WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE!
Sexton, Patricia Cayo
Girls, you must take this matter to heart seriously now, for you have establis'hed a union, and for the first time in woman's history in the United States, you are placed, and by your own efforts,...
...Besides, almost all married women are unable to move with their job...
...And so will the maid, the waitress, the cashier...
...These symbols suggest that women are an appendage to the work force, which is hardly the case...
...The UAW is putting more women on staff...
...For the great mass of women workers, economic upgrading can come through three main routes: (1) unionization...
...That life-giving medium has been: (1) the relatively full employment of the last 20 years...
...This shyness is a great obstacle to participation in the union and often on the job...
...Many were recruited to this work by the social workers and settlement house women who helped administer the programs that were financed by the rich...
...So miffed was the majority with the "destroyers of capitalism" that their opposition became almost automatic...
...We get complete backing for equal pay and rights...
...Some were gratified to see the unions take over, others were shocked by the violence and the demands women made...
...These women think they have nothing to say...
...Of course, there is a long, hard road from going to a women's convention to membership on a local executive board...
...One Big Industrial Union, just like the IWW: all ages, colors, occupations—but only one sex...
...I say, "Women everywhere else are doing it...
...Some "Left" splinter groups came with their interminable, set speeches, repeating the litany of "revolution" no matter what topic was being discussed...
...The men took charge and appointed a committee that met in a Bowery hotel...
...Her point of view is not uncommon among women who have been able to make it alone into men's work...
...This is where the union's action is...
...or single (the young, the spinsters, the homosexuals...
...We work with people individually and in groups...
...As long as we were doing a good job we felt we had a right to say to the company, "this is a better way of doing it...
...But when :the union hires a woman on its national staff, it may take the same woman who has successfully led negotiations in her shop and put her on a "special staff" rather than a "service staff...
...Full-time, year-round women workers earn little more than half of what males earn ($5,593 to $9,399 for males in 1971...
...Setting the Tone OPENING THE CONVENTION, beautiful and black Addie Wyatt, director of women's activities for the Amalgamated Meat Cutters, said: People ask, "Why are union women getting it together...
...If they fail, nobody wants credit...
...Groups devoted to libertarian principles and procedures, however, are particularly vulnerable to disruption...
...The Doctor said, "Whatever it is, get it off your chest...
...If you neglected your house, it would be a mess too...
...Women workers say repeatedly that they do not feel welcome or needed in the union hall...
...When we walked in there, we were scared to death...
...These CLUW can give them...
...The mood was not hostile to men...
...Even some classical IWW rhetoric was heard, but it mainly irritated rather than persuaded or enraged the delegates...
...The goals of the convention were to adopt a statement of purpose and an organizational structure...
...The high pompadour, for example, with curls piled high on the head...
...At one point a woman rose to say that no reforms would do women any good...
...The arrangements committee was in shock...
...One woman was distressed by the dissention...
...Instead of "Miss Jones," the clerk may be known as "Jane...
...But a few months before the gathering, registrations rose to 1,500...
...Rarely, except in large locals, do they engage in collective bargaining...
...The mood of the convention was unique...
...When they came to "foundries," they said, "That's it...
...She works on the TOP staff (Technical, Office, and Professional), and she does mainly collective bargaining and arbitration on her job...
...Even if we women do it spiritedly, it's good...
...The UAW has a great many women members...
...The Coalition strained, perhaps too much, for unity...
...Men have always disagreed...
...In the working world, however, all the rules change...
...It is not impossible for women to get a fair or equal share when there is a scramble for scarce jobs and goods, but it is far easier to get that share (or at least some of it) when jobs and goods are in abundant supply...
...383 meeting, which irritated some women, but there was no discussion of gay issues aside from a roundly defeated effort to link gay job rights onto women's job rights...
...There was no expressed hostility to the women's liberation movement...
...Isolation and individualism are formidable barriers to the rise of women workers...
...The vote was close because many women, reasonably enough, felt that unions should be more democratic and voted with the "destroyers...
...Many union staff jobs require travel as well as late hours...
...Mothers are also doing it—working...
...151 women or 5 percent of the total are district committee persons (also often full-time...
...What would their husbands do...
...As for women leadership in the bargaining process: 85 women or 4 percent of the total num* Olga Madar retired from the UAW in June to take on CLUW full-time...
...More of them want smaller families...
...there was not a single woman in those grades...
...It is a word that describes the essence of unionism...
...We now see a number of large international unions organizing office workers, getting some momentum...
...Yet the plant had a government contract, and it was five years after the federal law providing civil rights for women was adopted...
...Sometimes what they say rises far above the eloquence of our graduate English faculties...
...Except for elite jobs, the skilled trades remain the major male fortress...
...Their welfare has depended almost solely on their ability, as individuals, to win the affections of a husband —in competition, and rarely in collaboration, with other women...
...Often their last names will not even be known to the men they work for...
...of Labor, U.S...
...they are in the middle of it, at least in numbers...
...Housewives work alone in their homes...
...There are 12 women now and 150 men...
...Too often women are trained to be followers in their life's role, to depend on others, look to others for authority...
...Men are less bothered about little things, and they are more likely to settle conflicts by open arguments or fights, rather than by reporting them to the union...
...While we need to cultivate more assertive types of courage, we may, I think, overprice the spoken word as a criterion for judging others, as distinguished from the written word, which can be more reflective...
...Ideas are always around...
...Don't disrespect each other...
...Chrysler, including salaried employees, has 11,816 women or 9 percent of the total...
