Carey's International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers locals won a nondiscrimination clause in its new contract and later beat off a decertification attempt...

...ignoring the fact that Meany has repeatedly denounced Southern white racists...

...Its reluctance stems from the fact that expulsion does not end discrimination, it only removes the discriminatory union from the house of labor, where the AFL-CIO's powers of persuasion can no longer be fruitful...

...And Negro workers are justifiably impatient...

...In taking that postition, he added, "with the rotten employing interests of the South taking advantage of every possible opportunity presented, we knew that our organizing in the South was going to slow down to a walk...

...In Memphis, Tennessee, Negro carpenters are shunted into segregated Local 1986, while it is alleged that white members of Local 345 refuse to work with Negro union carpenters...

...Schools, even in the North, are largely segregated because housing is segregated...

...Its constitution pledges it 'to encourage all workers without regard to race, creed, color or national origin to share in the full benefits of union organization.' And its Civil Rights Department is dedicated to redeeming that pledge...

...And, following NAACP complaints accusing employers, unions and government of blocking acceptance of young Negroes in training programs which lead to journeyman status, the AFL-CIO Building Trades asked the Government Contracts Committee for notice of any complaints on hiring for construction jobs or apprentice training, and pledged itself to prompt action to wipe out such discrimination...

...The overwhelming majority of both white and Negro members live above the Mason-Dixon line...

...Negro papers asked rhetorically, "Why hasn't Meany ever attacked Graham Barden (the House Committee's retiring Dixiecrat chairman) or Senator Eastland of Mississippi...

...4. Limiting job assignments for Negro workers...

...5. Involving union educational directors and editors in conferences and workshops with civil rights specialists to insure greater emphasis on civil rights problems in the education and the publication programs of unions...

...You taught us to look up, white man...

...Such a program should include: 1. Regular surveys of all unions' civil rights practices...

...3. Restricting Negroes to membership in segregated locals...

...deteriorating at precisely the moment that Negroes are making substantial gains in opening the gates to union and job equality...

...And labor has been active in efforts to ban discrimination in hospitals, housing, public accommodations, schools and cemeteries — literally from the cradle to the grave...

...Meany told the San Francisco convention that the AFL-CIO had stood firm against discrimination even when in the Spring of 1956 he received 4,000 letters from unions and union members influenced by the White Citizens' Councils in the South who were angered by AFL-CIO support of the Supreme Court school desegregation decisions...

...The Jewish Labor Committee was founded shortly after Hitler's coming to power and was created not for the purpose of promoting jobs and union posts for Jewish workers in America, but primarily to rescue Jewish labor leaders from under Hitler's nose...

...Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO civil rights committee, in cooperation with international officials of the Bricklayers Union, persuaded Local 8 to reverse its policy...

...Another complaint of employment bias dealt with the hiring policies of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company...

...Open occupancy cooperatives have been built by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the United Hatters, the United Auto Workers, the Fresno-Madera Building Trades Council and many other unions...

...In the South, of course, many workers share the prejudices of their communities...

...Yet even here, there is often a generous fund of good will and desire to support the AFL-CIO egalitarian ideals...

...Nobody can deny that labor has a long way to go to bring about an era of equality for all within every union and within all unionized industries...

...This pattern is true for virtually all the 16 states (ineluding more than half the nation's population) which have adopted fair employment laws...

...A recent New York Times editorial praising the AFL-CIO for its progress in erasing bias noted: "There can be no question as to its commitment to racial equality in its own ranks...

...His attitude echoes the Negro student dissatisfaction with token desegregation of public schools, which found outlet in the current sit-downs against lunch counter segregation...

...Nor was the action a mere grudging effort to escape expulsion by the parent federation...

...Take the recent convention of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen...

...Let's take a look...

...Most Negroes are still barred from apprenticeship programs...

...In Rome, Georgia, a United Auto Workers local elected a Negro as chairman of a predominantly white bargaining committee...

...Meany's view was adopted...

...Actually, the precedents Randolph cites are not too appropriate...

...The convention's resolution committee and President George Meany, while acknowledging the failure of both unions to live up to their pledges to eliminate the color line, proposed a substitute, ordering the Executive Council to keep pressing the unions to drop their racial bans, but setting no time limit...

...White and Negro teachers sat in the same hall in Houston, Texas, to organize a new and fast-growing local of the American Federation of Teachers...

