UC Labor Center’s Steven Pitts
Examines Job Quality and African American Workers

A Ph.D. in economics, Steven Pitts joined the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education in 2001 and has published extensively on issues affecting African American workers, economic development and social policy. Most recently, he published an analysis of job quality and black workers in four cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York. Prior to joining the Labor Center, Pitts taught economics at the University of Houston and Houston Community College.

Job Quality and Black Workers: An Examination of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, August 2007.

You've written that the African American labor force faces a "two dimensional crisis" -- high levels of unemployment and a crisis of low wage jobs. Yet this second dimension has been neglected by policymakers and community activists. Why do you think that is?

I think that it is important to address both aspects of the job crisis. If you only focus on the truly devastating problem of unemployment but fail to find solutions to the equally destructive problem of low-wage jobs, at best, you will place some people in low-wage jobs. But it is highly likely that you will simultaneously worsen the problem of poverty-wage employment. I think there are a couple of reasons the crisis of low wage jobs is not discussed as much as the unemployment problem. The job quality crisis is about power and about how firms are allowed to organize their work. When we don’t have dynamic social movements, people don’t look at structural problems or structural solutions. We tend to put the onus on the individual. And so, in the context of the jobs question, it means: go to school, study hard, don’t do drugs, don’t get pregnant, don’t go to jail. It does not mean asking why aren’t businesses sharing their profits with workers.

Another reason for the neglect of the low-wage crisis is that back in the sixties, activists talked about community control and controlling your own destiny. These strategies focus on owning assets and don’t speak as much to the plight of workers. Many spent more time trying to increase the number of black businesses in black neighborhoods than finding ways to improve the working conditions of blacks who were not employed in the black community. The invisibility of the low-wage crisis is also about the legacy of McCarthyism. If you examine the black freedom struggle in the thirties and forties, there was a strong structural critique of racism. Racism was not so much viewed as the consequence of individual failings, but more as tied to political and economic structures. What happened in the course of the Cold War is that people who had deep-seated structural critiques of racism were purged from American consciousness.

How would you characterize the magnitude of the jobs crisis facing African Americans in Los Angeles?

In our study, we tried to paint a portrait of a two dimensional crisis using U.S. Census data from 2000. We found that there were a large number of blacks who didn’t have jobs. But, also, there were those who were simply stuck in low wage jobs. Looking at LA, about 29 percent of all blacks in the working age population had low wage jobs. About 43 percent didn’t work or had irregular work. Now it is important to recognize that the 43 percent includes people beyond those who are unemployed. People might be retired, fulltime homemakers, fulltime students, or disabled. But it speaks to the size of the problem. If you look at other cities you see a similar sort of pattern.

The major sectors employing blacks in LA are health care, educational services, transportation and warehousing, and a high proportion of blacks working in these sectors receive low wages. Another important sector is retail trade. About 69 percent of blacks who work in retail in LA have low wages. That’s really important because when we talk about a retail strategy to develop areas of LA, we’re developing the area with firms which pay their workers poorly. I’m not saying we should stop that kind of employment. The important thing is to find ways to raise the quality of the jobs there.

What are the similarities and differences between the challenges faced by immigrant workers--many of who are working in low wage occupations--and those faced by African Americans in the labor market?

By the way, the notion of having two totally distinct categories — blacks and immigrants — misses the story because it implies that all immigrants are non-black. It implies that all blacks are native born. And it ignores the experiences of black immigrants who come to this country from the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Africa. While that may be a closer story in LA, as you go to places like Washington DC or New York, it’s a more complicated story. But given that caveat, when you talk about immigrant workers who are undocumented, the challenges they face are much, much different than the challenges that are faced by native-born African American low wage workers.

You can think of low wage work as a kind of three-tier system. You have low wages in the formal economy. You have low wages in an economy dominated by subcontracting, and you have low wages in the informal economy. It is difficult for undocumented workers to have a large presence in that formal, low-wage sector. It means that the typical strategies used in the formal economy — public policy or union organizing —wouldn’t hit a lot of undocumented workers. They’re more in the subcontracted and informal economy that have links to the mainstream economy. While unions and worker centers are finding creative solutions to the issue of organizing in the subcontracted and informal sectors, it is still very challenging

If you flip it around and examine African Americans, you don’t see the same sort of black presence in the low wage informal economy connected to the mainstream economy. The large underground economy where many blacks make a living are is limited to the black community and this economy is even more immune to traditional strategies. Another important difference is that when we think of blacks in the low wage economy, we see a clear link between discrimination, poor schools, and the criminal justice system. The albatross of the criminal justice system is something recent undocumented immigrants don’t face to the same degree. I’m not saying one group has it easier than another. But there are important differences. You can’t have a single strategy.

Given high levels of unemployment among African Americans, what do you say to the argument that any job--even a job at Wal-Mart--is better than no job — or that Wal-Mart jobs provide an opportunity for training?

First, it shouldn’t be viewed as either/or. The question should be, why can’t Wal-Mart jobs be better jobs? Jobs in our steel or auto factories weren’t inherently good jobs. They were made that way through unionization efforts. Also, the danger of focusing just on the unemployment issue is that you’re going to lower wages for existing jobs in the community. Studies show that when Wal-Mart comes into communities, wages in the retail sector decline. Also, the notion is that Wal-Mart type jobs provide a ladder out of poverty is faulty. We don’t have explicit career ladders from low wage to high wage jobs. It would be different if there was an explicit ladder. Without clear connections from these entry level jobs to better jobs, workers are stuck in low-wage jobs

What strategies do you think have been effective in addressing the issue of African Americans who are stuck in low wage jobs?

I think we need to put forward realistic solutions and strategies that have scale. One strategy is unionization, that is finding where you can take jobs that blacks are in and turn them into union jobs. You give workers collective power that allows the jobs to be transformed.

Another strategy is looking at where you have public dollars used to support businesses so you can use that leverage and talk about some kind of labor standards to raise the quality of jobs. Still we need to look beyond this strategy because the areas where you have explicit ties between public dollars and jobs aren’t that extensive. In San Francisco another strategy was used. Citizens passed laws that increased the minimum wage citywide and mandated that firms provide sick days. That’s an example of broader coverage. What passed in Chicago—but was vetoed by the mayor— was a big box ordinance that says that if you’re in retail and a certain store size you have to meet certain job standards --- is also a broader scale of coverage.

We need to pull together a tool box that uses different strategies that address different areas of the problem. If we can do that, and we can show the scale of that kind of program, we can see more blacks coming on board to support an agenda to improve job quality.