...Then, too, the conditioned individualism of women may lead to some jealousy of those who move up, unless they are and remain one-of-the-girls...
...That incredible generation of activist women died out...
...Women sit back, especially the young ones...
...And please also be sure to enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope...
...The local president is fantastic...
...One financial secretary came to me and said, "You know, it's not that I didn't like you, but when you first came on this job I said to myself, `If she can do this job, what is going to happen to my job?'" She is Polish, single, and feels there is no discrimination either in the IAM or the plant...
...As she told me in an interview: I sat there 15 years as a purchasing stenographer and watched men come in off the street, from the stock room, into buyer's jobs...
...Bargaining ANOTHER OBSTACLE to participation of women in union policy-making is their lack of experience in negotiations...
...Tool and gage inspection, for instance, a good job but regarded as a "family man's job," was given out on the basis of seniority, of which men had more...
...There were also caucuses from within unions: WAM (Workers' Action Movement) from the UAW...
...The Second Job THE SECOND JOB—being a wife and/or mother—is one of the chief obstacles to participation of women in anything, from attendance at meetings to policy-making...
...It has affected the law and the company policy...
...To balance the Eastern-Detroit-Chicago axis of the group, vice-presidents were elected for each region...
...Now they take pride in listening to other women...
...Underrepresented as they are, these women still add up to a sizable figure...
...The profile of the average woman worker has changed considerably...
...Said one delegate, "If they weren't around, we'd eat each other up...
...It is almost as if a woman were a free-floating property ready to serve, to be accepted on a first-name basis by anyone, to be adopted into another group or family...
...The men always say the women won't come to union meetings...
...There was no debate at the convention about birth control, abortion, marriage and the family...
...An IAM woman (Machinist) from St...
...Instead, at the concluding session, women from the Teamsters and the Farm Workers embraced on the platform and made moving pleas for unity for both women and farm workers...
...They are entitled to the same respectful forms of address as anyone else...
...Women are, it appears, much better represented in political 'action than in collective bargaining...
...She will have dozens of household tasks to do—literally a "second job"—and she will also have to find time to give her husband and children the attention they need...
...Women's unpaid executive talent also supports most of the religious, charitable, and voluntary organizations in our society...
...the unionization of 30 million unorganized women workers...
...Among the more disruptive ones were perhaps a dozen people (a virtual membership mobilization) of the Spartacus League, "a revolutionary Trotskyist organization," and the National Caucus of Labor Committees, a group given to disruption and violence whenever it comes to any sort of meeting...
...It is male, and it stands for us women too...
...A woman is not "one of them...
...This is 12 percent of the total...
...They said we would never last, that we couldn't take the heat and the dirt...
...one is an assistant department head—a total of three...
...393 ber are chief stewards in their shops (often a full-time job...
...Some women insist that these words don't matter, that the male gender is generic and stands for all of us...
...it left behind the frightened and unemployed women of the Depression, the busy women of the war and postwar decades—and now CLUW...
...This need makes most women workers centrally concerned with economic issues...
...We have seen the demise of nearly every protest group that blossomed in the '60s, done in by haggling, sectarianism, disruption, and violence (or fantasies of violence...
...But without staff experience in bargaining, she will have great difficulty functioning as an equal at policy levels within the union...
...Some women workers have been hostile to "women's lib," convinced it stood for adultery, abortion, lesbianism, thinsweatered bra-lessness, for public breastfeeding of babies, unwed motherhood, and the subjugation of men...
...They are inexperienced in the role and may not know how to act...
...She feels that Polish men find it harder to accept the change in women's jobs...
...At first there was some resentment from the men, but when they learned we weren't a threat, it was OK...
...Since the "destroyers" insisted that unions were run undemocratically, others insisted they were not and voted to defeat the amendment...
...The hall was filled—full—with eager, trembling women, but they knew not what to do or how to act, and soon the scene was one of supreme confusion...
...It can't see or walk or talk, but it learns...
...In 1971 married women comprised 60 percent of working women, followed by single women (22 percent of the total), widowed women (8 percent), divorced women (6 percent), and separated women (5 percent...
...I think it does...
...We women have gained through our unions the spirit and the courage to stand up and fight for what we believe in...
...Usually what they say is simple and to the point...
...There was no place to seat, let alone sleep, so many people...
...In the UAW, for example, only a small number of staff'women are experienced negotiators...
...I'd rather see women angry than wallowing in fear and apathy...
...Here they knew they had something important to do...
...Women are oven ten- , ders (baking the cores), shell-machine operators, furnace operators, everything...
...That's the trouble...
...They will call their boss "Mr...
...As Addie Wyatt put it, "The thing young people need to learn is that, while we need democracy, we also need a procedure that works...
...In addition to having a full-time job, a woman may have young children who need attention, or a husband who wants his dinner ready or who is afraid she will "meet someone else...
...If they succeed, everyone wants it...
...Travel is another obstacle for women...
...Few teen-age girls would have such courage...
...Audrey Farman, a UAW "Rep" AUDREY FARMAN, articulate, and all-woman, went on the UAW staff early in 1973...
...That is 15 percent of total hourly employees at GM...
...Some resist joining unions because the style, tone, and appeals are male...
...A homosexual life-style is not an uncommon attribute of women leaders, in the union as in some other social movements, but a precise census is obviously lacking...
...A standing division of the convention was taken on this issue, lasting almost an hour...
...A hopeful aspect is that many union men support this goal...
...Moreover, women are at least half the members of 26 international unions...
...Women work on all jobs, she says, but they are not active in the union...
