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Page 6 The Skanner MINORITY BUSINESS ENTERPRISE EDITION September 21, 2016 Special Business Edition MBE 2016 Black Transit Worker Campaigns to Increase Diversity in Union Leadership Demographic shifts in union membership have not translated to demographic shifts in union top brass By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Contributor K eith Bullock, a bus oper- ator for the Washington Metropolitan Area Tran- sit Authority (WMATA), wants to transform the lead- ership of his local union and push for greater diversity in top labor positions nation- wide. According to a 2013 report by the Labor Center at the Univer- sity of California at Berkeley, Black workers are more likely to join unions than non-Blacks. “These diferences were magniied when limiting the analysis to the ten most pop- “ pared to non-Blacks,” the re- port said. In the northeast, union den- sity for Black workers is 23.8 percent compared to 16.5 per- cent for non-Black workers. Bullock, born and raised in Southeast, Washington, D.C., is campaigning to become the next Recording Secretary in the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, which rep- resents operators, clerical, paratransit and maintenance workers in the Washington D.C. area transit system. The position is one of three elect- ed positions in the powerful union. Black workers have been, for the working class as a whole, the canary in the mine…What befalls the Black worker inevitably confronts the bulk of the working class ulous metropolitan areas in the United States. Among U. S. workers, Blacks were 19 per- cent more likely to belong to unions than non-Blacks; how- ever, among workers in the largest metropolitan areas, Blacks were 42 percent more likely to belong to unions com- The election is scheduled for Sept. 21. “Labor unions have taken a kind of twist in the route to bringing together individ- uals,” said Bullock, who has worked for more than 11 years in transit and served as union shop steward and executive board member for Local 689. “Today, the union leadership is more a ‘me’ and ‘my’ attitude.” While Bullock campaigns for a leadership position in his Washington, D.C.-based union, the election has far-reaching implications for other trade groups. In 2015, the Black Labor Collaborative, a group of in- luential African American leaders from major labor or- ganization, released a white paper that said, “Black work- ers have been, for the working class as a whole, the canary in the mine…What befalls the Black worker inevitably con- fronts the bulk of the working class.” The paper also suggested that the, “the Achilles’ heel of organized labor has been its failure to respond to attacks on Black workers and its in- ability ‘to recognize that the Black working class is, indeed, a component of the larger working class and not some marginal category.’” Bullock said that the powers- that-be are more concerned with maintaining power than they are about the workers. During elections, Bullock said that group leaders will run a ive-person slate for oice, tying all of the positions to- Keith Bullock is campaigning to become the next Recording Secretary in the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, which represents operators, clerical, paratransit and maintenance workers in the Washington D.C. area transit system. gether to form, “a clique where there’s no accountability.” The married father of ive wants to push for greater transparency in leadership, increase beneits and improve the quality of life of his fellow transit workers in the region. Bullock’s mission is to ward of attacks on pensions, ensure adequate and afordable health care and fair wages for work- ers and to provide solutions for inclusive management and employee relations. His appreciation of history can also be an advantage, as Bullock noted the distinct ties that labor unions have with the Civil Rights Movement. “I know that during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s there was strong solidarity and sup- port from the leadership of the AFL-CIO with Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Leadership Conference,” Bull- ock said, noting that King’s assassination in Memphis oc- curred during a struggle over the labor rights of primarily African-American sanitation workers. Bullock said that the unions adopted some of the organiz- ing traits that became prom- inent during the Civil Rights See TRANSIT on page 7