Gutting Unions Hurts the Black Middle Class

Henry Louis Gates' "The Root" ^ | 11 March | Holloway

[flowerplough]

Teaser titled "Blacks in Public Unions: A Path to the Middle Class?"

The push to eliminate the power of public unions to bargain collectively, as the GOP is trying to do in Wisconsin, can disproportionately affect black workers. Here's why.

...Last year, African-American workers were more likely than whites, Asians and Hispanics to be public-union members, making up 15 percent of the membership, according to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The membership of black workers remains high even as the number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions overall shrank by 612,000 between 2009 and 2010 to 14.7 million. In 2010 the union-membership rate -- the percentage of wage and salary workers who were members of a union -- was 11.9 percent, down from 20.1 percent in 1983.

Public unions, which came of age at about the same time as the civil rights movement, became the gateway for millions of blacks to rise to the ranks of the middle class through state, city and county jobs as teachers, secretaries, garbage collectors, police officers and firefighters. Union membership has brought significant benefits to these public employees. Full-time public-sector union workers last year reported median usual weekly earnings of $917, while those who were not represented by unions had earnings of $717.

"Dismantling bargaining rights will disproportionately affect African Americans," Terry Smith, a professor at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, told The Root. A scholar of employment and labor law and voting rights, Smith says that unions have really been part and parcel of African Americans' movement into the middle class. Taking away those bargaining rights will stop that progress, he maintains. "People ask what's so important about bargaining rights. It's one thing to go to your boss as an individual and demand a raise. It's quite another thing to go to the boss as a group of thousands of employees and demand a raise."

The specific history of the disproportionate number of African-American public employees stems from the late 1950s and 1960s, when the government first began to allow organizing. That move helped dismantle the most obvious form of bias that had prevented African Americans from achieving a higher quality of life: job discrimination.

"The government presented the first readily available opportunities for blacks to work," he said. "Alongside that history, you have a broader history of blacks and unionization...

[hal ogen]

I wouldn’t call government employees a “strong middle class”...because it is artificial. Just what do they produce for their “work”? Mainly they hassle productive citizens. More so, I describe it as a “weak dependent MUDDLED class”.

[ModelBreaker]

“I wouldn’t call government employees a “strong middle class”...because it is artificial. Just what do they produce for their “work”? Mainly they hassle productive citizens. More so, I describe it as a “weak dependent MUDDLED class”.”

Fair enough. If you go thru prosperous black communities in LA (the only ones I know about) a shockingly high proportion of the residents are government employees. But they are strong communities you would probably like to live in.

[ADSUM]

So it is better to lose jobs in Wisconsin, then for public unions to give up their ability to steal from the taxpayers.

There is no money left to pay for the benefits. The restriction on union power advantage to keep taking more (given to them by democrat/liberal politicans) has been accomplished. The judge just delayed it a bit.

I would like to see a major downsizing of the government sector in WI.

[flowerplough]

MB and Zeppo, best two. Well put.

[Gumdrop]

This is the guy who abused the police officers who thought he was breaking into his house, which resulted in the POTUS insulting the police, which then resulted in the infamous beer summit at the WH!!!!!

[Huck]

Last year, African-American workers were more likely than whites, Asians and Hispanics to be public-union members

That figures.

[PGalt]

Great thread BUMP! Henry Louis Gates, eh? /snicker

[dagogo redux]

Gutting Mafia Hurts the Italian Middle Class.

There: corrected that.

[Vaduz]

And illegal house keepers,lawn rangers,day labor.....

[TruthBeforeAll]

I wonder if black Americans will ever grow tired of being told by liberals that they are incapable of accomplishing anything in their lives without some form of governance.

[Gaffer]

Well, it just goes to show you. When you put forth logic, reason and common sense, you turn over another rock of the liberal landscape and out crawls another guilt-trip....it’s racist!....give me a frickin’ break....race baiters, heart tuggers, humanists, perverts, hard working government officials, just go the hell away. We don’t want you any more.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

Taxpayers should not be held hostage by lucrative contracts negotiated by liberal elected officials which in turns forces people to pay money into union coffers which is laundered back to liberal elected officials.

Especially since the tax payers can't choose which agency they want to do business with for any given need. If you need a new car, you can choose which company you want to buy from, so the UAW workers still have to compete for your business and their jobs against other UAW and nonunion workers. Not so with the public sector.