...The pretext is that workers will not accept women bosses...
...Still, I also find it difficult to refer to women workers only by their last names, as is the academic custom: "Jones says...
...Communications Workers, Amalgamated Meat Cutters, Hotel and Restaurant Workers, Bakers and Confectioners, IUE (Electrical), and Teamsters...
...3) training for other jobs, in professional and technical occupations...
...Both do much the same work except that guards have a few assignments that put them in a different, and higher-paying, classification...
...I don't wish to deny people with ideas due credit for creating social movements...
...In those days the legislation was needed, yet could be won only for female workers...
...It found they are now "a new social force," 382 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON and that they support most of the aims, but not the tactics, of the women's liberation movement...
...We have a very active Women's Advisory Council to the union in our region, and we get a lot of female participation...
...Almost nobody wears jeans, though virtually everyone wears slacks...
...The meeting overflowed, but after endless speeches, including a long one by Samuel Gompers, people became restless and started to leave...
...We learn to direct and lead others or we learn to follow and be directed...
...Too often "participation" means doing the flunky work, cooking and cleaning up, while men are paid to sit around and make decisions...
...they think nobody will listen to them...
...2) affirmative action in the work place...
...I would be very worried if women satthere and only said "yes...
...In the shop people work somewhere on their own...
...As we might expect, women are overrepresented among "recording secretaries" (a women's job...
...It's difficult to organize office workers...
...I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared—now...
...At one large meeting of office workers, organized by unions and other groups in New York, at least threefourths of the women wore big name badges on which they had written only their first names, and usually nicknames at that (Peg, Judy, etc...
...At the CLUW convention it was almost as if many women had to prove, "I will be outspoken...
...Having women in there raises the level of negotiations to what it should be...
...Vice-president for the Eastern region— Joyce Miller (executive assistant to the general president and director of social services of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers...
...Nor are they "girls," any more than blacks are "boys...
...Today, about half of all women between 18 and 65, including those with children, are working...
...In fact, women make good negotiators and some participate in, or lead, shop committees in their unions...
...The small family tends to free the housewife...
...I joke with them and they joke with me...
...They need something to germinate in, if they are to grow...
...Among family women, the barriers to union activity are often overcome by radicalism or very strong social convictions...
...The most similar organization was the Women's Trade Union League, founded in 1903 and flourishing through the '20s...
...Other union activities, such as education and political action, can be arranged more easily...
...Their husbands are even more reluctant to have them go...
...Vice-president of the Western region—Elinor Glenn (International Executive Board member of the Services Employees International Union...
...THE EDITORS IV UAW Women A UAW Case Study DYNAMIC new CLUW President Olga Medar —also the first woman to have been vicepresident of the UAW, and so the most important union woman in the nation—has recently made a study of female participation in her union.* As far as I know it is the only study of this kind around...
...If you allow full and free discussion, your own people may walk out on you and the group will fold...
...The idea for CLUW was put together by a small group of women who met in Chicago's O'Hare Airport...
...Most of them were in labor grades four and below...
...The more experienced women, knowing that talk is cheap, held their peace...
...Women workers often lose their surnames, the name that gives them a family identity and the respect that somehow attaches to the surname...
...Or, more correctly, nobody has listened to what they, or their blue-collar husbands, have said...
...While the occupations of men are quite diversified, 380 women are much more likely to be clerical workers than anything else...
...Many had worked outside the home and had not liked it...
...At this juncture a motherly woman approached the gentlemen, and begged their interference...
...In the winter of 1863, during the Civil War, when many women workers were underpaid and almost starving, a nameless mechanic suggested to a New York Sun editor that he advertise a meeting to help forma Women's Protective Association...
...We get help from all the staff...
...Bargaining is like that...
...In grandmother's time only the spinsters worked or the widow woman who took in washing...
...It was businesslike, attentive, and friendly...
...All of us cluster in groups for status and security with people like ourselves, and we cement that fraternity by adopting their speech, dress, gesture...
...It's a question of getting the respect your ability and seniority deserve...
...When a baby is born, it has imperfections...
...394 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON After we organized, I never had these problems...
...They think women should be free to choose careers outside the home, and about a third said they would not choose homemaking if they had to do it again...
...The League began at an AFL convention in Boston and held its first meeting in Faneuil Hall...
...The main conflict, incredibly enough, was over support of the Farm Workers' Union in their jurisdictional conflict with the Teamsters...
...The only recommendation they made was that women be paid for their work...
...As for women in appointed top positions, one is an assistant regional director, none are administrative assistants to the top officers, one is a department head (Women's Department...
...But they are also overrepresented among financial secretaries, often the major office in the local union...
...There will also be more jobs they can do...
...Everyone (almost) supports the Farm Workers...
...Many feel that the women's liberation movement belittles the role of homemaker too much...
...Even the UAW, whose conventions are probably bigger than any other union's, draws only 2,500 tops...
...Alas, even in the most informed circles (often especially there) it is just that...
...When my mother was 20 years old, in 1920, women came to only 20 percent of the work force...
...390 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON Speaking Up WOMEN are notoriously reticent about speaking up in groups...
...Aside from the farm workers' episode, the biggest and strangest issue arose in a snarled debate over whether "the Coalition will encourage democratic procedures in all unions...
...Now some of the laws are regarded as obsolete, some of them as discriminatory against women workers, and some of them as needed legislation that should be extended to men too...
...Nobody could get in without a union card...
