BY ANDY ROSE
The excerpts below are from the Weber Case: New Threat to
Affirmative Action, a pamphlet published by Pathfinder in
February 1979 in the heat of the most well-known battles for
affirmative action. Brian Weber, a white lab technician for
Kaiser Aluminum in Gramercy, Louisiana, sued to overturn an
United Steelworkers of America-negotiated plan for
affirmative action in 1974, claiming "reverse
discrimination."
In June 1979 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of the affirmative action program at Kaiser Aluminum. The Weber case was a battle over equality where it counts most in capitalist society - equality on the job, in hiring, training, and promotion.
It was a challenge to all programs that allow Blacks, Latinos, and women to get jobs previously held only by white males. It tried to make it illegal for unions to negotiate affirmative action programs that have begun to overcome the racist and sexist divisions sown for decades by the bosses. A ruling in favor of Weber would have put wind in the sails of racist, right-wing forces to use the "reverse discrimination" argument to roll back civil rights gains in education, employment, housing and every other sphere of life.
This pamphlet, currently out of print, answers the myth of "reverse discrimination," explains why quotas are needed, and why all workers should support affirmative action. The excerpts are from the final section, "What you can do." Copyright (c)1979 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted with permission.
When all the facts are presented, the legal case against Weber is compelling. But that is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will uphold affirmative action. The courts do not hand down rulings solely - or even mainly - on legal grounds. They make political decisions.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was won through a political struggle that shook American society to the roots. It took mass rallies, marches, sit-ins, and freedom rides - and the lives of many civil rights fighters - to wrest this historic concession from a racist government.
The law itself was weakened by the fact that Congress was made up - as it is to this day - solely of Democrats and Republicans, with no representatives of the Black masses or other working people. These big-business legislators tried to limit the law and leave key provisions ambiguous. Enforcement and interpretation of the law have varied over the past fifteen years - depending not on fine points of legal argument, not on the shifting composition of the Supreme Court, but on the strength and determination of the independent movement for Black rights.
Ironically, the Supreme Court's strongest ruling ever against job discrimination was issued in 1971, under the Nixon administration, by Nixon-appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger. In the case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company the court unanimously declared that the civil rights law prohibits "not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form but discriminatory in operation." That includes practices "neutral in terms of intent," which the court said were illegal "if they operate to `freeze' the status quo of prior discriminatory employment practices."
More recently, the top court has been whittling down this mandate for affirmative action. In some cases it has said that victims of racial oppression must prove "intent" to discriminate. The court has also upheld seniority systems that perpetuate the effects of past discrimination. The most serious legal blow to Black rights was the Bakke decision.(1)
In making these rulings - as well as others restricting the rights of women, Blacks, unionists, and workers in general - the Supreme Court is operating as one arm of the overall offensive of the government and employers against working people. The Carter administration, Congress, and the courts; both the Democratic and Republican parties; government officials from the federal to the local level - all have joined in the attempt to increase profits at the expense of wages, drive down the aspirations of working people, and heighten the divisions among workers.
Behind these attacks stand powerful forces - the biggest and richest corporate empires in the world.
But the potential power of working people - who are the vast majority of the population and who produce all the goods and services that keep society running - is even greater....
Educational campaign
The fight to defend affirmative action and defeat Weber
needs to be intensified. The overriding task right now is
education. The working people of this country must be
informed about the facts in the Weber case and their stake in
the fight. The truth is our most powerful weapon.
The stand taken against the Weber decision by the Steelworkers union and the AFL-CIO helps to make it clear where the real interests of working people lie. Even though top union officials have come out against affirmative-action quotas in the past (and the AFL-CIO continues to maintain that "we're against government-imposed quotas"), they cannot help recognizing that Weber's suit is an attack on Black rights and on the entire labor movement. The union position needs to be publicized and discussed throughout the ranks of the unions, as a first step toward mobilizing union power against the Weber decision....
While the Bakke case was before the Supreme Court, students took the lead in rallying opposition to Bakke, including a march of 10,000 on Washington. If the forces that defended affirmative action against Bakke's challenge can be brought together again they could play a big role in helping to organize bigger and broader actions against Weber.
The potential for such a campaign of education and action is great. The Bakke decision sounded a warning to many in the labor, Black, and women's movements that the right-wing offensive against affirmative action must be answered. And despite confusion over quotas, there is more sentiment than ever among working people for equality and against discrimination....
Racist system
Socialists wholeheartedly support the struggle against
Weber, a struggle for basic democratic rights. Members of the
Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance are
helping to defend affirmative action and spread the anti-
Weber fight in the unions, on the campuses, and in the Black,
Chicano, Puerto Rican, and women's movements.
We also believe that this is part of a broader struggle against a system that tramples on the needs and hopes and rights of the overwhelming majority of people.
Rallying the labor, Black, and women's movements to oppose Weber can score an important victory for civil rights. It can also be a step toward mobilizing the ranks of labor to take control over their own unions and transform them into fighting organizations for the defense of all working people....
Racial discrimination exists for an economic reason - the greed for profit. Socialists are convinced that eliminating the profit system - this dog-eat-dog jungle that goes by the name of capitalism - is the only sure way to eliminate racism once and for all.
1. In June of 1978, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action quotas at the University of California at Davis medical school, in University of California Regents v. Bakke.