Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - Appendices - 6. Pre-War Conditions of the Negro Wage Earner in Selected Industries and Occupations - 8. Building Workers
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
An American Dilemma
1 104
When Negroes tend to undercut the going union rate, the white locals sometimes allow
Negroes to organize a local of their own; but they then make contracts with the former
employers of Negro labor, thereby depriving Negroes of many of the work oppor-
tunities they formerly had. Recently, certain changes have been adopted in the constitu-
tion of the union which give the greater power to the national leadership; this may
facilitate the setting up of more auxiliary Negro locals, but it may not mean that
Negroes will get a larger share of the work.®
Yet even the Painters are relatively liberal when compared with the Electricians and
the Plumbers, which exclude Negroes almost completely. Norgren, writing in 1940,
had not found any single Negro local in the South, whereas a few of the Northern cities
had a handful of colored members in white locals. Moreover, these unions, particularly
the Plumbers, have backed state and municipal legislation establishing public licensing
boards. Since the unions are usually represented on these boards, they have been able
to restrict the granting of licenses almost exclusively to white plumbers and electricians
in all localities where this set-up is functioning.** We have seen the results of these
exclusionist practices: Negroes have never been able to get any significant representation
among the electricians ;
even in the South Negro plumbers are a very small and decreas-
ing minority.
According to the general rule that Negroes are less discriminated against where they
had a substantial portion of the work at the time when union activities began, the union
for building laborers treats Negroes rather well. The International Hod Carriers^
Building and Common Laborers’ Union had a total membership in 1941 of 250,000,
of which some 70,000 were Negroes.® With few exceptions, Negroes and whites are
organized in the same locals. There are certain complaints that many locals are admin-
istrated by the national union rather than by the members themselves, but there seems
to be no evidence that this state of affairs would work any particular hardship on Negro
members. Negroes are represented in the national leadership.**
The federal government, as mentioned earlier, has, during recent years, attempted to
secure for Negroes a share of the work on public housing projects for Negroes. During
1933-1937 these projects were built by the Public Works Administration; and from
1937 to 1942 they were built under the auspices of the United States Housing Author-
ity. The proportion of Negroes employed is the same as the proportion of Negroes in
the population of the locality where the project is built, and it applies to workers of all
kinds. The contractors have not had any difficulty in filling their “Negro quota” of
unskilled workers and of such skilled workers as bricklayers, plasterers, and so forth, but
when it comes to the other skilled workers, either they usually declare themselves unable
to find enough competent Negro skilled workers; or the opposition of the white unions
was so strong that the U.S.H.A. had to permit the application of a “blanket” quota for
the whole project rather than of a specific quota for each occupation. Even if the claims
about the nonexistence of competent Negro craftsmen were exaggerated, they were
probably well founded in many instances; we have to remember that Negro craftsmen
pp. 67-79.
**Spero and Harris, of, cit,, pp. 59-60; Norgren and Associates, of, cit,^ Part 3, pp. 312-
dl.,
FeeJerafon of Labor. Report of Proc^d-
‘‘North! Up, of, cft.y pp. 113-114.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
