Misreading the Record

...indeed, they do not advance much beyond the antilabor cliches of affluent liberals...

...Those disagreements, while regrettable, are legitimate...

...Thus the AFL-CIO is described as at best unsympathetic to the plight of black workers, and at worst openly hostile to their interests...

...The labor movement has felt, with considerable justification, that a healthy and rapidly growing economy would provide the most powerful thrust possible toward black equality...

...Significantly, Gould offers no real analysis of the far-reaching and controversial Steel Consent decree...

...In addition, their jobs were less subject to cyclical layoffs...

...Finally, "black only" remedies have sometimes created pressures that have discouraged black workers from taking advantage of their opportunities to transfer into higher or better-paying jobs...

...In the Lackawanna plant of Bethlehem Steel, blacks in the 11 "segregated" departments enjoyed hourly earnings amounting to 97 per cent of that of all hourly paid employes in the plant despite there being many more long service white employes And made higher salaries than their fellow blacks in other departments...

...Predictably, Gould downplays not only the unions' commitment to affirmative action through apprenticeship outreach programs, but the considerable progress for blacks that it has made possible...

...The narrow seniority systems in steel had long been established by the time collective bargaining began in the '30s, and remained essentially a matter of local autonomy for quite some time...

...At the same time he argues, again contrary to much evidence, that seniority systems have operated systematically not merely unintentionally and in individual cases to exclude blacks...

...The limitations of his approach are clearly shown, first, by his neglect of the economic context past discrimination must be seen in...

...For the fact remains that the labor movement, whatever its shortcomings, has consistently shown a fundamental commitment to racial equality...

...When he condescendingly tells labor, for example, that it "must reach out to represent all workers regardless of colornot just the small baronies of senior workers who are white," he is echoing a patently false stereotype...

...Its economic and social programs, its drive to organize the South, represent the best hope for millions of black workers...

...To refuse to recognize the progressive role of American labor is to doom black Americans to continued inequality...

...Far more constructive and accurate is the belief of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the new head of the Equal Employment Commission, that organized labor is likely to be an ally and not a foe in efforts to end discrimination...

...The union began trying to negotiate transfer rights in 1954, however, and ultimately succeeded in 1962, three years before the effective date of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Federal fair-employment-practices statute...

...He does not systematically examine the importance of the general state of the economy in determining union responsiveness to black demands, and barely mentions how vital full employment is to black economic advancement...

...Gould castigates the United Steel workers of America for not having a black officer, although Leon Lynch was elected to the newly-created post of Vice President for Human Affairs following the union's 1976 convention and reelected by the membership during last spring's heated election...

...The case of steel demonstrates that the identification of seniority with antiblack policies is an oversimplification...

...There is no denying that there have been, and will probably continue to be, serious disagreements between labor leaders and some civil rights activists over the scope of Title VII remedies...

...Instead, he concentrates on legal contests involving the construction trades, where he is able to make a better case against the labor movement...

...While he goes on to declare that ending racial discrimination does not necessarily require the abolishment of seniority, one is hardly reassured when he adds, "It may be that other considerations argue for such a result...

...Wage and unemployment data have also consistently shown that there is greater racial equality in the unionized sector of the economy than in the nonunion sector...

...His thesis is that discriminatory practices by unions are the main barriers to black economic advancement...

...Nor does the author come close to adequately surveying the racial practices of trade, public employe or industrial unions...

...What appears to be liberalism on civil rights and economic issues, we are told, should be dismissed as cynicism and hypocrisy that mask labor's "an-tideluvian role in racial relations...

...Gould places his faith in the courts or administrative procedures, and treats this difference in tactics as a divergence in fundamental values...

...What is not legitimate is escalating differences over interpretations of the law into a contention that the labor movement is hostile to blacks, or portraying labor's resistance to quotas and its insistence upon maintaining seniority as opposition to black advancement...

...A Bureau of Labor Stastics study has found that belonging to a union increases the wages of black men by 27 per cent and of black women by 19 per cent...

...Gould advises labor to take the view that "seniority is not being eliminated, but rather an accommodation is being undertaken...

...Gould fails to appreciate that seniority is not only filled with complexities, but is a touchy political issue...

...In short, the author sees the labor movement as simply another institution that discriminates...

...That suggests the most fundamental flaw of Black Workers in White Unions: A polemic against labor overshadows Gould's analysis of the law (and makes his subtitle a very misleading one...

...The percentage of minorities in construction apprenticeship programs, for instance, has increased from 7 per cent in 1969 to almost 20 per cent today, a remarkable advancement for a period when the building trades as a whole were suffering unemployment rates of up to 50 per cent...

...In one instance Gould's claims are belied by his own data...

...The problem has assumed particular urgency now because, on the one hand, conflicts over seniority and quotas are threatening to erode the traditional alliance between blacks, labor and Jews, while on the other the nation as a whole seems to be in retreat from the promises of racial justice that formed much of the social dynamic of the '60s...

...Seniority changes arc disruptive enough by their very nature, even in ideal circumstances where there are no racial overtones, and many court-imposed remedies have exacerbated the tendency of workers to polarize along racial lines...

...Gould's ventures into sociological, historical and political terrain are on a rather low level...

...Gould does not succeed in untangling the complex array of relevant court cases, so that those unfamiliar with the field will probably be left confused rather than enlightened...

...A number of striking factual errors mar this book, too...

...Reviewed by Norman Hill Executive Director, A. Philip Randolph Institute Few questions have been more agonizing or more difficult to solve than the question of how to insure this country's black citizens full and equal economic participation...

...Yet the criticisms of labor advanced by the author and others are essentially political, and revolve precisely around such issues...

...The center of the controversy is, of course, seniority...

...Gould's claims notwithstanding, black workers have a profound stake in the strength and health of the labor movement...

...Unfortunately, his book obscures more than it clarifies...

...Similarly, in charging labor as a whole with a scarcity of minorities in elected and staff positions, the author somehow overlooks the large body of evidence showing that blacks hold more decision making posts within the labor movement than within any other institution...

...Black workers will not benefit if the seniority system is made to bear the burden of rectifying society's discrimination and the labor movement is thereby weakened or destroyed...

...He states that blacks are "extremely under represented" on the international staff of the United Rubber Workers, a union with 15 per cent black members, but his figures show that they hold almost 10 per cent of those offices...

...William B. Gould, a law professor at Stanford University, has undertaken an examination of some of these sensitive issues...