Word: blacks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...this then the company or Harvard's fault? Yes, in the sense that they have failed to act on the problems blacks face in the workplace. Consider the situation at Harvard: a black painters' (or electricians' or plumbers') helper depends on a white journeyman for training. a white foreman judges his merit for promotion and, if he feels unfairly passed over, a black can complain to a white union...
This is not to say that every white worker, or foreman. or union official, is "racist." but merely that black workers here are to some extent-and more important, probably strongly feel themselves to be-in an alien. white world. The current SDS campaign has denied that the attitudes of white workers have anything to do with the situation of the painters' helpers. White workers. SDS claims have no objections to promoting the painters' helpers at one swoop. If so, it would appear to be a small miracle: that white workers-particularly the Irish Bostonians who are a large part...
...demand-eliminate the helpers' category, and promote all the painters' helpers-becomes particularly questionable when one considers what this will mean in the future to black applicants for jobs at Harvard. If the helper status-or some form of lower entrance status-does not exist, the black applicants will have to compete directly for journeyman status with white workers who, being free of the handicap of discrimination, would presumably be more skilled. This would maximize both the handicap of black workers, and the hostility from white workers created by any preference given to blacks...
...BEST way to upgrade Harvard's black workers would be continued hiring of unskilled blacks in some sort of "helper" or "trainee" category and adoption of a formal training program to move them up in the job levels. Thus. a black could get a job at Harvard with little difficulty, then receive formal training (not the current informal training or lack of it) to move up as if on an escalator. Basically. this is the idea behind the Federal MA-5 program, for which Harvard is currently completing an application, and to which unions seem agreeable, at least in principle...
...assuring that the escalator actually works, that it is not sabotaged, whether by Harvard, unions, foremen, or workers. For this, special measures would seem to be in order, perhaps along the lines of the committee proposed by Afro. Such a committee-composed of union members, Harvard personnel officers, and black students-would oversee the program, try to iron out the problems of the black workers in it, and decide in cases of dispute over promotions. Though it might take a considerable effort to persuade Harvard and the union to accept such a committee, the effort would seem to be worthwhile...