WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE

...Second, they will have to develop new organizing approaches that take into account sophisticated management techniques...

...The unions just don't feel they can afford it, given the risks involved," insists a member of the AFL-CIO staff...

...If you can get to the point of getting an organizing committee started, you can usually overcome this," says one organizer...

...We had an organization built in all the key departments," said one participant, "and we thought we had a good shot at winning...

...They haven't been willing to put out the kind of money it will take," says Day Creamer, director of Women Employed...

...Yet they have also been important for women at the "bottom" — both materially and psychologically...

...It's happened here several times — before anyone even got to the point of calling in a union," a clerk at a publishing firm told me...

...In many companies, personnel policies are designed to foster this mentality...

...In the last month of the campaign, the University unleashed a barrage of propaganda, held almost daily training sessions for supervisors, and illegally increased wages and benefits...

...Wherever you are hired, it's the same story: "Remember, you are not permitted to discuss your salary with anyone...

...People provide support for each other and they no longer feel so isolated or odd...

...However, the working women's organizations are still relatively small in size — the largest has fewer than 1,000 members — and membership remains scattered in dozens of offices...

...Although the increased media attention stems in pari from the continually expanding role of clericals in the workforce, it is also the product of conscientious organizing on the part of a small but growing number of women...

...I worked in one office where a mere glance from the supervisor could chill a casual conversation between workers or dissuade a woman from making a necessary trip to the restroom...

...Because their focus was on discrimination and lack of promotions, they tended initially to attract women at the top of the clerical ladder — those who most strongly felt their potential being wasted, their talents going unacknowledged...

...She is a national officer of the New American Movement, a democratic socialist organization, and has written for The Progressive, In These Times, and other publications...

...I wouldn't want to earn as much as my husband," said one woman...

...White-collar campaigns are among the most bitter and hard-fought union drives going on today...

...She cites the emphasis the union places on negotiating a liberal sick-pay policy — a 'Clerical workers have consistently displayed militancy7 major concern of women workers who often face the choice of losing a day's pay, or even a job, or tending a sick child...

...The supervisors are often women who came up through the ranks, who have known all their employes for years, who go out to lunch with them, plan their birthday parties, share their concern for a sick child...

...And if it hasn't made any mistakes, they'll make it look as though it did...

...One of the most insidious management techniques plays on a historic tendency of clerical workers — individualism...

...So the day she began, methodically, to tear up the cards she was supposed to verify, sprinkling them like giant confetti around the office, was the day I understood that the anger of women office workers may be suppressed but can't be denied...

...The Teamsters don't offer women much of a voice or any special attention...

...And they have created a general awareness that clerical workers deserve "rights and respect.'' Similar organizations exist today in almost a dozen cities, and a national organization, Working Women, National Association of Women Office Workers, has been formed to help new groups get started...

...The supervisors in my office are usually the 'natural leaders'," says one woman...

...One possibility is that the OPEIU — or even a new union devoted exclusively to women office workers — will be able to break the barrier because it can develop tactics, material, and programs specifically suited to their needs and experiences...

...One out of three marriages now ends in divorce, and even when these women remarry, they usually have a much clearer sense of their precarious economic condition and a stronger commitment to "making it" in their own right...

...We think we have the potential to play an important role because we're specifically for office workers," says OPEIU organizer Jenny Rohrer...

...In fact, they seem to fit the worst union stereotypes of many workers...

...She suggests rhe need for creative approaches — possibly a consortium of unions pooling funds and resources and making a concerted and simultaneous assault on a number of major targets...

...But one thing is certain...

...Often they don't expect a living wage because they still regard men as the primary family wage earners...

...When the women's movement exploded as a major social force in the early 1970s, its impact ranged far beyond the ranks of women who gave it their formal allegiance...

...While there is widespread agreement among organizers about the importance of this factor, there is no consensus about the validity of a commonly held notion about women workers — the "second-income syndrome...

...There is some basis for this view...

...Even women who did not identify with the movement were influenced by its emphasis on justice and dignity...

...Fear is particularly paralyzing for women who have been trained since girlhood not to fight...

...Karen Nussbaum, director of Working Women, says there is some truth to this old saw...

...Their wages, like those of all women workers, are Roberta Lynch works as a secretary...

...Raises are arbitrary, and there is no real measure of fairness — no standard by which to determine whether you get what you deserve...

...in an insurance company, it's about 1:10...

...But the success of organizing drives is attested to by the high-powered personnel techniques being deployed by more and more companies...

...But unions — and office workers themselves — are beginning to find ways to fight back...

...The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) has been chipping away at clerical workplaces for years...

...Jenny Rohrer has doubts about this "small fry" approach...

...An even more potent force in keeping women from looking squarely at their situations is the almost universal policy of keeping salary scales secret...

...Like the shortage of "good help" in the home in the form of female domestic workers, the supposed shortage of secretaries fails to conform to capitalist notions of a market economy...

...In addition, they often still live with their parents and pay minimal room and board...

...Government studies are probing her status and her attitudes...

...The ratio of "front-line" supervisors to office workers is exceptionally high: In a steel mill, it's about 1:40...

