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Seattle’s politics of fair employment entered a new phase when African
American construction workers and activists began to protest racially
exclusionary hiring practices in Seattle’s construction unions in the fall
of 1969.
Before 1969, African Americans had protested racial discrimination in
Seattle businesses and labor unions through a variety of tactics usually
coordinated by middle class elites: lawsuits, picketing, lobbying,
strikebreaking, and boycotts. Starting in 1969, however, workers used
direct action to take the lead in challenging institutional barriers to
African American employment in Seattle. In the process, they became
pioneers in shaping the early national politics of affirmative action.
The
person who initiated and led this shift in Seattle’s fair employment
politics was Tyree Scott (1940-2003). And the organization that he founded
in 1970 to coordinate a grassroots movement to force open historically
all-white unions to minority workers was the United Construction Workers
Association (UCWA).
This special section explores UCWA’s history through materials collected by
workers who were themselves leaders in the struggle to impose affirmative
action on Seattle’s building trades unions. These
interviews, newspapers, documents, and photographs are shared courtesy LELO's UCWA History Project. Use of
these materials for profit, or resale of these materials in any form, is
expressly prohibited except by permission from LELO. Follow
the links above or below:
-
UCWA
History by Trevor Griffey
- Tyree Scott and the Central Contractors Association
(CCA),
1969
- UCWA Founded, Imposes Affirmative
Action, 1970-72
- UCWA Expands to organize other cities,
industries, 1973-75
- UCWA and Third World Marxism, 1975-80
- Postscript
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Interviews The UCWA History Project, a worker led group organized by
Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (NW LELO), conducted oral
history sessions with former UCWA members on December 29 and December 30,
2003. Here are streaming video excerpts.
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No
Separate Peace
- Between 1975 and 1978, the UCWA published a
newspaper: No Separate Peace. Here are readable reproductions of
each issue of the newspaper.
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Time Line of CCA and UCWA activities 1969-1975
(.pdf file) from
William A. Little, Community Organization and Leadership: A Case Study
of Minority Workers in Seattle. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of
Washington. 1976 (by permission of author)
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Documents Some of the memos that UCWA produced.
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Tyree Scott Papers, UW
Special Collections Library
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 Tyree Scott
No Separate Peace, published
by the UCWA 1975-1978 |
Video Oral Histories