A Bronx-born Harlemite is urging the Black community to form a union to harness it’s considerable collective earning and spending power, and buy itself some respect and socio-political leverage.
“We are seeing the taking over of Harlem by outside forces,” Kenneth Thomas, a former 1199 union worker told the Daily Challenge. “In fact, Black people have no businesses and very little in the way of earned income, yet we do the buying that supports these new businesses. We have formed the Black Shoppers Union. It is a community organization designed to change the way businesses do business in the Black community.
“Every department store, restaurant, hotel chain, credit card company, auto dealer, realtor, commercial bank, HMO, city agency, business or service that deals with Black shoppers are anxiously waiting to see if Black Shoppers Union will finally change the way they do business in the Black community. The days of low-quality goods, high prices, insults and no Black-owned stores in the Black community are over.”
Thomas is bringing advocacy, traditional union ideology and grassroots activism together.
Some issues already on the table include respect, union recognition, affordable homes, better quality goods, credit card debt forgiveness, 20 percent of all goods and services sold to be bought from Black neighborhood entrepreneurs, and franchise agreements based on income.
According to Target Market News—an earnings and spending analysis company—in 2002, Black households had $631 billion in earned income. The Black population nationwide is close to 38.3 million. New York with its 2.3 million Africans (and their descendants) is the nation’s top city with Black residents, ahead of Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and Houston.
Target calculated that Blacks spend: $130 billion on housing; $52.4 billion on food; $48.7 on vehicles; $22.3 billion on clothing; and $14.5 billion on healthcare. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. recently boasted that it took in $1.52 billion nationally, on what the mainstream calls “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving.
“Black people create style for this nation,” observed Thomas. “We spend 17 percent more on personal clothes than any other ethnic group, yet our spending power in any area is not matched by political or economic influence. When they come to build these massive new stores in our neighborhood, they do it without our consent. They employ people and pay them $10 or $11 an hour, but that is the extent of what they do. We keep on putting our hands in our pockets to give them more money, and we get nothing back. The stores are owned by Arabs, Hispanics, Greeks and Whites. We have developed an addiction to shopping, which can relieve stress, but masks the real issue. Before labor had unions, the relationship was a boss paid the employee for a service. With a union it becomes a relationship of negotiation.”
Joyce Williams, co-founder of Mothers of the Stolen Children organization, explained: “I’m supporting Kenneth Thomas because I think that the Black Shoppers Union is a really good idea. Economics is always the bottom line to everything. It filters down through all aspects of our lives. Until we control our economics, we are not in control of anything, not even our children. If people sign up to be members of the Black Shoppers Union, then we can speak as one voice.”
She added: “We can make the various shops in our community be more respectful by threatening to sustain an organized boycott against them, should we need to. Mr. Thomas has been at events around the city . Two thirds of the audiences said that respect is a big part of what shoppers are concerned about. They don’t want to be followed around the store like they were going to steal something. The union would keep that in check.”
“Becoming a member of the Black Shoppers Union means you will be strengthening the union’s hand in negotiating contracts with stores that need Black shoppers to survive,” said Thomas. “These contracts will promote growth in the Black community.”
