Word: negroness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...some locals rather than compromise on discrimination. Top officers of the Transport Workers and the American Federation of Teachers have repeatedly pressed their locals to end bias. Many other union leaders insist that they must move slowly or be voted out of office by white members who consider the Negro's rise a threat to their own status and security. Disputing that belief, U.A.W. President Walter Reuther argues that on-the-job friction between white and Negro workers reflects poor leadership. "Where there is a moral commitment and initiative by labor leaders," says Reuther, "there will be no trouble...
Labor's most successful device for excluding Negroes is rigid control of apprenticeship training. Applicants are often required to pass aptitude tests that include wholly irrelevant questions. Plumbing apprentices, for example, get problems in algebra and trigonometry. On top of that, most apprentices must start work at half of a journeyman's pay and stay in training for three to five years, a period that many experts consider at least twice as long as necessary. Union officials contend that the system is vital to maintain standards of workmanship. "The apprenticeship program is so rigged that it would take...
More than Bigotry. The vast majority of unionized Negroes belong to industrial unions, notably the auto workers, steel workers and garment workers, in which they mainly hold jobs of low pay and skill. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union has managed to negotiate big pay raises for cutters and pressers, who are mostly white, while settling for minuscule increases for many of its 150,000 nonwhite members. In construction, Negroes make up about 35% of the laborers' union. Black membership is also high in the so-called "mud trades"-bricklaying, plastering, hod carrying-that white workers increasingly...
Helped and encouraged by the U.A.W. leadership, Detroit automakers have hired thousands of Negroes during the past two years. Many were among the 60,000 hard-core unemployed who have gone to work in auto plants. On the other hand, despite mounting shortages of skilled construction workers, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. building unions admitted only 5,168 Negro apprentices last year, 3.9% of all new apprentices...
Federal pressure could go a long way toward forcing recalcitrant unions to accept minorities. One helpful step would be abolition of construction-union hiring halls, if not by agreement with employers then by legislative fiat. Through various covert devices of favoritism in the hiring halls, many local officials prevent Negroes and other outsiders from getting a fair share of work. Unions should be compelled to give up exclusive control over apprenticeship programs and standards, although it may be arguable whether industry or Government should take over. It is hardly an accident that in most industries where companies control hiring, training...