...There is after all no proven connection between the number (and elegance or symmetry) of words spoken and other qualities we value in people: wisdom, judgment, intelligence, humor, generosity, loyalty, or the ability to do things...
...Rarely will she be assigned to "service" a plant—to handle work grievances, shop disputes, negotiations, or anything relating to the collective-bargaining contract...
...They knew that women were ready to organize nationally, but they could list the names of only 99 women to call upon...
...The working conditions are livable...
...It's a question of being listened to, on an equal level...
...As consumers, they are more interested in things for themselves, especially labor-saving devices that free their time...
...I CLUW TO SEE what progress women workers were making along these routes, I attended the March 1974 founding convention of CLUW (the Coalition of Labor Union Women) in Chicago...
...Women are likely to be elected to these jobs because they are thought to be better at keeping records and more honest, both of which are indispensible traits for the financial secretary...
...Thus, two out of three women work because they have to...
...She will be assigned to a woman's department, or an education, political action, or health services department...
...In these four top local offices, women comprise 13.5 percent of the total, which is almost exactly proportional to their estimated membership in the union...
...Women are no longer marginal to the work force...
...The "Left" Groups JERRY RUBIN SAYS the women'smovement is the great happening of our time: it'll remake society, alter the family, change relationships among people...
...If employment holds up, the participation of women in the labor force will continue to increase...
...1, 1868 Women workers are equal to men at least in a quantitative sense...
...Yet they are only 4.7 percent of all union leadership...
...Such moments are rare...
...They are the excluded...
...journeymen...
...A woman typographer at the convention reported she rose at her union meeting and introduced herself: "I'm Brother Mollie...
...That women have executive and organization ability is obvious when we look at the work -they do for which they get no pay...
...Most of these women are no longer the "captives" of family and tradition they once felt they were...
...Here, at the convention, there was no end to the amount of work that women would do when they knew it was needed...
...The company hadn't hired women in 29 years...
...Also, travel is more difficult for women than for men...
...In a world of strangers we recognize our kinfolk by these clan signs, and we close our circles against intruders who lack them...
...And as some jobs become computerized, the clerical people will fear the loss of their jobs and will want to organize...
...When I came in the men were nice but cold...
...But a few were bent, consciously or not, on making the meeting unbearable...
...She praised the Women's Equity Action League, NOW, and the National Women's Political Caucus...
...Actually the relationship of the Coalition to the women's movement is more that of siblings than of child and parent...
...It is revealing about the selfimage of women workers...
...CLUW has some real historic precedents, rich ones...
...Why not use them...
...At this point the women present exclaimed, as with a single voice, "Oh, if we could always get paid for our work, we could get along...
...She is the financial secretary of her lodge and has been for many years...
...In 1910 there were an estimated 77,000 union women, most of them from the cap makers, glove workers, hat trimmers, shoe workers, typographers—all specialized but miserably paid "trades...
...And almost nobody there but us women...
...Many black women process their hair or wear wigs...
...Many paid their own way...
...Increasingly, though, as other wives and mothers have taken jobs and raised their consciousness, they are coming up in the unions...
...Among the initiators were some influential middle- and upper-class people—Mary Morton Kehew (a wealthy Bostonian who had tried to unionize women since 1892 and who became president of the League), the socialist-philanthropist William English Walling—and, of course, that hearty, incredible trio of social workers: Miss Addams, Miss McDowell, and Miss Wald...
...There were women welders, foundry workers, machinists, pipe fitters, phone operators, typists, social workers, airline stewardesses, professors, waitresses—all active unionists...
...Every Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist group was there, plus some new to me...
...the health and safety of themselves and their families...
...387 across classification barriers simply by applying...
...Their concern was full employment...
...The Planning Committee opposed a motion of endorsement because it wanted to avoid conflict between the two unions...
...More than one woman in three is a clerical worker...
...Now it is that of an older (38) married woman working in a variety of jobs...
...Another woman said to her, "Honey, these things have been neglected so long...
...She insisted, though I didn't ask:] I'm very proud to belong to the UAW...
...2) upgrading and promotion on the jobs...
...I am reminded of the dramatic scene at a Cooper Union strike-vote meeting of shirtwaist makers (including Triangle workers) in 1909...
...the Militant Action Caucus of the CWA (Communications Workers), which distributed its paper Militant Action...
...it's a given...
...They consider us like one of the guys...
...Nor is this affliction confined to women workers...
...At the CLUW convention the same dangers were present...
...All women have been reached a little by the women's liberation movement, and every day it affects them more...
...Both were greatly stimulated by the suffrage and the labor movements...
...More often, they have it done to them...
...Almost none of them (except the younger "Left" women) have hair that looks uncombed...
...Speaking up has done wonders for labormanagement relations...
...But the picture changes at policy levels in the international union...
...The IWW greeting "Fellow Workers" was better...
...Obviously, the Depression and then World War II contributed greatly to their demise...
...Also strongly present were the IAM (Machinists), Typographers, Service Employees, Government Employees, Postal Workers, ILG (Ladies' Garments), Steelworkers...
...386 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON Almost all the women who later rose in the CIO and almost all women CIO organizers came out of this movement...
...My grandmother was eight years old in 1863...
...One young woman (Doris Vanderhoogen of UAW Local 264 in West Allis, Wisconsin) became a foundry worker this way...
...She is a grinder...
...We have people who understand the problems...
...The League came out of two currents: women workers who wanted to organize unions, and sympathizers among rich and professional women...
...Women will have smaller families, more time, more educational and job opportunities...
...or married to a strong union man who encourages her activity (rather common...
