With gay marriage decided, what will be the next big left-led social change?

Ever see a black iron worker on a job in NYC?

That's because the ones who go into the union are sitting in the union hall while the white guys are on the job:

The Iron Workers Union has agreed to pay $500,000 to 39 workers from minority groups to settle a longstanding Federal lawsuit contending that white workers were consistently given more, and better, construction jobs.

The union, Local 46 of the Wood, Wire and Metal Lathers International Union, admitted no wrongdoing. Yet the union also agreed to comply with a renewed Federal order, or consent decree, first filed in 1970, requiring intensive job-skill training for minority workers and rigorous reporting of those efforts, a lawyer for the metal workers said.

Both the settlement and consent decree, which were approved yesterday by Judge Thomas P. Griesa of Federal District Court in Manhattan, resulted from dual lawsuits brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Given the tortuous course of the lawsuits, first filed in 1994, officials at those organizations were jubilant yesterday.

''We believe this settlement contributes to a new commitment to ending discrimination in the hiring hall,'' said William Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Lisa Sirkin, a senior trial lawyer with the commission, said, ''Typically, the black and Hispanic guys were sitting in the hiring hall, while the white guys were out working.''

Union Settles Bias Lawsuit Over Jobs - NYTimes.com

 

Your story is from 1999. In your post on Chicago trade electrical union, black apprentice membership was 20 percent in 1999. Blacks are 12-13 percent of the population. So, at the time period that you've been posting about, the ranks were open to them.

 

Maybe because The Right keeps threatening to take the labor unions' jobs overseas?

 

Operating Engineers in Pennsylvania & Delaware:

Under the hiring hall system, the union determines who gets a union card and sends members to fill the employers' requests for workers. A group of black construction workers, supported by the Pennsylvania state government, sued both Local 542 of the Operating Engineers, which covers eastern Pennsylvania and all of Delaware, and the employers who participated in the hiring hall. At the time of the trial, in 1976, 70 percent of the employers had never hired a black worker.

CASE ACCEPTED ON EMPLOYER'S ROLE IN UNION BIAS - NYTimes.com

This is intentional, and it's been going on for decades.

Union membership passed down through family is how it's been, and it was combined with laws to keep non-union blacks from competing with them.

 

Pretty hard to build a skyscraper from overseas.

These are great, high paying construction jobs, on projects that can last years. And blacks were kept off of the job -- intentionally.

 

If businesses are sending more jobs overseas, that means there are more workers available at home. More workers available means more competition for jobs in the non-unionized sector. More competition means lower wages, which means the non-unionized sector may be willing to pay for less-trained workers. Company wants to build a skyscraper, and they have a choice of a non-unionized cheaper company who may put out an adequate product or a more-expensive unionized company that may put out a better product.

 

Thanks for the economics lesson Baron.

Your classes are always informative.

 

All well and good, YF, but do you have any PROOF? I mean, do you have anything I won't ignore? Didn't think so. #liberals

 

Well, since our resident "leftists" and union members are unwilling to even admit this is an issue, I guess we can rule out them leading on this.

Maybe we can all work together on expanding this discounted bike membership thing to minority communities in other cities.

#BlackLivesMatter

 

No, they couldn't. In part because they're embedded in the political machinery.

And, in part because they already are and have always been governed by existing workplace equality laws. Meaning, one way to "end" it is already being enforced, as evidenced by your links.

Besides, "workplace equality in a small subset of union membership" isn't a big social change. "Workplace equality, period" would be. And we are far, far away from that, regardless of what some unions do or don't do.

 

Translation: Racism is OK when done by pets of the left.

 

Conservative logic:

Conservative: Liberals aren't fighting for equality in the union because racism and reasons ... HYPOCRISY!!!

Not conservative: Union jobs are a small piece of the total labor market, why not get more opportunities overall for minorities in the work force or how about more minorities in top management positions? What about providing a livable wage across the workforce? And what about equal pay for women?

C: Raising wages will force small businesses to close! Why do you want to kill jobs???!!! Liberals hate America!