The Undertaker and the White Job Trust

It has been two years since I first discussed Daryl Metcalfe's association with neo-Nazis and Harry Readshaw's enabling of the same. There is nothing too wretched to expect from the vile Metcalfe (R-Cranberry), who needs to be driven from public life at all costs. But people who live in the City of Pittsburgh ought at least have reason to expect more of their legislators, and Harry Readshaw (D-Pittsburgh [Carrick]) -- hereinafter known as The Undertaker -- is bringing us into disgrace with his high-profile "bipartisan" embrace of racism.

This has all been thrown into sharp relief with the Anti-Brown-People legislation in Arizona, and now Readshaw and Metcalfe have scored propaganda points with the overwhelming passage of their attack on brown people in the construction industry. Their bills forbid contractors who hire the undocumented from bidding on state contracts, and revoke the state licenses and certifications of such contractors in the private sector. They also offer state protection to vigilante racial profilers (perversely termed "whistleblowers" in the legislation at a time when genuinely heroic whistleblowers are being sent to jail again).

As you would sadly expect, the building trades teamed up with Metcalfe in this. It could, of course, have the effect of depriving substandard construction contractors of state contracts. But scab contractors who use solely "native-born" and "legal" construction workers at substandard wages and conditions are unaffected, and that is exactly what someone like Metcalfe has in mind. He is on record calling for the repeal of prevailing wage protections for construction workers (not to mention the fact that he is the prime sponsor of Right-To-Work-For-Less legislation in the state, if the trades find that of interest), a sure indication that he would be happy to see immigrants working for peanuts replaced by native-born people working for peanuts.

The trades' behavior in situations like this is symptomatic of their place in the cyclical construction industry, where they are often loath to take in new members -- let alone organize -- on the grounds that there is only so much work to go around, and they have to keep current members (who have gone through the apprenticeship programs) working and happy, lest they oust the leadership in the next election. Their default behavior, then, is to (1) support any and all real estate development, no matter how heinous its other characteristics, and (2) retreat to a position of reserving jobs for existing members, lending credence to the perception of the trades as a White Job Trust (a charge that is exaggerated by anti-labor elements, but which is not without merit in its own right).

If there were support in the legislature for a bill to ban all substandard contractors from getting state contracts, or to revoke the state licenses of all substandard construction contractors, then all workers in the construction industry would benefit a lot more. I recognize that this is not possible at the moment, but it is not correct to accept this bill as a substitute, because it is worse than nothing: it in fact strengthens the White Job Trust and entrenches the a tiered system for workers in the construction industry.

If the trades were to act in the opposite fashion, and organize all workers in the industry without regard to national origin, the very incentive for employers to hire the undocumented on super-exploitable terms would disappear, and it would mean better job security and standards for everyone. Of course, this kind of organizing is impossible if the bottom tier of the workforce is criminalized and deprived of its basic rights, which is exactly the purpose of the bills pushed by Metcalfe and The Undertaker.

I should note that there are glimmers of hope in the trades, and around here there is more than a glimmer in the Ironworkers Local 3 campaign for justice at W&K Steel, where the union is embracing the cause of refugee immigrant workers in this steel fabrication plant. (You can point out that the refugees are here legally, and like all unjust systems of exploitation, the US immigration system has many gradations of humiliation and repression. The refugees have it better than the undocumented when it comes to legal status, but they also have their own problems: for instance, this story is exposing the unpleasant role of non-profits such as Catholic Charities, whose objective function in the system locally is not unlike that of what the undocumented call "coyotes," this time with a friendly face.) It remains to be seen how successful this campaign will be, but it is the only principled -- and the only practical -- road for the future if the working class is to avoid the poorhouse altogether.