limit them to qualified membership; some accept them freely
with white workers. The situation of the Negroes, on the
surface, is, to say the least, compromising. Their shorter industrial experience and almost complete isolation from the
educative influence of organized trade unions contribute to
some of the inertia encountered in organizing them. Their
traditional positions have been those of personal loyalty, and
this has aided the habit of individual bargaining for jobs in
industry. They have been, as was pointed out, under the
comprehensive leadership of the church in practically all aspects of their lives including their labor. No effective new
leadership has developed to supplant this old fealty. The
attitude of white workers has sternly opposed the use of
Negroes as apprentices through fear of subsequent competition
in the skilled trades. This has limited the number of skilled
Negroes trained on the job. But despite this denial, Negroes
have gained skill.
This disposition violently to protest the employment of Negroes in certain lines because they are not members of the union and the equally violent protest against the admission of Negroes to the unions, created in the Negroes, desperate for work, an attitude of indifference to abstract pleas. In 1910 they were used in New York City to break the teamsters' strike and six years later they were organized. In 1919 they were used in a strike of the building trades. Strained feelings resulted, but they were finally included in the unions of this trade. During the outlaw strike of the railway and steamship clerks, freight handlers, expressmen and station employees, they were used to replace the striking whites and were given preference over the men whose places they had taken. During the shopmen's strike they were promoted into new positions and thus made themselves eligible for skilled jobs as machinists. In fact, their most definite gains have been at the hands of employers and over the tactics of labor union exclusionists.
Where the crafts are freely open to them they have joined with the general movement of the workers. Of the 5,386 Negro longshoremen, about 5,000 are organized. Of the 735 Negro carpenters, 400 are members of the United Brotherhood