...In return, the unions can expect to attract a surge of new members and achieve greater financial stability...

...In addition, they will gain the new ideas and energy that women can bring to the labor movement...

...Encumbered with such baggage, it's a wonder that office workers can be organized at all...

...About 60 per cent of the women in the workforce are divorced, widowed, single, or married to men who earn less than $10,000 a year...

...The Wall Street Journal and Ladies Home Journal have discovered how important her work is...

...They have expanded to include all sectors of clerical employment, have attracted committed and active members, and are capable of striking fear into the hearts of even the most powerful employers...

...The United Auto Workers has organized at several universities in Michigan, and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers is focusing on banks in the Chicago area...

...Clericals are in many ways more than 'ready,' but the unions will have to get in there and wage serious campaigns, proving that they have an interest in these women and can adapt to their needs...

...Women Employed (Chicago) and 9-to-5 (Boston), the first such groups, provided a forum for disgruntled women workers and set out to cope with the frustration that simmers below the surface in most offices...

...don't hold elections of any type...

...The Service Employes International Union (SEIU) ran a lively, issue-oriented effort at the University of Pittsburgh — and lost...

...And they will help restore the sagging credibility of labor as the vigorous defender of the rights of all working people...

...It is likely that the pressure for a living "family" wage for women as well as men will intensify...

...During an organizing drive at Catholic Charities in Chicago, management — shepherded by the notorious Modern Management Methods — distributed a list of every strike in which any local of SEIU anywhere in the country had been involved over the last year...

...In most offices, whether by official policy or informal practice, supervisors play a key role in maintaining the status quo...

...But Nussbaum also notes that "some of the responsibility has to be laid squarely at the feet of the labor movement...

...The labor movement claims clericals are not "ready" to be organized...

...You can talk all you want about the larger social inequalities or even how low salaries are, but it's the realization of the tremendous inequity of salary administration going on right in their own company that really gets people moving...

...Many unions are still following the patterns set ten or twenty years ago (even to using the same basic leaflet format), Third, the unions will have to look carefully at the particular needs and concerns of women office workers and develop styles of organizing, as well as special programs, that are designed to meet those needs...

...More and more companies are trying to foster an open-door management image: "Tell us your problems and we'll help you solve them...

...Everyone looks up to them...

...If anyone ever undertook a serious study, I suspect it would show that the most common occupational diseases of clerical workers do not stem from typing posture or photocopying fumes...

...Perhaps even more surprisingly — if any of this is really surprising — the average female clerical worker earns only sixty-seven cents for every dollar earned by a male clerical worker...

...Supervisors will move quickly to isolate any woman who complains, branding her as "weird...

...At the other extreme is the "big kid on the block" — the International Brotherhood of Teamsters...

...Yet they are making inroads...

...It's very hard to win these campaigns...

...Even with the larger unions, however, the primary strategy has been to start small...

...Some bring on special anti-union management consultant firms long before there is any hint of a union campaign — a kind of corporate preventive medicine...

...Taught by the civil rights movement to stand up for themselves — and frequently more economically strapped than their white sisters — minority women have been in the forefront of many union-organizing drives that have managed to get off the ground...

...Of course we want to see women organized," says Karen Nussbaum, "but we hate to see them simply get lost in a large and undemocratic union...

...Given the obvious needs of the labor movement for new members, why is unionization proceeding so slowly...

...They have won back-pay suits that redistributed millions of dollars...

...Clerical employes make up by far the largest single group of women workers: More than 34 per cent of all women who work are in offices...

...Although the union's base has primarily been among the clericals who work for unions, it recently made Blue Cross/Blue Shield a national target, and has won elections at eleven "Blues" around the country...

...But my conversations with women in a variety of situations suggest that one of the most important barriers to organizing is fear — the fear of losing one's job...

...The problem, of course, is getting to the point of getting organized...

...She always expects to move on — whether to a better job or a marriage or a new employer...

...In many respects these groups, particularly the older ones, are flourishing...

...And the Amalgamated is going to small surrounding cities before trying to tackle Chicago's mammoth financial institutions...

...Over the past decade, women office workers have begun to emerge from history's shadow and raise their voices...

...She thinks that once campaigns are won at some small places — particularly in a downtown area — other managements will be on the alert to quash the first, signs of organizing activity...

...Job stratification, in which relatively similar work is broken down into different job categories with slight gradations of privilege and salary, is becoming increasingly common...

...It takes the votes of a majority of the workers to win union representation, but a significant number of working women still see themselves as homemakers first and office workers second...

...Another factor inhibiting organizing, in the eyes of many activists, is the mobility of the clerical workforce...

...Increasingly, women who work need their paychecks, and could not make do without them...

...These qualities, so long dormant, will be the real determinants of the future...

...The problem is compounded by the tensions in many homes around the '. . .most organizers are convinced...

...Communication" is the key word and there is the assumption (not altogether mistaken) that if you simply give people a forum to express their complaints and make a show of taking them seriously, you can defuse a lot of anger...

...Three steps will be required...

...One decisive factor is the growing number of minority women in clerical jobs...

