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Title: Contesting the Racial Division of Labor from Below: Representation and Union Organizing Among African American and Immigrant Workers

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2013

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Abstract: Popular discourse and academic scholarship both accent divisions between African American and immigrant workers. These debates most often focus on the question of job competition, positioning African Americans and immigrant workers as a priori adversaries in the labor market. We take a different tack. Drawing upon a case study of hotel workers in Chicago, we identify ways in which workers themselves challenge and bridge these divisions. Specifically, we reveal how union organizing activities, such as diverse committee representation and inclusion of diversity language in contracts, counter notions of intergroup competition in an effort to build common cause that affirms rather than denies differences. We argue that these activities represent political efforts on the part of workers to contest and even reshape the racial and ethnic division of labor, thereby revealing competition as a socially contingent and politically mediated process.

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Authors: Parks, Virginia; Warren, Dorian T.

Periodical (Full): Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race

Issue: 2

Volume: 9

Pages: 395-417

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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