Abstract

Excerpted From: Michael Z. Green, Black Labor Matters, 75 American University Law Review 1219 (June, 2026) (300 Footnotes) (Full Document).

Nearly sixty-five years ago at the 1961 convention of an association representing a collective of many labor unions, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., underscored very eloquently how Black and organized workers face similar struggles, incited by common adversaries:

[Black people] are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few [Black] millionaires, and few [Black] employers. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs--decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why [Black people] support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-[Black] epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.1

As with the 1960s events that converged the interests of Black working people and organized labor that Dr. King described, two events at the dawn of the 2020s laid the foundation for those same interests to intersect again. The first event arose in response to the shocking murder of George Floyd in May 2020, which sparked national protests based on racial justice aligned with the Black Lives Matter movements goal to combat race-based police violence.2 Those protests fortified and activated the ’voices of Black workers’ and those voices became ’amplified by colleagues of all races’ with the desire that ’this moment could mark a turning point for racial equity in the American workplace.’3 This open, unmitigated, and unyielding support for Black employees facing race discrimination, exemplified by workers engaging in Black Lives Matter messaging, is referred to herein as the New Black Workers Movement (’NBWM’).4

The second event, which also arose in 2020, occurred after the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a global pandemic.5 By Labor Day 2020, some commentators had identified key concerns arising from ’COVID-19s continued impact on the workplace, [any] workers rights to a safe and healthy work environment, and the importance of unions in the time of social distancing and telework.’6 As a result, unions appeared to gain positive organizing outcomes as they fought the systemic, unfair treatment of many workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.7 Those organizing successes led to a resurgence in the labor movement, not seen ’in decades.’8 This broad support for labor, along with the recent and resulting successes in many high-profile organizing campaigns, shall be referred to herein as the New Labor Workers Movement (’NLWM’).9

Despite the rise of a Black workers movement springing from the racial protests in 2020, hostilities aimed at this movement remain a key problem at the dawn of 2026. Many businesses responded to the 2020 racial protests and the NBWM by indicating support through endorsing some of the tenets of Black Lives Matter, while also seeking the help of diversity, equity, and inclusion (’DEI’) experts to improve working conditions based on race.10 The recent emergence of a backlash against DEI has led companies to backpedal from their 2020 commitments and, in some instances, abolish all of their DEI practices.11 This result validates the initial concerns that the DEI responses to the 2020 racial protests would not last or were merely performative.12 Anti-DEI zealots now seek not only to stamp out these efforts but also to weaponize the term ’DEI’ in an effort to ’undermine’ Black workers by questioning whether they deserved their employment positions.13 Notwithstanding the hope that effective DEI responses to workplace discrimination against Black workers would emerge, no meaningful corporate or legal changes have occurred. The current DEI backlash raises concerns about the legal rights Black workers now have, particularly when the strong 2020 support for the NBWM has begun to erode substantially heading into 2026.

Coincidentally, more than five years after the revival of a labor organizing movement in response to a global pandemic in 2020, the NLWM now faces attacks to eliminate legal protections for organized workers. A major firestorm erupted during the 2024 Presidential election with the discovery of a 900-page document, Project 2025, created by the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.14 This document, with many sections authored by key Republican operatives from President Trumps first term, provided a roadmap for the first 180 days of his 2025 term, including a key focus on limiting or eliminating the powers of many federal agencies.15 Some commentators analyzing the ’Project 2025 playbook’ revealed it ’has plans to gut unions, fire federal workers, and limit the power of agencies like the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB].’16 In some aspects, key Executive Orders issued by President Trump within his first 100 days have already started to achieve the anti-union goals that many feared would arise from the Project 2025 manifesto.17 This includes ’strip[ping] more than one million federal workers of their rights to organize and collectively bargain.’18 The level of these attacks, as well as the depth and breadth of the threats that organized workers now face, will require a comprehensive union response.19

In developing responses to the current threats that vulnerable Black and union workers face,20 this Article contends that groups concerned about Black Lives Matter rights21 that fostered the NBWM, and groups that prospered in labor organizing within the NLWM, must pursue localized actions at individual work locations to protect their interests. The motivation for the NBWM to pursue these actions independently, but sometimes in conjunction with the NLWM, when possible, is due to the broad support the NLWM garners, as both movements want to create economic benefits for their workers. Likewise, the NLWMs motivation to work independently, but sometimes in conjunction with the NBWM, when possible, centers on an overall desire to replenish its strength and density. Pursuing its 2026 economic goals in ways that match similar goals of the NBWM may help add many new Black members to the NLWM rosters at a time when overall union numbers have dwindled significantly.

As Dr. King suggested back in 1961, the combined enemy of both Black workers and organized labor requires a joint response from them.22 Kenneth Mack, a legal historian and Harvard Law Professor, explained in 2025 how this potential merger of interests can work by focusing on ’locations’ despite the poor racial history of a number of unions:

[A]t its best, labor has supported a program of addressing problems that individuals or small groups of workers cant solve on their own--a recognition that there is value in solidarity among people who don’t have a great deal of means. That still dovetails with the agenda of the civil rights movement and many movements for social justice .... And if we look at the locations where the unionization drive has been strongest and most successful, they tend to be locations with an interracial labor force, where people of different backgrounds feel that theyre in a disadvantageous situation and that they can make progress together.23

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This Article unfolds as follows. Part I identifies the threats to both Black and organized labor worker movements while questioning the purpose of these attacks. Part II reviews the legal threats to racial justice for workers posed by pervasive anti-DEI actions. Part III explores the recent hostility toward organized labor via actions preventing bargaining with newly-victorious unions and broad efforts to remove any bargaining with unions. Part IV acknowledges the history of failed mergers between unions and civil rights groups due to divide-and-conquer tactics and suggests an approach to circumvent those barriers. Part V implores Black and labor worker movements to engage in broad-based and mass-organizing strategies that focus on grassroots efforts through localized community and work location actions that learn from prior successful mergers. This Article concludes that the convergence of interests between the NBWM and the NLWM, even if those groups might operate independently with success, will contribute to an influential strategy that responds to the daunting challenges ahead for Black and organized workers.

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Black and labor worker backlash is increasing. There is apparent support from the courts and eventually the Supreme Court that will lead to attempts to restrict and render illegal or futile any anti-racism or pro-union efforts to provide growth and non-discriminatory opportunities for Black and organized workers. This is not a time to rely on the law by having the rank-and-file bring lawsuits into a system that does not appear interested in justice for them.298 In these troubling times for Black and organized workers, they must respond while their interests are at the highest level of convergence through aggressive grass-roots actions led by the rank-and-file workers at specific locations and sometimes as collaborative coalitions.299 Those coalitions can engage within every community that supports its messaging as a possible way to help address attacks on workers. This grassroots community approach can offer refuge from the vulnerability these workers face. As responsive processes continue, these groups must remain crafty300 in addressing any attempts to divide and conquer them based on race. They must also stay dedicated. It may take years and years for their vigilance and willpower to bear fruit in their efforts to exact some justice for Black and organized workers, as a crucial form of resistance to the hardships they now face.

Professor of Law, Dean’s Research Chair, and Director, Workplace Law Program, Texas A&M University School of Law.