...The AFL-CIO and many of its affiliates have campaigned vigorously for state and local fair employment practice laws, which make refusal to hire, on the grounds of race or creed, a law violation...

...A newly organized International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local in Columbia, South Carolina, is integrated and has Negro and white officers...

...All the major religious denominations inveigh strongly against segregation, but many a minister ruefully concedes that eleven o'clock Sunday morning is the nation's most segregated hour of the week...

...Perhaps the most eloquent statement of how both Negro workers and students feel today was expressed by Reverend F. L. Shuttles-worth: "We don't want token freedom...

...2. Reluctance to accept transfers of Negro unionists from other locals...

...But the Council has tackled the problem and is trying to provide more effective and speedy tactics...

...only Jews other Jews...

...The top-heavy vote by which the Trainmen's convention voted to back racial equality (incidentally, well before the six-month time limit proposed by Randolph had expired) was striking vindication of Meany's belief that moral suasion could do more than any kind of ultimatum threatening expulsion...

...Moreover, while union membership composition is largely determined by employer hiring policy, unions have rejected the "easy out" of failing to advocate laws banning discrimination in employment...

...Unions, too, are faced with the problem of closing the gap between official policies and actual practices...

...These strained relations, nevertheless, come when the need for full unity to win decent civil rights legislation and action has never been more urgent...

...According to the Urban League, average annual earnings of Local 1986 members were below $2,000 in 1958, while those of the white carpenters were estimated to exceed $4,000...

...only unionists other unionists—without being charged with bias...

...He won by a margin of two to one over a white opponent, although two-thirds of the lodge's almost 1,000 members are white...

...4. Coordination of the presently scattered civil rights activities of international unions, state and city councils, and locals and intergroup relations organizations...

...And while problems of discrimination still loom large, there are many signs of progress...

...In 1954 the Local first asked the Carpenters Brotherhood to redress its grievances, but no action has yet been taken...

...Faced with these frustrations, the rate of union progress in ending discrimination often seems miniscule to Negro workers...

...The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which a year or two ago said, "We deplore and dissociate ourselves from the banner of extreme racialism raised by Mr...

...Nevertheless, it remains true that the heated debates at last September's AFL-CIO San Francisco convention on race problems were vital in preparing for this most dramatic breakthrough in the AFL-CIO's drive to wipe out bias in its affiliated unions...

...What would a token dollar be worth...

...Roy Wilkins, executive director of the NAACP, reminds us that the conservative Detroit Free Press "editorially chuckled with glee recently over the prospect of a split between labor and the NAACP and does not conceal its relief at the possibility that the public will not have 'arrayed before it allied organizations' fighting for Negro civil rights...

...AFL-CIO summer schools in the South include courses on "Special Problems of the South," stressing the need for an effective civil rights program...

...Negro unionists represent the AFL-CIO at conferences in Europe, Africa and Asia, and the AFL-CIO has shown great interest in and concern for African and Asian laboring masses through financial support of unions and workers' education...

...These are powerful words, but are they true...

...Negroes are still the last to be hired and the first to be fired...

...Though their parent bodies have dropped their constitutional color bars, many locals, particularly in the building trades, still employ the following restrictive practices: 1. Refusal to accept Negroes as full-fledged members...

...And we're looking up...

...Disregarding these precedents, the American Negro Labor Council may be able to perform a valuable role not only in persuading reluctant Negro locals to merge with white counterparts, but also in pressing for greater participation by Negroes in the sometimes creaking and frequently awkward machinery of union democracy...

...The more than 200 delegates, representing over 35,000 Tar Heel unionists, hailed the students for using "peaceful labor techniques such as the picket line, the sit-down and the consumer boycott for equal rights in public facilities...

...Union spokesmen emphasized that elimination of the clause will aid organizing efforts among railroad workers in the South, where many employes are Negro...

...When Local 8 of the Bricklayers in Milwaukee refused to admit two qualified Negroes, the Wisconsin Industrial Commission went into court to force the Local to open its doors to Negroes...

...Those in the drive for equal rights in unions are coming together to demand a specific program to wipe out all bias...

...Positive guarantees of racial equality are common in union constitutions and by-laws...

...State Council conventions in Tennessee, Virginia and Texas adopted resolutions supporting the Supreme Court decisions and opposing plans to create so-called "private" school systems...

...Aiding in that "looking-up" process is the fact that the nation's big cities, always the main bastion of labor's political strength, are becoming increasingly non-white...

