How did racism and discrimination effect the Labor Movement?

The claim that organized labor has been a force for racial egalitarianism can only be called a myth. It is one of the many myths that

pro-union historians have perpetuated—similar to those, for example, that unorganized workers suffered from an “inequality of bargaining power” (Reynolds 1991), that strikes are conflicts between

employers and employees rather than between different groups of

employees, or that violence was more often employed against than

by unions (Thieblot and Haggard 1983). Perhaps the greatest myth

of all is that organized labor is good for workers generally. In fact,

unions transfer income from the unorganized to the organized, and

depress total income to such a degree that even organized workers

are poorer (Vedder and Galloway 2002).

This article gives an account of the ways in which unions have

used racial discrimination as an economic weapon. Before the Civil

War, labor leaders claimed that the classical liberal, antislavery vision

of “free labor” actually established “wage slavery” for white workers.

The former slaves, excluded from white unions, often had to fight

their way into industrial employment as strikebreakers. Organized

labor lobbied for decades for special legislation that would enable

them to make their strikes effective. When they finally achieved this

in the New Deal, the federal government faced the problem of

securing “fair representation” for black workers. This ended up producing affirmative action after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act

of 1964.

Explanation:

d) the constitution rights of native americans and their right to self-government on reservations