Coalition of Black Trade Unionists: Now Is Our Future

by James Parks, May 26, 2009

The nation’s economic crisis is the result of failed trade policies and the lack of a U.S. industrial policy that creates and sustains good manufacturing jobs, according to Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) President Bill Lucy.

In his keynote address before 1,200 delegates at the CBTU’s annual convention May 21-25 in Atlanta, Lucy pointed out that as bad as the economy is for all working people, workers of color have been hardest hit. The strides made by African American workers in the 1990s have been wiped out in this current economic crisis, Lucy said, and millions of people of color are no longer making middle-class incomes. (See Video: May 21, Tab 16.)

The time has come to recognize that this is a key moment to make sweeping changes and turn the country around, he said. Quoting former President Franklin Roosevelt, Lucy said:

“Do you judge a nation’s greatness by what it gives those who already have too much or by what it gives to those who have too little? That question is as relevant today as it was 75 years ago.”

Lucy, secretary-treasurer of AFSCME, made it clear that the 2008 elections, which brought Barack Obama to the White House and a more worker-friendly Congress to Washington, presented a great opportunity for the union movement. Many speakers echoed Lucy, noting that now is a special moment in American history.

At a town hall meeting on the economy, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker emphasized that the union movement must build on the momentum of the historic 2008 Working Families Vote mobilization. (See Videos: May 22, Tabs 4 and 9.)

Many white union members who first opposed Obama because of his race ended up supporting him because he stood with workers and supported working family issues, Trumka said. But now the union movement must move beyond the election and understand that Obama’s election is not the end of racism. Added Trumka:

The danger within the labor movement is that we try to define every problem in strictly economic terms. Because of that, to the extent unions talk about racial injustice at all, we characterize it as a subset of economic injustice.

But not every issue can be cut as economic. 

If we want to prevent white members from falling into the trap of believing that racism is now a thing of the past, I think that we, as a movement, we have a responsibility to educate them that there is a racial dynamic to the issues we face.

He pointed to health care as an example, saying that even if we solved the problems of high co-pays and cost shifting, African Americans still would have less access to quality health care.

Holt Baker said Roosevelt listened to workers at the height of the Great Depression and supported laws that opened up opportunities for working people to enter the middle class. Now President Obama has the same opportunity to rebuild the middle class by supporting and signing the Employee Free Choice Act.

One of the solutions, not the panacea, to the problems we face in our economy is [restoring] the ability for workers to freely form and join unions, so we can once again bargain our way to the middle class. 

CBTU presented a special award to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who is retiring this year. Sweeney told delegates he has been “honored every day to work as your president. There is no higher calling than representing working families.” (See Video: May 24, Tab 16.)

I’m excited. I’m optimistic. The possibilities are endless, and I think we’re looking at a future where our goals will be realized: health care, the freedom to join a union and bargain for a better life, an economy that works for everyone, union leadership that reflects the faces of our members.

It’s a special moment. Let’s grab it. And let’s not let anything get in our way.

Other speakers at the convention included Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.), Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Council.

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