...Has any other national institution—including the church, business and political parties—done as much...

...Unhappily, prejudice has become ingrained so deeply in all of us that only Negroes may safely criticize other Negroes...

...There has been increasing integration of Negro technical and professional personnel in AFL-CIO departments at the Washington headquarters as well as in a growing number of national and international unions...

...The decision of the AFL-CIO Executive Council to strengthen the compliance procedures of the AFL-CIO's civil rights committee was hailed by Randolph but has not deterred him and other Negro unionists from proceeding with organizing an American Negro Labor Council...

...auto mechanics, body and fender repairmen, carpenters and brick masons...

...But progress is on the way...

...6. Above all, placing civil rights— in the shop and in the nation—higher on labor's action agenda...

...Here the AFL-CIO's Civil Rights Department, working with the national officers of the Communications Workers of America and the President's Committee on Government Contracts, persuaded the company to hire Negroes as telephone and teletype operators and to run its training program without bias, and successfully urged the local union to accept these Negroes as members...

...Revolutions are made, not by the weak, the unsuccessful, or the ignorant, but by the strong and the informed...

...And in many cases, the international unions are unwilling to correct...

...It voted by four-to-one to erase the union's 65-year-old color ban from its constitution, thus redeeming the pledge its president, William P. Kennedy, made in 1957 when the Trainmen affiliated with the AFL-CIO...

...And, added Randolph, George Meany and Walter Reuther, labor's top leaders, are strongly committed to the AFL-CIO's civil rights program...

...In both cases, Jewish and Italian workers had attained positions of leadership within the American labor movement because of their trade union abilities, long before the JLC and IALC were set up, and the civil rights activities of those groups were conducted primarily in support of other minorities...

...A conspicuous measure of [union] progress is the fact that there were bars to Negro membership in the constitutions of 26 AFL affiliates 20 years ago, while today only one remains—in that of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engine-men...

...Meany's criticism of Powell's alleged "racism" and record of absenteeism in Congress was brushed off as "irrelevant...

...Some of the letters," said Meany, asserted: "'If I have got to decide between being a Southerner and a trade unionist, I am going to be a Southerner.' " Meany's reply was, "If that is your feeling, get out...

...The Italian American Labor Council, similarly, was organized to rescue Italian anti-fascists from Mussolini's fascist regime...

...Unlike the labor movement, not a single U.S...

...The Council, which will hold its founding convention in Detroit over the Memorial Day weekend, will try to push Negro advancement not only in factories but in union executive, administrative and staff jobs, and as delegates to union conventions...

...A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and an AFL-CIO vice president, had called upon the convention to oust the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, unless they eliminated their constitutional bans on Negro members within six months...

...The Oregon Building Trades, Metal Trades and Service Trades Councils not only pledged "to implement the policy of the AFL-CIO and the State of Oregon in the area of civil rights and fair employment practices," but met with the state's Apprenticeship Council to develop training opportunities for members of minority groups...

...Powell," this time joined other Negro groups to defend Powell and hit Meany...

...You educated us...

...5. Denying or severely inhibiting apprenticeship training opportunities for Negro youth...

...Yet it must also be admitted that labor has broken down many of the barriers to job equality for workers of every race, creed and national origin...

...Local 1986 has been unable to indenture a single apprentice in the past 12 years because there was insufficient employment to guarantee enough training hours...

...national manufacturers' or trade association has a civil rights policy, a civil rights program or any staff to advance fair employment opportunities in industry...

...Unfortunately, as the Times points out, that is not the whole picture...

...Yet Negro union leaders and civil rights organizations insist that labor's progress is still inadequate, and the AFL-CIO Executive Council shares this view...

...The American Federation of Musicians has 40-odd Negro locals, many of which have resisted merger efforts by the parent union...

...The inability of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to force its Local 26 in Washington, D. C, to end discrimination led Meany to offer to recruit personally Negro electricians if the President's Committee on Government Contracts would crack down on the Government contractor to make him hire Negroes...

...2. Self-starting compliance machinery for labor...

...It is important to recall that the "Negro-only" March-on-Washington movement sponsored by Negro leaders including Randolph succeeded in wresting an Executive Order from President Roosevelt setting up a Fair Employment Practices Commission, and Randolph's Negro picketing of the 1948 Democratic convention helped to win an Executive Order from President Truman ending segregation of the armed forces...