Three-Tier Race-Based Wage Scales in Manhattan | Black Agenda Report

Three-Tier Race-Based Wage Scales in Manhattan

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

20 Oct 2009

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Click the flash player below to listen or the mic to download.

A full-blown apartheid labor regime flourished in the Manhattan construction industry, with Irish immigrant workers at the top of the heap. New York's attorney general is demanding millions in back wages and an end to racial discrimination on the job. “If you give the bosses enough leeway, they'll bring back slavery.”

Three-Tier Race-Based Wage Scales in Manhattan

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Irish on top, African Americans a distant second, Latinos at the bottom.”

Racial apartheid has reared its head in New York City’s construction industry. State Attorney general Andrew Cuomo has charged a major Manhattan contractor with creating a three-tiered wage scale, with Irish construction workers on top, African Americans a distant second and Latinos at the bottom. The company allegedly cheated workers of all ethnicities out of overtime, while forcing them to work as long as 70 hours a week.

Attorney General Cuomo is seeking $4 million in back wages and overtime and demanding an end to racial discrimination on the job. Members of the carpenters union found blatantly illegal and racist practices at about ten Manhattan construction sites. The race-based wage scale paid Irish workers $25 an hour; Blacks made about $18 an hour, and Latino workers, most of them immigrants, were paid just $15. According to union organizers, the Irish workers were also upset that Latinos did the same work but were paid $10 an hour less.

It should be noted that these glaring violations of labor and civil rights laws occurred before the Crash of last year, at the height of Wall Street’s housing and office construction bubble, when employment in the building trades was relatively high. The conventional wisdom is that management’s ability to divide workers along racial and ethnic lines by favoring one group over another increases as job opportunities decrease. But here we have blatant workplace crimes occurring at the height of a Manhattan construction boom! The sheer flagrancy of the violations indicates that the white business class feels neither shame, nor fear of prosecution.

“Worker insecurity has become a permanent condition of the American economy.”

There is something in the air, and it’s not the blooming of a new, “race-neutral” America. And the racial environment can only get worse as high unemployment becomes a permanent condition for workers of all races. The fact is, worker insecurity has become a permanent condition of the American economy – a direct and purposeful result of corporate domination of both major political parties. If the business class has its way, all workers will be made to feel insecure all of the time; management calls that a favorable business climate. In a political economy that is guided by the demands of business, job security has no place, and the whimseys and prejudices of management hold sway. If you give the bosses enough leeway, they'll bring back slavery.

Lawlessness runs amok throughout the corporate culture, which rewards the victimizing of others. A study released in early September showed that 68 percent of low-wage workers believe they were cheated out of money by their bosses at least once in the past week, with an average loss of 15 percent of their pay. Blacks are cheated three times as much as whites. Black women are robbed by their bosses more frequently than any other workers.

These are facts of life in the American workplace. A rising tide does not lift all boats. Judging by the crimes committed by employers during boom times, rising tides may even encourage employers to steal and discriminate with greater enthusiasm.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
African Descendants and Just Transition in the Climate Crisis
24 Apr 2026
The first International Conference to Phase Out Fossil Fuels takes place in Santa Marta, Colombia, from April 24 to April 29. Anthony Rogers-Wright, a Black Agenda Report contributor, provides…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Trump Uses Immigration Enforcement to Make America Whiter Again
22 Apr 2026
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies are racist and are intended to send even documented Global South immigrants and naturalized citizens out of the country. The evidence is…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
White Power, White Decedance, White Denial: A Dialog with Ajamu Baraka
22 Apr 2026
Ajamu Baraka and Margaret Kimberley discuss how the assault on Iran exposed the pathological nature of white power, the cynical games of the duopoly, and a new campaign to move the World Cup out of…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: The Class War in Cuba, Julio Antonio Mella, 1926
22 Apr 2026
“This pamphlet is a response to the bloody offensive by our tyrant and his master –Yankee capitalist imperialism.”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Blackshirts and Reds, the Profound and Persistent Class Analysis of Dr. Michael Parenti
22 Apr 2026
On Saturday, April 25th a memorial service will be held in Berkeley, California for Dr. Michael Parenti, radical historian, social scientist, author, and public speaker. There will be a…