CIVIL RIGHTS

Questions

1. Does Rochester have a working class? If so, who do you think belongs to it? What other classes are there and who belongs to them?
2. Are employment opportunities for Rochester's African-American workers better now than for their parents or grandparents?
3. Have you experienced racism in the workplace? Who benefits from racism in the workplace?

Activities

1. Why would a labor union place the following quote from Frederick Douglass on its head-quarters: "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have been resisted with words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."
2. Think of a problem in your neighborhood. How would you like to resolve it? What roles might there be for organizations like FIGHT and MetroAct? What role might labor unions play?

Vocabulary deterioration

discrimination

negotiate

class

Glossary

collective bargaining: the process by which union and employer representatives negotiate contracts regarding wages and working conditions over a set period of time and establishing means of interpreting and enforcing these agreements.

Resources

Map/Guide, # 32, 39
Herbert G. Gutman, Power & Culture: Essays on the American Working Class. (1987)
Lou Buttino and Mark Hare, The Remaking of a City: Rochester, NY 1964-84. (1984)
Hank Botts, Encounter Time: Metro-Act & the Sores of Discontent. (1981)