Nation’s Economic Woes Hit Black Workers Hardest

by James Parks, Feb 26, 2008

The share of African American manufacturing workers has declined by nearly 60 percent in the past 30 years.

All workers have suffered in the seven years that President Bush has been in office. But black workers, even those in unions, have been hit hardest.  

African American incomes are dropping at the same time fewer African Americans belong to unions. The percentage of African Americans who either are members of or represented by unions fell by half from 31.7 percent of all black workers in 1983 to 15.7 percent last year, according to a new report by the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Still, several studies have shown African Americans are more likely to join unions than other workers.     

The report, The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Manufacturing, 1979–2007, shows much of the decline is due to the loss of manufacturing jobs. Between 1979 and 2006, the share of all African American workers who worked in manufacturing declined from 23.9 percent to 9.8 percent, a drop of nearly 60 percent. Manufacturing jobs, especially good-paying union jobs in the auto industry, played a big role in creating the black middle class. 

This double whammy of fewer manufacturing jobs and lower union membership is threatening to erase the economic gains blacks made in the 1990s. The Economic Policy Institute reports African American income relative to whites has dropped in the past eight years. For example, in 1995, the median black family earned 60.9 percent of the median white family. By 2000, the ratio had climbed to a record high of 63.5 percent. But by 2005, it had dropped to 60.2 percent of the median white household.

 That shift in income may be in large part to the huge number of black workers who have lost union jobs. According to a recent study, a whopping 55 percent of union jobs lost in 2004 were held by black workers. More stunningly, African American women accounted for 70 percent of the union jobs lost by women in 2004. 

But median family income and union jobs do not tell the entire story. The 2001 recession and weak recovery hurt the poorest African Americans the most. In 1995, the poorest fifth of black families only earned, on average, 43 percent of what the poorest fifth of white families earned. The ratio increased to 49.9 percent in 2000. By 2005, it had fallen back to 43 percent.

Speaking last year at the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) convention, CBTU President William Lucy said improving the situation for black workers requires a change in economic policies:

We must not only challenge policies that hurt workers, we also have a responsibility to break out of the box of status quo economics that traps workers in a cycle of playing catch-up, but never rising above a certain standard of living.  

He said the nation should adopt four core principles regarding work: 

Anyone who wants to work should have a job.  

Anyone who does work should be able to live in dignity with health care and retirement security for their family.  

Every worker should have the opportunity to form a union and bargain collectively.  

All workers should share equitably in the prosperity of a strong American economy. 

A significant cause of the loss of manufacturing jobs is the record $256 billion trade deficit with China. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has called for:

immediate and effective actions to ensure that the Chinese government plays by the rules—with respect to currency, illegal subsidies, tax policies and workers’ rights. We know the Bush administration won’t act, so Congress must step in

Click here to read President Sweeney’s entire statement. 

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of members of Congress earlier this month renewed their call for passage of the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (H.R. 2942). The bill, co-authored by Reps. Tim Ryan (D- Ohio) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), declares currency manipulation an illegal trade subsidy and provides American manufacturers the opportunity to seek relief against countries that artificially regulate their currency, including China. 

The AFL-CIO, U.S. manufacturers and many economic experts maintain that China deliberately undervalues its currency, the yuan, to keep the value artificially low so it can boost exports and discourage imports—running up the U.S. trade deficit and costing good American jobs. An AFL-CIO report shows China’s fixed currency rate artificially lowers the price of its goods by 40 percent, effectively subsidizing China’s exports and putting U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage. 

The trade deficit with China, which represents more than 50 percent of the deficit in manufactured goods, also is directly linked to the loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2001.

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