The Center for Economic and Policy Research released last week an interesting report titled "The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Manufacturing, 1979-2007."

We know that unionized manufacturing jobs last century were crucial to broadening a Black middle-class. Less understood is how that story has turned around so that only one-in-ten Black workers today have a job in manufacturing, compared to one-in-four in 1979.

This brief analysis highlight trends in both declining manufacturing jobs and the declining unionization of those jobs, both of which disproportionately impact Black workers. This report starts to unravel the facts behind a story that all workers need to learn and that we need to help reverse by fighting for workers' rights and economic justice.