As a follow up to both of Fabricio’s posts celebrating Dr. King’s life and work I thought I would post some information on union membership in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area as well as link everybody to some new research quantifying the benefits of union membership.
In Metropolitan Philadelphia just under one in four African Americans are members of a union.
Membership has benefits:
The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a briefing paper this week quantifying the economic benefits of union membership for African Americans. The paper by John Schmitt found:
“On average, unionization raised black workers’ wages 12 percent –about $2.00 per hour—relative to black workers with similar characteristics who were not in unions. The union impact on health-insurance and pension coverage were even larger. African-American workers who were in unions were 16 percentage points more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and 19 percentage points more likely to have a pension plan than similar non-union workers.”
The benefits of unionization were even higher for African American’s employed in typically low-wage occupations.
Organizing campaigns can be long and difficult and I’m sure the workers of AlliedBarton could use our support.
--Mark Price
A Breakdown by Public and Private Sectors Would Be Helpful
A breakdown of the above figures by public and private sectors would be helpful.
Unionized blacks disproportionately hold governmental positions, and it would be good to compare unionization rates in both the public and private sectors.
It is also important to note that the percentage of unemployed is far greater amond black. Figures comparing percentage of union members to the total population from 25 to 65 would also be a useful measurement.
cite a source?
Rep. Cohen, I wonder if you could cite a source for your statement: "Unionized blacks disproportionately hold governmental positions"? Just thinking about the microcosm of the Philadelphia labor movement, I find that somewhat hard to believe.
Obviously, at this point, public sector workers are much more likely than private sector workers to have a union (nationally, I think we're still at something like 18% density in the public sector, and only 8% in the private sector), so you would need to control for that, but it cuts across all races. While there are big public sector unions in this city that are largely African American, there are plenty of African American nursing home workers, hospital employees, property service workers, general laborers, hotel and restaurant workers, child care workers and other types of service workers that both hold a union card and have a private sector employer.
Something close to 20% of the nursing home industry--almost entirely a private sector workforce--in this state is unionized. Our union represents African American nursing home workers in a lot of corners of this state, and they don't just live in Philadelphia--they are in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Scranton and Reading, Allentown and Erie.
I Am Asking For Information
I am asking for information, not posing as an expert on where to find it. Mark Price is as good at finding information as anyone I know of, and I hope my inquiry stimulates his creative juices.
I think it is well known that AFSCME District Council 33, the Philadelphia local of the Transport Workers Union, and the union representing Philadephia School District janitors are overwhelmingly black, that the Philadelphia PFT is about half black, and that District Council 47 has many black members, as does the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police and AFSCME District Council 13, and the Teasmsters local--the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators--that represents Philadephia principals. The black percentage of the federal workforce has continuously grown, even though the Republicans have controlled the federal government most of the time.
There is clearly a strong support in black communities throughout our city for an active role for government at all levels, and this undoubtedly contributes to a desire for public service among many people.
Of course, SEIU is a heavily minority union, which represents some public sector employees but mainly private sector employees. SEIU deserves a great deal of credit for actively organizing in predominantly minority occupational groups around the country.
Manufacturing and Black Unionization
Prior to the deindustrialization of this country one in four Union members was African American. That figure is now one in seven. This is largely a result of the decline of manufacturing jobs.