Is this really true? Every union building site I see has mostly white guys. If I see a site with lots of other ethnicities its probably non-union.
> Among major race and ethnicity groups, Black workers continued to have a higher union membership rate in 2018 (12.5 percent) than workers who were White (10.4 percent), Asian (8.4 percent), or Hispanic (9.1 percent).
But it's possible that the story is different for construction workers or for other individual sectors.
Doesn't seem that way to me.
That said, the statement in and of itself isn't incorrect. There has and still are vulnerable members of society who are in the racial majority. In fact, some historians have argued that racism was promoted in the US as a way to separate the vulnerable whites from other vulnerable groups. Before slavery became self perpetuating in the US (as in child mortality rate among slaves was high enough that slave had to be shipped in from other places), racism towards Africans was actually less pronounced and interracial marriages between Africans and white weren't outlawed. Once slavery became self perpetuating, laws were passed and attitudes changed to ensure that vulnerable whites won't mingle with African slaves and endanger slavery.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/nyregion/new-york-citys-u...
"White men account for less than one-fourth of the city’s union members, according to the study, written by Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a colleague, Stephanie Luce. Fully 60 percent of all union members in the city identify themselves as either black or Latino; women who do not identify themselves as black or Latino make up an additional 17 percent of the city’s union members."
Note that labor activists have always seen racism as a threat to a unified workforce and left-wing ideology has always described a global caste of workers to be united.