Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Tags Craft unions

Tag: craft unions

Joe Debro on racism in construction

In November 2010, Joe Debro sent the Bay View a 200-page “book” he wrote in 1968 on racism in construction. His family has generously agreed that it be published in the Bay View. To begin, here is the prolog he wrote in 2010 to update it. In 1968, three of us undertook a study of the manpower implications of small business financing. In 2010, 42 years later, not much has changed.

Why Blacks are not working

The Black community continues to support craft unions while they effectively lock out the Black community from construction jobs. This is why you do not see Black men and women working on any projects, even in our own communities.

Jobs are the answer

On July 28, the Oakland redevelopment commission met to consider recommending that the City Council adopt a city wide Project Labor Agreement. Such an agreement would put small contractors out of business and keep the unemployed of Oakland out of the work force.

Why are no Blacks working?

Craft labor unions since 1865 have been ambivalent about their racial policies. They were inclusive for a time. But in the 1900s through 1970 craft unions became virulently anti-Black. Because of public pressure and court actions, craft unions' discrimination has become subtler. In coalition with large white contractors, they control training and work in the construction industry.

BART lynches Blacks with the gun and the law

Since the inception of BART, this transportation system has excluded Black contractors, Black construction workers and Black riders. Charlie Walker drove a truck into a San Francisco BART excavation site before we could get contracts.