Racial Discrimination in Craft Unions

Report Outline
Black Demands to Join Building Unions
Restrictive Practices of Craft Unions
Legal Weapons Against Employment Bias

Black Demands to Join Building Unions

Organized labor and Negroes, though long allied in support of civil rights concepts in general, have had little success in efforts to reach common ground on a particular civil rights matter of vital concern to both—the membership policies of craft unions. Black demonstrators recently marched in several large cities to promote acceptance of their demand that Negroes be admitted in greater numbers to apprenticeship programs and to full membership in construction unions. The local unions concerned, and the parent A.F.L.-C.I.O., contend that to grant the demands would amount to imposition of racial quotas, which are prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A.F.L.-C.I.O. officials assert, moreover, that the labor movement already has been doing everything in its power to break down barriers—whether based on race or any other consideration—to union membership.

The conflict is far from new. Charges of racial discrimination on the part of labor unions date from the early days of the American Federation of Labor, which was founded in 1886. Then as now, the charges have been aimed primarily at craft unions—those consisting of workers possessing a specific skill or a closely related set of skills. Industrial unions, which attempt to organize all workers in a given industry regardless of their particular skills, generally have escaped charges of racial discrimination.

Erbin Crowell Jr., an associate editor of Civil Rights Digest, has pointed out that “The contradictions on civil rights exhibited by labor unions are not unique; the same inconsistencies are true in virtually all American institutions.” Crowell adds that “The dilemma of labor unions is in many ways the dilemma of the nation: words don't match deeds; pronouncements by leaders are ignored or even opposed by large numbers of the citizenry; the sham of tokenism is revealed by continuing injustice and prejudice.”