Whither the Black Worker? By Bill Fletcher Jr.

In the United States context, “Black” refers to those people of African descent, and more generally, those who were the descendants of the original trade in African slaves; the Cape Verdean diaspora; and the Caribbean migration that began in the first decade of the twentieth century. In the more recent past, this amalgam has been supplemented by voluntary migrants from Africa and those of African descent from Latin America.

The “Black worker”, then, is not and never has been a monolithic body. It has been an organism that has grown and evolved with time and, as a result, has within it complex and often contradictory politics. What is critical to understand, however, is that due to the British form of white supremacy in North America, an ounce of African blood made one Black and, even after the War of Independence, this did not change. Thus, this diverse grouping of people of African descent evolved increasingly in the direction of becoming a nationality within the borders of the United States.

The Black worker won important gains as a result of the victories of the Black Freedom Movement of the twentieth century, but those gains were very uneven because the victories won were mainly to the advantage of the African American middle and upper strata. The counterattack against progress, misnamed the “white backlash,” that was launched by the forces that came to be initially known as the “New Right”—which, were the core of a right-wing populist movement—had a devastating impact on the Black worker in light of the alliance between the New Right and major sectors of Capital. The defeat of the Keynesian accumulation process and the ultimate victory of neoliberal globalization brought with it not only the reorganization of global capitalism, but the massive and geographical shifting of industries within the Global North and, between the Global North and the Global South. What we came to understand to be neoliberal globalization had a disproportionate impact on the Black worker by destroying key industrial centers in the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast that had increasingly become centers for a major segment of Black workers.

Coupled with the relocation of industry—to a great extent relocation within the United States to nonunion and largely white areas—there was a growth of the service sector which was both to the advantage and disadvantage of women workers. Advantage in that opportunities were opened. Disadvantaged in that the wage and salary rates were almost always only a proportion of that of male workers; and these occupations were largely nonunion. It was in these sectors that many Black (and largely women) workers found themselves.

An additional sector, that becomes incredibly important in this story, is the public sector. Due to the pressure from mass movements, public sector jobs were opened to Black workers at a much greater rate than in the private sector. Thus, when the New Right counterattack unfolded, in alignment with neoliberalism, it attacked the public sector and racialized that public sector so that large numbers of whites were convinced that the public sector (and the jobs that it contained) was focused upon the needs of workers of color, despite all the clear and available evidence that they—whites—benefitted from a strong public sector.

The strangling of the public sector, the (until recently) clear hegemony of neoliberalism, and the rise of a mass, right-wing populist movement help one to understand the particular challenges facing the Black worker today. To this, of course, must be added the weakness and strategic paralysis of organized labor.

Organized labor in the United States has a very mixed history vis a vis the Black worker. What we understand to be the trade union movement originated in the 1830s/1840s during the Jacksonian era, when the movement was a white movement within a white republic. In the aftermath of the Civil War, organized labor was split over the question of workers of color generally, and African Americans and Asians in particular. The question was whether to build an inclusive movement that recognized these sections of the working class—along with Mexicans/Chicanos and Native Americans—or to exclude. Organized labor in the United States has never been unified in its approach toward this question, even in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era. The question unfolds in several ways, including, is the history of non-white segments of the working class as legitimate as the white sector? Does a trade union movement grow by limiting those it organizes in order to improve their living standards, or does it grow by maximizing its representation of workers? And, does a trade union movement engage in the struggle for a broader sense of social justice, or does it limit itself to wages, hours, working conditions, and stay away from so-called divisive issues?

The “plague,” otherwise known as the COVID-19 pandemic, hit as the turbulence of these converging winds were gathering. When it hit, it ripped away all the glitz and glitter of US society (and of much of the rest of the world) and displayed a willingness of capitalism to accept objective genocide. It did so in several ways, all of which have an impact on the Black worker.

First, the question of who was disproportionately affected. Watching the antics of the Trump administration told us so much. Denial, then panic, then…denial??? The panic hit when it became clear that this was a pandemic unlike anything that we had seen since 1918–1919. But the second denial hit when it became clear that the pandemic was hitting, disproportionately, African Americans, Latin@s, and Native Americans. Added to this, of course, was that the pandemic was, in its early stages, hitting so-called “blue state” more than so-called “red states.” It was at this juncture that the urgency of addressing the pandemic seemed to lapse. In that lapsing of urgency, there was a clear message being conveyed not just by the Trump administration but by the right-wing populist movement that it represented: it was acceptable to have such losses among racialized populations.

