Racial Conflict and Split Labor Markets

Abstract

Recently, scholars have devoted significant attention to race relations in the history of the U.S. labor movement. This research has explored the militancy of African American workers, examined how racism divided particular organizing drives, and documented white workers’ efforts to preserve racial privilege. Much of this work has also emphasized workers’ agency but has obscured the racial implications of labor market characteristics (for exceptions see Maloney 1995; Sugrue 1996). This article argues that racial conflict during the 1919 steel organizing drive resulted from the development of split labor markets, which constrained workers’ opportunities to exercise agency based on class position but encouraged workers to exercise agency in terms of their racial interests. In 1919, the sources of workers’ empowerment diverged along racial lines.

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