...I believe those origins are less in ideas and movements than in economics and technology...
...There was no interest in sex, only in sex discrimination on the job...
...Our staff members are people who organized their own offices, so they can show people they don't have to be afraid...
...They solidified the delegates against the disrupters and drove most people straight down the path of fundamental union solidarity...
...Hair styles vary over a great range...
...Here, it diverted people from real issues...
...Several auto workers from Indiana said they were most concerned about "upgrading...
...There were also railroad clerks, department store clerks, waitresses, blookbinders, textile and cloth weavers, tobacco workers, and musical and theater arts workers...
...of those in their early twenties, 71 percentsaid they will have no more than two children...
...Of the approximately 800 "international representatives" of the UAW, only 20 'are women-2.5 percent of the total...
...Paul, Minnesota, Lodge 1313, a local of 2,300 people, said, "A lot of the problems are the women's own fault...
...Olga Madar, CLUW's new president, said, "The women's movement gave an impetus to our moving ahead...
...Fifteen had been invited, five came...
...Holyoke...
...Solidarity THE NEED for clan ties and sex solidarity among women is apparent...
...They complain to the union that fellow workers are bothering them, that they are not doing their work properly, that they are getting small favors, and so on...
...to inspire and educate union women to...
...the United States Office of Manpower Training...
...Many women are excellent managers in the family, carrying on all the complicated organizational operations that are required in business...
...Women workers often lack the style of the upwardly mobile...
...3) political action and legislation...
...Even among the 384 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON sectarians, many participated constructively and added contrast to the proceedings...
...WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...After all, experienced unionists know how to run meetings, to keep people together and to the point, cut down the static...
...Its other major purpose was the education of women workers and the education of the public about women workers...
...It's healthy to disagree...
...Collective bargaining is what unionism is all about, the basic function of unions...
...Now married women form by far the largest group of women who work...
...As that happens, we will organize more and more people...
...Still, many women either overcome these handicaps or don't have them to begin with...
...Most of the women went to meetings almost every night, so it can't be said that women won't go to meetings...
...I say, "We are the union...
...He backs us one hundred percent...
...unions to achieve their objectives, and also at changing some of those objectives...
...People ask, "Why can't the union resolve the problems...
...They set the convention date, and a year later those 99 had multiplied to 3,200...
...By assigned role, women have been collectivists in the family but not outside it...
...WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...At least they don't talk about it...
...Indeed, many women I talked to said they came to the convention because a male union officer asked them to go...
...The strike called was the first large strike of women workers in this country, and the first significant strike in the ILG...
...Women work for the same reasons as men...
...Unions composed largely of women arose in the garment trades as early as 1903...
...Times have changed, Women not only get paid for their work, they have learned how to run their own meetings...
...Most of them, however, are not organized into radical sects...
...This type of complaint is not uncommon among women who turn to the union for everything...
...They'll go if they feel they're needed...
...385 II Precedents THIS MEETING BRINGS TO MIND another one, held more than a hundred years earlier...
...In the bargaining sessions, the schedules are fixed and the outcomes are highly significant for the union...
...Another woman said, "Sure, it's going to have imperfections...
...They may even become craftsmen, as new technologies develop and as the performance of many jobs requires less physical strength...
...It affects all of us, but working-class people most of all...
...As of now, the best opportunities for women are in these professional and technical jobs...
...The colors are more vivid (less subtle) and there are more big stripes, many of them on broad beams...
...Why don't they come to meetings...
...We have excelled instead at less conspicuous, less competitive kinds of courage...
...The names people give themselves and others are symptomatic of the problem...
...Vice-president for the Southern region—Dana Dunham (rank-and-file member of the Communications Workers from Atlanta...
...Factionalism can hurt...
...The civil rights movement has passed on its inspiration...
...So it was that many of them flocked to the CLUW convention...
...I don't know if we should be proud of that or not...
...She has worked there almost two years...
...In New York and many other states, a minimum wage for women was won (the courts regarded the minimum wage for men as a violation of contract between employer and worker, but women, a subspecies like wild game, needed protection).* All the special protective legislation for women flowed from this movement...
...Jones," but they will accept "Jane" for themselves...
...While educated and/or professional women have been transformed, in attitudes if not life-styles, by the women's movement, workingclass women had, until now, neither been seen nor heard...
...How do we end women's oppression...
...Men were welcome but only a few came, and those few seemed as uneasy as a woman at a smoker...
...Women comprise 7 percent of local vicepresidents, 16 percent of financial secretaries, and 26 percent of recording secretaries...
...and 972 or 8 percent of the total are stewards or alternate committee members (the most humble leadership role in the shop...
...In industrial work where men and women work together, and even where women predominate, very few women are promoted to foremen or other management jobs...
...We have knownthem by their first names...
...It was probably the largest labor convention ever held, in all history...
...Source: Handbook of Women Workers, 1969 [Washington, D.C.: U.S...
...At the same time, 50 percent of the men were in grades nine and above...
...Simply enough, if women don't learn how to negotiate, they cannot function at the top level of their unions...
...4) participation of women within their unions...
...The summer schools ran for ten weeks and offered women workers studies in the liberal arts and the social sciences...
...equal rights" (my italics...
...In 1938, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act was passed, which included the general Minimum Wage Law...
...Keep at it now, girls, and you will achieve full and plenteous success...
...The women's problem, people believed, had been solved...
...I am tired of listening to speakers who talk in general terms...
...Only about a third of all working women (35 percent) have husbands who earn $7,000 and over...