...The first thing I do when I get an organizing committee together is to have them all go around the room and tell how much they make," says one organizer...

...In theory, this shortage should produce higher wages...

...It's a hard row to hoe...

...The changing nature of clerical work — routinization and mechanization — is altering the objective basis for this tendency, but consciousness has been slow to catch up...

...Women are forced to bargain individually, and in the dark...

...Boston's SEIU Local 925 has largely concentrated on publishing houses employing fewer than 200 people...

...And, of course, the daily papers now carry special "help wanted" sections for secretaries, while the business pages decry the shortage of "good help...

...Most of the women with whom I spoke — those in the working women's groups, those on union staffs, and those employed in offices — agree that there must be a change of attitude on the part of the labor movement...

...First, the unions will have to make a major financial commitment on a scale unprecedented in recent years...

...But unionization is moving at a snail's pace when measured against the enormous distance to be covered...

...The rule is to discourage collective process and, most importantly, discourage collective action: Don't accept any petitions...

...The real question is whether the field is going to be left to the Teamsters or whether unions that have more social and political integrity will get involved...

...Then a union-busting firm, John Sheridan Associates, appeared on jhe scene...

...We see ourselves as an intermediate form that can help bridge the gap between the historic distrust some clericals have of unions and the increasingly glaring need for unionization...

...In recent years, the mass media have begun to take note of the role of the woman behind the keyboard...

...Management generally doesn't worry much about violations of the law because it knows how expensive and time-consuming it is for a union to go to court...

...Only about 11 per cent of the female clerical workforce is currently organized...

...It is difficult to predict the continuing development of consciousness, the future influence of feminism, the impact of divorce rates and single motherhood, the always mysterious blossoming of a collective identity...

...In an outright violation of the law, the University of Pittsburgh administration passed out anti-union literature on election day...

...Otherwise, the misconceptions can never really be broken down...

...Younger, single women also present a variant of the "second-income syndrome...

...Although few women see these promotions as real advancement, they may represent the only avenue from a job that is sheer drudgery to one that is mere boredom...

...More women are concerned with establishing their own financial security, and they may soon constitute a large enough percentage of the workforce to provide the kind of majority support needed to win union campaigns...

...It's very effective...

...Despite these figures, however, some organizers believe the "second-income syndrome" still presents a strong barrier to unionization...

...change will come' fact that the wife is working at all...

...These consultants are heavy on cosmetic advice: Put out a handbook that tells workers all company policies so that they'll feel involved...

...It never fails to generate outrage — women who've been there a year earning more than someone who's been there a decade...

...Management consultants advise employers never to meet with a group of workers — no matter how small...

...Such propaganda tactics are combined with both legal and illegal pressures...

...An AFL-CIO staff organizer argues that the average clerical worker does not have a sense of commitment to her job — a belief that she will do this job for this employer for the better part of her life...

...According to Steve Askin, a Chicago journalist who recently attended a union-busting seminar, "If a union has made a single mistake anywhere, these management firms can give you chapter and verse on it...

...That would really damage his pride...

...A clerical worker's first impulse is almost invariably to try to negotiate on her own...

...But the labor movement now loses more than 50 per cent of all its representation elections, and a much higher percentage of campaigns never get to the point of a vote...

...Building on this new awareness, organizations specifically directed at exposing and changing the conditions of women office workers began to take shape...

...These groups do not — nor were they intended to — supplant the need for unionization, but rather bring it into even more dramatic relief They can barter for a better position for clericals in the job market, but they cannot provide the necessary representation to bargain for better wages and working conditions at a particular job...

...rather, they would turn out to be the blinding headaches and digestive problems caused by years of swallowing anger, repressing normal human responses, becoming not just efficient workers but pleasant, efficient workers, smiling on schedule, speaking on cue...

...In some campaigns, employes known to be sympathetic to the union are transferred to isolated work areas...

...As a result, even activists in working women's organizations are often reluctant to agitate in their own offices...

...These women are not working for pin money...

...In the case of clericals, there are many and complex reasons, varying from job to job...

...As soon as they hear grumbling — they have no trouble pinpointing the source — the people are quietly let go...

...The average woman now earns only fifty-seven cents for every dollar earned by a man...

...Over the years, the visibility and impact of these groups has grown...

...About 55 per cent of the clerical workforce at the recently unionized University of Chicago is black...

...They generally expect to marry and stop working, or at least have a husband's income to look forward to...

...disproportionately low...

...A vital link in the production/distribution process since the turn of the century, they are only now becoming visible and vocal...

...Its slow rate of expansion suggests that all new organizing is difficult now, and that it might be worthwhile to put some energy into finding out why...

...Most office operations are predicated on a high turnover rate, and employers have no qualms about firing anyone who makes waves...

...Some of the larger unions are taking initial steps...

...That's one of the reasons the working women's organizations were started...

...Most women are also fearful of being seen as "rabble-rousers" by their co-workers...

...In every union campaign and working women's group, clerical workers have consistently displayed skill, militancy, and commitment...

...In reality, clerical help and domestic help remain at the bottom of the wage scale...