New paper explores Black workers in the south and their views on unions

Black workers in the Southeast face numerous challenges, including little advance notice of their work schedules, concerns about workplace safety and racial discrimination, but they also believe unions could alleviate some of these issues, according to a working paper co-authored by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Ph.D. '93, director of Labor Education Research at the ILR School.

The exploratory research study was funded by unique grants from WorkRise and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through which Bronfenbrenner and three other principal investigators facilitated a team of researchers, including scholars from five historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), to conduct an in-depth study of organizing by Black workers across five sites in the South.

"The key findings are important because they reinforced what we expect," Bronfenbrenner said. "We expect working conditions to be worse in the south. But there's a myth that those workers are not interested in unionization, and what was found was that the level of interest in unionization, and the support for unionization, was extremely high."

The working paper, "Advancing Black Workers in the South: An HBCU Research Initiative," was co-authored by Algernon Austin of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and Bronfenbrenner. Austin and Bronfenbrenner worked as co-principal investigators on the project along with Erin Johansson and Jason Tomlinson from the Jobs with Justice Education Fund. They analyzed survey data collected by Joseph Jones (Clark Atlanta University), Berneece S. Herbert and Talya D. Thomas (Jackson State University), Allison Tomlinson (University of North Texas, Dallas), Wakita Barksdale (Clinton College) and Lawren M. Long and Jacorius Liner (Tougaloo College).

The research team collected surveys from 131 workers and interviewed dozens of community members. The survey results revealed workplace struggles: More than half of workers (51%) receive little advance notice of their work schedules, about 25% expressed concerns about workplace safety and almost 20% said they experienced racial discrimination at their jobs. A substantial share (32%) of surveyed workers reported concerns about or difficulties paying rent or affording food.

Additionally, their views on unions were mostly positive. Roughly 75% saw unions as giving workers a voice at work, 67% believe unions help to reduce racial discrimination and 60% believed unions improve the economic conditions of low-paid workers.

Read the whole story on the ILR website.
Julie Greco is director of communications for the ILR School.
Portions of this story courtesy of Peter Hart, domestic communications director of CEPR.