Unions and Race

Unions become involved in the construction of race, ethnicity, and nationalism by means of the organizational practices they develop and their interactions with employers. Although employers have been the major actors in fomenting racial antagonism and in structuring labor market dynamics that disadvantage workers of color and women, unions act to either reproduce or challenge these social relations. Early craft unions tended to reproduce such structures while industrial unions tended to challenge them. Yet the long-term, drastic decline of union density means that unions have had fewer opportunities to challenge these racial and gendered structures. Unless unions recalibrate to adapt to modern economic developments and organize workers of all races, civil statuses, and genders, employers will continue to have the only meaningful voice in shaping racial, national, and gender relations at work. Keywords: gender; labor unions; nationalism; race and ethnicity; racism