While the image of union workers is one of white men in hard hats, the reality is that African-Americans and other minorities may be hit hardest if the unions fall. Studies show that 14.5 percent of all public sector workers in the nation are black and one in five black workers are employed in public administration. Teachers, police and firefighters are not the only professionals affected in the battle raging in Wisconsin between union workers and the Republican-led state government, either. If the law passes, service employees like janitors, garbage collectors, and home health care workers will not only lose their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits, but their right to a union altogether.
Joining us is Paul Frymer, professor of politics at Princeton University and author of "Black and Blue: African American, the Labor Movement and the Decline of the Democratic Party," who says that unions represent the last bastion for the black middle class.
Also with us is Sheila Cochran, Secretary treasurer and Chief Operating Officer of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council and 30-year member of the Union of Autoworkers, who says that the effect of union breakups will be felt hardest in her city, where the majority of African American professionals work in the public sector.
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Comments [1]
This story contains a falsehood.
I see this sentence: "If the law passes, service employees like janitors, garbage collectors, and home health care workers will not only lose their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits, but their right to a union altogether."
That is untrue. It is literally untrue; it is figuratively untrue, and absolutely and in every other sense, untrue.
The Wisconsin law does not end anyone's "right" to a union. Period. The law does not do that, and to suggest otherwise is a lie. A big, substantive, important lie. The Wisconsin law anticipates that public sector unions will continue to negotiate collective bargaining agreements. The Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill does not adderss private sector unions at all.
There may be an argument, that if the Wisconsin law passes, it will require unions to pass annual certification votes. And that in the future, some union collective bargaining units might see majority-votes to decertify them. But that is not in any way equivalent to any loss of a "right to a union." That is allowing all workers to vote on whether they will be governed by a union.
Lastly; this story notes that the general appearance of the popular notion of a "union member" as a middle-aged white tradesman. There is no arguing with the statistics quoted by John Hockenberry and his guests in this story, with respect to minority union membership statistics. But it is also true, that decades ago, industrial and trade unions were, like other institutions in America, discriminatory against blacks and other people of color. It is no longer true to any significant degree, but it is a myth to think that American labor union history is free of elements of racial prejudice and discrimination.
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