...In their plant (which makes compact transmissions with manual shifts, a good item these days), they recently had the first woman upgrader in 30 years...
...It is estimated that, over all, about 13-14 percent of all UAW members are women...
...They were quick to add: "It's the company's fault, not the union's...
...As a union, we have to offer them something over and above that...
...A base of $3.92 an hour, open to incentive pay up to $5.80 an hour...
...In 1868 a smaller meeting took place in the office of Susan B. Anthony's newspaper The Revolution to talk about forming the Working Women's Association...
...Hundreds came...
...One staff woman I talked to said that a woman called her one day from the plant and reported that a fellow worker was hiding behind a pole and exposing himself...
...It's time we stopped saying "yes...
...Their collective energy gave rise to the federal Women's Bureau (founded in 1920...
...One collector (with an eye on selling products) has been Social Research Inc...
...Many women had a better education than the men, and more seniority...
...The shop chairperson is in charge of bargaining and, except in the large locals, is usually more important than the president of the 'local...
...CLUW is going to be one of the best things that ever happened to us...
...While •this does often contribute, what is left unsaid is that the "management team" is rather like 'a club...
...Both the women's colleges and the "Y" were supported by roughly the same people, mainly rich women (Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs...
...Also, two of the major hurdles to the upgrading of women are not present here: requirements of physical strength and the need to "boss" other employees...
...This too is part of the problem...
...Language OF 34 MILLION WOMEN in the labor force, 4.3 million belonged to unions in 1970 or better than 20 percent of all members...
...They hardly notice...
...Both unionization and upward mobility depend on collective action...
...Its dominant tendency was that of a loyal pressure group, within the progressive unions—aimed at pushing those of the Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen—vicepresident...
...Then, too, some work classifications have been reserved for males...
...Two things were important in the new upgrading of women...
...their lack of sympathetic attention to other people who might be a good deal more thoughtful if less verbal...
...Even when we disagree here, we don't have to be disagreeable...
...She has to stay in the session, no matter how long it runs...
...The CLUW women, because they are unionists, understand this very well...
...Mankind" is also said to be generic, but we have the sex neutral words "humanity" or "humankind...
...A section on structure, which forbade endorsements in jurisdictional disputes, was defeated in a long and rather rowdy session, but the motion to endorse the Farm Workers was not even considered...
...Women are often reluctant to leave town, to be on the road...
...It does...
...The company will put women there too...
...Other officers elected were: Linda Tarr Whelan—secretary (she is deputy director of program development of AFSCME...
...The adopted purposes were: (1) organizing unorganized women...
...There are nearly as many women as men in the work force—about 43 percent of the total...
...Had the Teamsters been foolish enough to withdraw over such an issue, it might have been just as well to let them go...
...In 1923, the Supreme ,Court ruled this law unconstitutional (in the District of Columbia...
...If the purpose of this convention had been to deal with issues rather than structures, I would have thought the meeting had failed...
...But our words are mainly transmitters...
...Women also helped organize the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and also continue to have a modest record of participation in that union...
...There were also women (a few) from the Boilermakers and the Carpenters...
...Only a few wear Afros...
...Of course, it takes courage to open one's mouth in public...
...However, they found a tougher victim in CLUW than elsewhere...
...Olga Madar of the UAW was elected president, and Addie Wyatt WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...Those are male jobs so they must pay well...
...Most were very attentive, but few were afflicted with the "Left's" popular passion for being outspoken even about trivia...
...Several women typesetters were also there, including Augusta Lewis who said that endorsing suffrage would identify the organization in the minds of working girls with "short hair, bloomers, and other vagaries...
...Or she may simply have a WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...The construction trades, however, were noted for their absence...
...Now women are moving into these classifications...
...It is no more satisfactory to us than "sisterhood" would be if we tried to include men under its umbrella...
...They are concerned about upgrading, entry into male-dominated job classifications, and promotions...
...As these women go into battle with employers and legislators, they naturally also want to put their own house in order...
...God is said to have created a devil in order to drive us up the paths of righteousness...
...The League finally went under, along with the other activities...
...About twice as many men as women are managers and administrators, the best-paying occupational group...
...They may see neighbors, even spend leisure time with them, but they very rarely develop the solidarity that comes from working together on something...
...Still, they are only 6 percent of the total number of people on these committees...
...They can talk to each other and get something started...
...Style STYLE IS ANOTHER BARRIER...
...Dept...
...It's important to feel needed, wanted by somebody...
...Suffragette Mrs...
...The officers elected at the meeting give us an idea of the range of major participants...
...The word "brotherhood" is a clear example...
...Much of the early organization was in the ILG (Ladies' Garment), a union that now has a vast majority of women in its ranks but few in its leadership...
...It was an admirable enough goal in view of the fact that CLUW's endorsement could not help the Farm Workers anyway...
...Does all this matter...
...Yet all members of the UAW Executive Board must actively engage in contract negotiations...
...This is not divisive of our union...
...Where locals have only one full-time officer, it is usually the financial secretary...
...Some women have trouble being "bosses...
...They persuaded him to hire them in the foundry...
...It used to be that women listened only to men...
...In GM alone, among hourly employees, there were 61,459 women in 1972...
...The good wages she makes...
...While •the number of women workers more than doubled since the early 1940s, the number of working mothers increased eighttimes...
...We do everything the men do except the actual pouring of the iron...
...I like to see dissent, so long as a healthy decision comes out of it...
...She began to have conflict with a new supervisor.] It put me in the hospital on the verge of an ulcer...
