The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the
Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy.
– Martin Luther King, Jr., at the AFL-CIO National Convention, Miami Beach, Florida,
December 11, 1961
The State of the Black Worker in America
Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and the Black
Labor Scholars Network (BLSN) have joined forces to highlight the black workers’ economic
crisis today. The statistics on wealth and wage inequality, unemployment, incarceration, and
poverty are staggering. Anecdotal evidence shows disparities are widening. Often, our solutions
fall short because solutions are sought without consultation with the aggrieved workers. Overall
our ability to strategically respond to these facts are inadequate. We think by placing leverage
and emphasis on new and innovative forms of worker rights organizing within the African
American community, we can begin to promote the economic changes this country desperately
needs.
The Kalmanovitz Initiative develops creative strategies and innovative public policy to improve
workers’ lives in a changing economy. The Initiative draws on Georgetown’s distinctive identity
– its commitment to intellectual excellence, grounding in the Catholic and Jesuit traditions,
history of inter-religious cooperation, global reach, and prominence as an arena of policy debate
in the nation’s capital – to advance prosperity, broadly-shared economic justice, and respect for
the dignity of labor.
The Black Labor Scholars Network seeks to initiate a new conversation about the place of black
workers in the current economic downturn and the role they might play in its resolution. The
BLSN is inspired by the legacy of black labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who insisted that
ending racial discrimination was an essential component to the broader struggle for economic
justice. The BLSN is a nationwide network of scholars who are prepared to study, speak and
write about, and propose solutions to the problems facing black workers.
The Black Economic Crisis and the Imperative to Organize
In the last few years we have seen the beginnings of a serious discussion in America about
economic justice. Having faced the worst recession since the Great Depression and awakened by
the Occupy Movement, journalists, elected officials and average citizens are beginning to
acknowledge the disparities in wealth and income that have expanded at alarming rates in the
United States since the 1970s.
We are convinced that the United States cannot overcome its current economic woes without
understanding and addressing the particular patterns of poverty, discrimination, and
unemployment that black workers have struggled with for decades. As Lani Guiner and Gerald
Torres’ observed African Americans often act as “the miner’s canary”, feeling the impact of
economic and political crises before they affect the broader society.
Despite their importance to the nation’s economic viability, little attention has been focused on
black workers, who have felt the weight of this crisis longer and more intensely than most
Americans. Long before this recent recession, African Americans faced unemployment rates
that were double the national average. In 2011, when pundits and political leaders expressed
outrage that unemployment rates had topped 9 percent for the nation as a whole, unemployment
rates for black workers topped 15 percent. And those rates held steady for African Americans,
even as they started to decline for whites, Latinos and other groups.
Black workers have been particularly harmed by the decline of organized labor and the resulting
shortage of family-supporting jobs in manufacturing and the public sector. Black union
members have a “union premium” of $2.60 an hour, earning them about 17.3 percent more than
black non-union workers. While African Americans are still more likely to join unions than other
groups, their unionization rates have dropped sharply as a result of de-industrialization and cuts
to employment and collective bargaining rights in the public sector. Many more black workers
say they would join a union if given the chance, yet they are too often deprived of that essential
human right. According to 2012 data, a greater portion of black workers (13.1 percent) are union
members compared to the portion of non-black (11 percent) workers in the U.S. Does this union
density translate into power and decision-making?
Gender also plays a major role in this conversation. Women in America are more likely to be
poor than men. Over a quarter of black women and nearly a quarter of Latina women are poor
and both groups are at least twice as likely as white women to be living in poverty. The recent
assault on the public sector only adds to this crisis as it both attacks the recipients of government
services and the large portion (23 percent) of African American women who work in the public
sector.
The question of how black workers, who make up 11.6 percent of the U.S. labor force, will
become a vibrant part of the new changing economy is a critical one. Given the declining
strength of many civil rights institutions and labor unions, who will help speak for this key group
and assist them in expanding their own voice? Structural inequality needs to be confronted
directly. The Kalmanovitz Initiative and BLSN would like to be of part the solution to help lift
up the collective actions of grassroots black organizing.
Key objectives of our work are to:

Bring the work of black labor scholars to bear in advancing solutions to black un-/
underemployment and poverty.

Fuel organizing among black workers and the broader African American
community around economic justice issues.

Encourage the larger progressive community and organized labor to invest in
activism on black worker (both male and female) issues, recognizing that the
condition of black workers currently and historically has signaled what’s in store for
workers down the road.

Linking specific, current efforts to secure workers’ rights to a broader, long-term
agenda to secure economic justice (a fundamental aspect of black activism around
work).
First Step: Convening on the State of the Black Worker in America
Our commitment is long term. We are beginning the process of envisioning a multi-year effort
to confront these issues. But like all journeys, it begins with a first step.
Our first public activity is to hold a day and a half long conference at Georgetown University on
October 10-11, 2013. The conference, entitled the State of the Black Worker in America, will
bring together organizers, academics, practitioners, activists and funders to discuss
groundbreaking solutions to expand the organizing of black workers and promoting economic
justice.
Our keynote speaker on Thursday evening October 10, 2013 will be Eugene Robinson.
Robinson is the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the Washington Post and a political analyst
on MSNBC. As one of the most prominent African American intellectuals on the culture scene
and author of Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Robinson also shares
with audiences his understanding of race relations in the United States and explains why many
popular conceptions are now obsolete.
The conference will delve deeply into the history of black workers and their organizing efforts;
the current state and vision of black leadership within unions; innovative and cutting edge black
led organizing going on across the country; and, a gender-based analysis of black organizing.
The audience for this conference (60-75 persons) is critical. Our goal is to provide these unique
audiences with the opportunity to interact and learn from practitioners, activists and academics
steeped knowledge and experience about these critical economic justice and race issues. We will
invite elected leadership and top organizing, political, policy and strategic campaign directors
and staff from both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions. We also will invite numerous staff
and directors from allied organizations and foundations.