Second, the question of essential workers. While the pandemic was spreading, the question of “essential workers” emerged, within which workers of color and African Americans and Latin@s, in particular, have high proportions. This workforce is largely unorganized (by unions) and was subject to the whims of the employers. They experienced poor benefits and lack of protection. But it was not just the poorer sections of the essential workforce that were experiencing the whirlwind. The public sector was being battered, particularly public sector healthcare. The essential worker was expected to be the first line of defense against the pandemic and, almost like the first wave of troops attacking a fortified enemy position, were expected to be prepared to die…with or without honor.

Third, the matter of the rest of the world. Objective genocide was not only a domestic challenge. The Global North went about hording vaccines in order to ensure the safety of its own populations, accepting that the Global South would have to fend for itself. In some locales, countries were able to rise to the occasion, ranging from China to Cuba to parts of Africa. But, as we have come to see in India, much of the initial thinking that COVID-19 would, for some reason, leave the Global South only slightly touched, turned out to be in error. The planet, as a whole, has been under siege and, again, the Global North has been willing to allow millions to suffer…and die.

The US Black workers’ future, then, operates in this context of global crisis and can only be solved through organization, strategy, and the fight for power. There are no saviors.

First, there is the power equation and the matter of numbers. Despite our heroic history and the fact that the mobilization of Black people shakes the system, we simply cannot win alone. Therefore, demographics is both important but also limiting. Black workers, in particular, must look for allies with whom we share strategic interests. Herein lies the importance of both class as well as the necessity for solidarity among the oppressed. Black workers, as I have argued for years, should not be waiting for allies, but should be cementing allies and blocs with other segments of the working class specifically, and the oppressed more generally. The strategic interests will be reflected in movement objectives rather than some sort of demographic addition, i.e., adding up the numbers of people of color and waiting for that great day midcentury when the United States is no longer majority anyone.

Second, this implies clarity regarding strategic objectives. The Black worker will not find salvation or emancipation at the feet of Black business. While there is a passionate narrative within Black America that argues that Black business is the necessary salvation for the entirety of Black America, the reality is that Black business will never be the major employer of the Black worker. Additionally, Black business has contradictory interests itself, as can be seen when such businesses face the potential of the unionization of their employees (where such businesses can be viciously anti-union). Thus, the class interests of Black businesses can frequently collide with the class interests of the majority of Black America.

Therefore, the Black worker must establish the parameters of the fight and the outlines of emancipation. Amid this pandemic, there are key elements that emerge including the need for a vibrant public sector, national healthcare for all, massive economic development of impoverished areas, and political power. And the question of political power includes the destruction of voter suppression, along with the establishment of a clear working people‘s agenda in which the interests and issues of the Black worker are central.

Vision and strategy necessitate organization in order to be operationalized, and this means taking on the previously mentioned strategic paralysis of organized labor. While there are many different levels of organization, including all-Black organizations, the Black worker needs to address the challenge of fighting for the leadership of organized labor. This is not a fanciful idea. In the 1860s, when the first national labor federation—the National Labor Union—not only refused entry to African American and Asian workers, but also stood in opposition to Reconstruction, Black workers, through the Colored National Labor Union established a separate pole within the larger labor movement, setting up a federation open to all workers. Black workers, along with Chicanos and Asians, played a major role in the founding and thriving of a new labor movement in the 1930s, i.e., the Congress of Industrial Organizations, even though they were not the leading force in this effort. But, as emphasized by Philip Foner and countless labor scholars since the 1970s, had it not been for the contributions of the Black worker, there may never have been a CIO.

For the Black worker, organized labor must be seen as an instrument for social justice, thus the need to transform the unions themselves and integrate them into larger battles. We are starting to see some of this reemerge after decades of lethargy.

All of this translates into a need to fight for power. The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates what happens to working people generally, and workers of color particularly, when they lack power. In brief, they become victims of the larger system, a system that is prepared to accept genocide passively or actively.

The Black worker cannot simply put forward demands to which others must respond but must shape the objectives in such a way that they help us to address systems of racist and national oppression and, indeed, open the doors into a desperately needed “Third Reconstruction.” ¹