...Many of the stylistic differences are so subtle that they require special study...
...They are usually very neat and clean, but much less carefully and richly groomed...
...There was the United National Caucus, also active in the UAW, which distributed a publication calling for a labor party, support for farm workers, and •the hiring of staff by the AFL to organize women...
...strengthen their participation, to encourage their leadership and their movement into policy-making roles within their own unions...
...SUSAN B. ANTHONY, at the founding of the Women's Typographical Union No...
...She and a friend were desperate for a job that paid a living wage...
...Not everyone on the "Left" was disruptive...
...Natural" styles are less common, among both white and black women, than in fashion centers...
...She insisted that they deal with job issues first, and then educate women workers about suffrage...
...While this is a good antidote to silence, the ear of the listener often rebels...
...The statements of goals and structure, drawn up by the Planning Committee, were adopted essentially as they stood...
...To this date, no woman has been promoted to buyer...
...Could it be that capitalism created some of these "revolutionists" to drive union people into the kind of irritation and despair which reconciles them to private enterprise...
...Not the words, but what they symbolize...
...Some "Left" or "ultra-Left" groups say women workers are the vanguard of the revolution...
...There was loud opposition...
...I made up my mind no supervisor would ever do that to me again...
...III Barriers Upgrading I ASKED WOMEN at the convention what they considered the most important issues for them on the job...
...It is reported that 708 women are county or area (Community Action Program) CAP Council delegates...
...389 close attachment to her family and want to be home when they are...
...The YWCA not only participated in all of this, it was out in front, running classes, providing inexpensive housing, and organizing women workers...
...If I can't beat you, I'll have to join you.', Then there is the more common vocabulary of the working world: "Workmen...
...child care...
...On the convention's opening morning the convenors (torn between joy and terror) announced that 2,100 delegates had registered...
...It takes more courage...
...It's going into something that women have never done before...
...Many "grievances" have even less substance...
...The best workers' education is that which reduces the role of "experts" and increases the worker's own sense of autonomy...
...They were 392 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON women workers and she was, well, a unique woman, but also Upper East Side New York...
...What we are here for is to decide whether or not we shall strike...
...You have to earn a living wage now...
...We are going to stay in the family and we are going to make our union responsive to our needs...
...While conventions (like fads) come and go, the significance of this one may long linger on...
...381 • Tracing the origins of organizations is not easy...
...Another girl had a nervous breakdown...
...A surprising number of women-82—are the chairpersons of their local bargaining Shop Committee, and another 234 are members of those bargaining committees...
...The more education a woman has, the more likely she is to work, probably because she can get a better job and will earn enough to finance child and home care...
...They are afraid to be noticed...
...When the word "sex" was added to the discrimination law, there were women who never thought they were discriminated •against...
...I broke the ice...
...Let's not do it to each other...
...In the UAW there are 3,497 women who occupy important local leadership positions or enough, by themselves, •to fill a mammoth convention hall...
...My kids need me home...
...It has also passed on to women inclusion in the Civil Rights Act...
...Women can organize as well as men...
...Now CLUW has the same priorities...
...The law had a profound influence...
...2) a technology that makes jobs easier for women to perform—as well as a method of birth control enabling people to regulate family size...
...In the period 1912-23, minimum wage laws, designed to protect women and minors in the manufacturing and service industries, were enacted in 15 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico...
...The acceptance of this servility role makes the transition to leadership and authority difficult—both for those in the new roles and also for those who are being directed...
...The trend of the work force is toward office, technical and professional— and less to production...
...They called around and finally made an appointment to see the president of Federal Malleable...
...They are less interested in products that merely help them serve -their families...
...Specifically, their first concern was raising and spreading the coverage of the minimum wage, an economic issue...
...Brother" is a clan sign of the fraternity of males...
...As it is written that the last shall be first, so in this case, the organization of women workers, slow to get started, may be around when some of the more trendy groups have vanished...
...Evidence of changes in women workers has been lying about unnoticed...
...Gloria Johnson— treasurer (director of education and women's activities of the IUE...
...A major difference between the Coalition and the League is the former's vital concern about women moving up in unions, as well as on the job...
...Still men were 'brought in off the street to fill the higher grades...
...In a bargaining session a woman cannot get up and say "I gotta go now...
...We've given so much and settled for so little...
...By 'afternoon, the figure had risen to over ,200...
...I am grateful to working-class women for not, as a rule, overburdening listeners with verbosity...
...When it was won, back in 1919, a precipitous decline in women's activities followed...
...We get on fine...
...Even more striking, 28 percent of working wives had children under age six...
...Another unique workingclass style is what we used to call the "boyish bob," only this one has a slight bouffant on the top...
...Women's suffrage also took over...
...The paper called for workers' control of what would in effect be company-financed "family centers," at the job location, to provide child care, laundry services, cafeterias— not a bad idea...
...Both have the same origins...
...In auto, an upgrader is an employee with seniority who moves up into a skilled trade, taking longer to reach journeyman status than the apprentice but making "the rate of the job" rather than the apprentice reduced rate...
...If we add to these the' women who are officers in local units (units of large plants or of -amalgamated locals)—and the chairpersons and members of local committees (recreation and conservation, constitution and by-laws, antidiscrimination, community services, education, consumer affairs, publicity, election, retired members, apprentice, pension, supplementary unemployment benefits, women's councils)—we come up with the grand total of more than 6,600 women in leadership roles in the locals, or 10 percent of the total number of leaders...
...A social worker from Illinois said, for example, that guards in their state mental hospital are paid much more than matrons...
