United Construction Workers Association

by: Sarah, Rachel, & Adan

What Is the UCWA?

African American Construction workers and activists began to take direct action against the unjust institutional barriers to African American employment. The United Construction Workers Association (UCWA) was founded by Tyree Scott in order to organize a grassroots movement to make historically all-white unions open to marginalized workers in the Seattle area.

Tyree Scott

Tyree Scott is the founder of the UCWA. He was born in Texas before moving up to Seattle with his father in 1966. Scott was a Seattle civil rights and labor leader and he was dedicated to his work to improve the conditions and opportunities for workers in the construction industry. He was known as “a quiet, gracious and personable man, totally lacking any capacity for self-inflation” and “more interested in results than rhetoric.”

When and Why Was It Founded?

In the 1960’s, trade unions that controlled jobs in Seattle’s construction industry were off limits to Blacks, and this limited their ability to compete for large contracts.

In 1969, Seattle’s Model Cities Program was attracting large federal construction contracts. Walter Hundley, its director, encouraged Black contractors to organize in order to gain access to the contracts.

By December 1969, debate within the Central Contractors Association (CCA) over how to negotiate with unions, contractors, and government officials divided the organization between those who wanted to advocate for more jobs for black workers and those who wanted more federal contracts to go to black contractors.

In 1970, the Seattle Branch of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) invited Tyree Scott to found the United Construction Workers Association (UCWA). This prompted Scott to leave the CCA despite being a construction worker. With the AFSC’s financial and organizational backing, Scott shifted his attention away from contractors’ issues to make black construction workers’ struggles against union racism his sole focus. The UCWA was put into motion in 1970.

What Was the Purpose of the UCWA?

The UCWA’s original mission was to support black workers through the embodiment of multiple tasks of fused activism, Social work, and political advocacy. It took to negotiate with parties on the behalf of black workers, initiated lawsuits, lead non-violent protests, and facilitated worker support and study groups

A group known as the Court Order Advisory Committee (COAC) was in charge of the implementation of the UCWA. However, Scott believed that the COAC allowed union hiring halls to undermine affirmative action. This led the UCWA to hold protests that closed down I-90 and other areas. Due to the protests, the UCWA gained two representative positions on the COAC, gaining power and leverage over union apprenticeship programs.

Because the Federal Government did not enforce affirmative action, this newly found power allowed the UCWA to act as both the implementer and the enforcer of a federal court order to desegregate an extremely powerful cluster of labor unions in Seattle. This gave black workers in the UCWA a voice and opened up opportunities for black workers in the UCWA to attain leadership roles in civil rights struggles.

The Scope and Legacy of the UCWA

When he began the United Construction Workers Association, Tyree Scott’s main goal was to aid in the struggles of black construction workers against racism from unions, which caused unemployment for many skilled African Americans, furthering the systematic poverty and oppression of African Americans. Before the Federal Government imposed affirmative action on King County for Construction Trade Unions, the UCWA played a large role in demanding enforcement themselves. After successful protests and admission into the Court Ordered Advisory Committee, Tyree Scott was able to ensure the health and longevity of affirmative action from a place of power and authority.

In 1971, the UCWA expanded its reach to and mobilized black workers in Denver, C.O. With a federal grant, the UCWA was able to further expand into Oakland, C.A. in 1973 and create the Southwest Workers Federation in Little Rock, A.K. Tyree Scott, along with Todd Hawkins, tried to unite minority construction workers in eight more cities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas with varied results.

In 1973 a group of Filipino youth activists founded the Alaskan Cannery Workers Association (ACWA) after working in solidarity with the UCWA. They also sought to fight racial segregation and inequality within their industry. Seattle’s UCWA provided them with training, seed money, and a model for their organization.

A long-lasting impact of the UCWA is in its partnership with the ACWA and the Northwest chapter of the United Farm Workers (UFW) to create the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (LELO) in 1973. This office brought legal resources and support for lawyers working on Title VII lawsuits pro bono. The creation of this office supports grassroots labor movements by people of color like the UCWA. One LELO lawsuit went to the Supreme Court in 1989.

Despite the United Construction Workers Association’s gradual disbandment in the late 1970s, its spirit of improving the lives of workers of color by bringing them together to fight against systemic racism lives on through its numerous other organizations.

The UCWA’s support of black workers and families was one of the first visible acts of affirmative action in America’s workplace. This looked like the intentional hiring of black workers, who had previously been excluded from construction sites and federally funded projects in Seattle.

The purposeful inclusion and selection of black construction workers became the top goal of the UCWA, after the 1969 lawsuit filed against unions in Seattle. This lawsuit found that Seattle’s building trade unions hiring strategies and practices were unlawful and discriminatory against black workers. Because of this, Tyree Scott and the UCWA were put in a position to desegregate Seattle’s largest collection of labor unions.

Separate Peace

No Separate Peace was a left-wing monthly publication created by the UCWA for, “the third world poor.” The publications encouraged its readers to actively build up their diverse communities. It unified marginalized communities in the struggle against racism, sexism, and imperialism.

Tyree Scott’s impact

Works Cited

https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/ucwa.htm

https://www.afsc.org/resource/tyree-scott-history-link