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Labor promises reform, but so far has delivered only tokenism. As long ago as 1962, the heads of 119 A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions signed an anti-bias pledge at the White House. Yet today, Negroes account for only 1½% of the 15,000 members of building unions in Boston. In Chicago, there are three "minority" journeymen among 900 boilermakers, two among 625 elevator constructors, and only one among 400 glaziers. Industrial unions sometimes have separate lines of promotion and seniority based on race. Nepotism, though on the wane today, has long been the principal way to gain admission to scores of union locals. Notably in craft unions, organized labor does not discriminate just against Negroes; it discriminates against almost everybody by trying to keep the labor pool lower than the number of available jobs.
Despite federal court rulings that race must not be a consideration in promotions, assignments or seniority, the United Papermakers angrily threatened to strike Crown Zellerbach's plant at Bogalusa, La., after the company agreed to end discrimination. After a lengthy legal battle, five New Jersey locals of the International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron Workers agreed for the first time in 1966 to admit Negroes into apprenticeship training. Today, only a handful of blacks have broken into the locals.
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 a college-level black to get in," .says Assistant Labor Secretary Arthur Fletcher. "Why should a Negro who can be a college-trained engineer want to be a plumber?"
Status and Security. A few unions deserve high marks for fighting racism. The United Auto Workers and the United Packinghouse Workers have revoked the charters of 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 with the rank and file."
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.