Next time toadies for organized labor like John Edwards beat their chests about affirmative action, show them this excellent commentary [1] in the WSJ by one of James Brandon’s colleagues, a professor of history at Hillsdale College .
This 125th Labor Day, Americans ought to consider one of organized labor’s lesser-known contributions to American politics: affirmative action.
For most of their first century, American unions promoted affirmative action for white workers: Trade unions were job monopolies and most often white job monopolies. California unions, for example, led the campaign against Chinese immigrant labor, and the “union label” campaign helped to enable consumers to boycott products made by Chinese workers. “The cigars contained herein are made by WHITE MEN,” the original union label read. As for East Coast immigrant labor, the celebrated socialist leader Eugene V. Debs once complained, “The Dago works for small pay and lives far more like a savage or wild beast, than the Chinese.”
Above all, unions made it difficult for blacks to earn a living. The first large union federation, the National Labor Union, set the pattern of exclusion and evasion. Although it was broadly known that national and local unions excluded blacks, either by their constitutions or informal custom, the federation claimed that, since its constitution made no reference to the race issue, it was unnecessary to deal with it.