Unions Pave Way for African American Progress

by James Parks, Mar 2, 2009

Edgar Moore

Union membership has been a pathway to the middle class and leadership for generations of African American workers. Unions have done more to provide jobs, physical safety, education, adequate housing and medical care for African Americans than any other institution, according to labor educator Edgar Moore.    

In “African Americans Win With Unions,” a guest column at the AFL-CIO website, Moore, a faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s William Brennan Institute for Labor Studies, writes:

Unions serve the African American community well. It is true that unions, like the rest of American society, delayed opening their doors to African Americans for too long, but enormous progress has been made since it happened.

In turn, the union movement benefits from African American membership, Moore points out. He cites a study that shows more African Americans hold leadership positions in labor unions than in any other social institution in America, except the black church.

That’s why the Employee Free Choice Act is important for African American workers, Moore says. The proposed legislation to level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions will open the doors for more black workers to join the middle class.

A former teacher and AFT officer in Detroit, Moore cites several examples to show just how much African Americans have benefited by joining unions.

• According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a higher percentage of African American workers belongs to unions than the rest of the population.
• Black men and women earn more if they are in a union.
• Unionized African American men and women are more likely to have health insurance than nonunion black workers. The same holds true for health insurance and pension coverage.
• Even in low-wage occupations, African Americans in unions earn more than nonunion African American workers in the same occupations and are more likely to have health insurance and a pension plan.

Click here to read the entire column.

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