Public Employee Press

March is Women’s History Month
Labor and the feminist agenda

A labor breakfast held Jan. 25 by the City University’s Joseph Murphy Institute brought together historian Alice Kessler-Harris, economist Heidi Hartmann and sociologist Niki Dickerson to explore an interesting question, “Does Labor Have a CLUW? Unions and the Feminist Agenda.” The panel examined labor’s record on addressing issues raised by feminists in the movement since the 1930s.

“Unions have not been any slower than other institutions in our society to address the concerns of women,” said Kessler-Harris, the author of numerous books on the history of working women.

She described three stages of women’s participation in the labor movement: getting admitted to unions, moving women into leadership positions, and most recently, trying to put women’s issues onto the union agenda.

Noting that unions in the European social democracies have won pro-family social policies, she pointed out that in Sweden, for example, 91 percent of working people are organized. In America, by contrast, “unions occupy a much more contested place,” she said.

Rutgers University Professor Niki T. Dickerson argued that of “women haven’t moved as far as we think from the old days.” She provided statistics: 47 percent of Latinas, 37 percent of black women, and 26 percent of white women are working at the poverty level. Race and gender segregation combine to cause low wages, she said. “Most women are ghettoized in occupational segregation. Women of color are ghettoized at the bottom of those occupations, even in the public sector.”

While women make up about half of the workforce and nearly half of the union movement, their share in union leadership roles is smaller, said Hartmann, director of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

She cited a study based on interviews with women union activists suggesting strategies to overcome obstacles to advancement, such as mentoring programs and classes in leadership skills, such as the DC 37-Cornell Women’s Trade Union Leadership Program. Information about the report is available at www.iwpr.org.