The Philadelphia Problem

The workers in the nation's proud and powerful building trades unions are among the highest paid in the land. For the most part, their jobs have been passed down, generally to friends or relatives, though nepotism is on the wane today. The building unionists have kept the door closed to most of the blacks who would like to join. Of the U.S.'s 1,300,000 card-carrying construction workers, only about 106,000 are black --and four-fifths of them are laborers, the lowest paid of the lot.

In an effort to pry open the closed doors, the Nixon Administration last year sponsored a plan that would force contractors bidding on big federal projects to recruit blacks. After consulting contractors, union chiefs and black leaders in a city, Labor Department officials would determine the number of jobs to be made available in each building trade. The plan was first tried in Philadelphia, where contractors were supposed to raise the number of blacks among new workers from about 5% to 25% by 1975. Today this controversial "Philadelphia Plan" is riddled with problems.

The Government aimed at 1,000 more construction jobs for blacks, but Philadelphia contractors so far this year have hired and trained only 60. The greatest barrier appears to be a legal one. Opponents of the plan are testing it in the courts, ironically arguing that it violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial quotas in hiring. A federal district court in Philadelphia recently ruled that the plan's goals do not amount to illegal quotas; the decision is being appealed. Until the legal uncertainties are resolved, contractors and Government agencies are unlikely to pay much attention to the plan.

Escape Clause. To get around the Philadelphia Plan's mandatory federal guidelines, union and black leaders in several cities have adopted alternate "hometown" plans, which call for voluntary quotas. These plans are generally not faring well. In Pittsburgh, negotiations between union and black leaders dragged on for months. Finally a compromise was struck: 1,250 new jobs for blacks by 1974. In Chicago last summer, union and black leaders announced that they would start putting at least 4,000 blacks into building trades unions. Although the Labor Department has granted $498,000 for training, only 75 blacks have been recruited--and the peak construction season is more than half over. The agreement has an "escape clause" that ties the unions' recruiting efforts to the state of the local economy. Since construction activity is slack, the unions do not want to train blacks for jobs that even whites cannot get. Moreover, Chicago blacks have been slow in pressing for more jobs.

St. Louis' experience with its hometown plan reveals another pitfall. Seven of 18 unions, accounting for just over half of the city's 45,000 building trades membership, have committed themselves to hiring blacks. The plan was held up until $524,500 in federal training funds came through last month. Within a week, 25 blacks were being trained, but not in highly paid unions like the electricians', plumbers' and steam fitters'. Arthur Fletcher, Assistant Secretary of Labor, sums up the situation: "Neither the Philadelphia Plan nor the various home-town plans have accomplished a darn thing yet."

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