...The noise and disruption from some of those quarters had, however, an effect opposite of what they intended...
...They have to...
...Besides, who will care for the kids...
...For that reason, as my husband Brendan insists, all good labor education is aimed primarily at giving working people confidence in themselves and in their ability to reach people and influence events...
...One is the limitation that family responsibilities put on them...
...Among the over-twenty white women, neither extralong nor extra-short hair, natural and uncurled, are popular as they are with upperclass women...
...They want to move out of "women's work" in their own unions and into policymaking positions...
...It's different now...
...It is not theirs, they feel uneasy, and for the same reason that the token black in an all-white group is uneasy or the white in an all-black group...
...While the increase of working mothers was about 11 percent between 1960 and 1972, the rise was 75 percent among mothers with children under age three—and only 2 percent of these children were in day-care centers...
...Thirty delegates came from the Newspaper Guild...
...At any rate, it is hard to talk about women without talking about hair, fashion, style...
...Because it takes so much drive for a woman to become a boss, the people under her will sometimes complain that she is too tough and demanding...
...It was the last that got the biggest audience response...
...Half of all wives who worked in 1972 had children under 18...
...Many women talked about the "separate seniority lists" in their shops that kept them from moving into departments where the jobs and pay were better...
...Most of the talking at the CLUW sessions, the "points of order" and the tangled procedural motions, came from younger women and many of them tried to score points for a "Left" sect...
...The women bicker among themselves," one staff woman said...
...Well, almost...
...The foreman is not on top of them...
...Women have been disrespected long enough...
...About the same proportion of women as men are in "professional and technical occupations...
...The office person is often afraid to organize...
...The grievance procedure, of course, is designed to deal with grievances against employers...
...More often the problem is that they either do not accept 'a woman in a position of authority, or they feel it lowers their own status to serve under a woman...
...now they are hiring women...
...When they're in a majority, men make women feel they're not really wanted...
...What they usually meant was not "equal pay for equal work," since most unionized jobs have that, but an equal chance to get a better job...
...Support of the Farm Workers, after all, is not an "issue...
...In the UAW there are 74 women local union presidents, or 5 percent of the total...
...A modified version of this, the teased bouffant, is still popular, though it has almost disappeared among the fashionable...
...They need public platforms and the opportunity to speak and debate...
...I'd have the feeling the unions hadn't done us any good at all...
...Insofar as this is true, they are not fully autonomous people...
...If we disagree here, at the convention, and say so with fervor and vigor, we can go back into the plant and do it there too, where we need it most...
...The primary purpose of the League was to help unions organize women workers...
...The main power comes out of the movement of economic and technological history...
...Indeed, the only large occupational group women have not cracked is that of "craftsmen...
...Even outside the home—as clerical workers and as teachers— women often work either in isolation or under such close supervision that clan ties are inhibited...
...As a result, we find the active union woman is often married but childless or with grown children...
...The occasions for concern are where radicalism becomes disruptive or where hidden agendas or other loyalties frustrate the majority will...
...Also, the law helped...
...We must destroy capitalism...
...But they are more interested now than ever in community, jobs, the larger world...
...In a study sponsored by True Story, it found significant change in working-class women over the past decade...
...Many of them are trained to silence by their educational experiences, and to the conviction that they know nothing that is worth saying...
...But union staff jobs often require resettlement...
...Only one woman in six is a blue-collar worker and ,those who are, work as "operatives" rather than "craftsmen...
...August Belmont, etc...
...More than 50 percent of the workers in her offices were women...
...In this case the staffer told her: "He doesn't have anything to show or he wouldn't be hiding behind a pole, so ignore him...
...Neither radicalism nor homosexuality are "issues" among women unionists these days...
...While I like the familiar form myself—because it is friendly and working-class—this is carrying a good thing too far...
...As long as we end up together—solidarity forever—it shows we can create something important here...
...Admission to the meetings required proof of union membership...
...The silence of many women workers (and men) deprives them of a place in the sun...
...Many "dress up" in the evening, even in long gowns...
...An estimated 35 women held major elective or appointive posts in national and international unions in 1970...
...Yet more men work in crafts than in any other occupational group (over 10 million...
...In the 1920s it was that of a young (average age 28), single, factory worker or clerk...
...We see all women becoming more aware of their rights...
...A quota would more than double their numbers on bargaining committees...
...Before joining the staff she worked for 15 years in the purchasing department of McDonald-Douglas in Tulsa, Oklahoma...
...It's not only sex discrimination: there are lots of men who have been passed over...
...Their identity badge, their name, is tampered with anyhow when they marry and assume their husband's surname, so it doesn't really belong to them...
...We offer them the right to the grievance process, arbitration of their grievances, seniority rights, a system through which to getthem upgraded and combat the past effects of sex discrimination...
...The company began upgrading women after charges had been filed with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunities Commission...
...There is nothing to do in the evening in a strange town, and many women feel that bars are off limits for them...
...Some union staffers helped form NOW (National Organization of Women), but most women workers have been silent...
...and, most of all, basic economic issues...
...They looked through the yellow pages for plant listings...
...388 PATRICIA CAYO SEXTON Some unions address all routine mailings to local unions: "Dear Sir and Brother...
...In most plants they automatically get the economic benefits of the shop's collective bargaining...
...It's time we did it...
...In an office, you work side by side with people in management...
...Ford has 16,500 women or 10 percent of the total...
...Suddenly we could speak our piece without fear of being fired...
...They came with their minor skills in parliamentary bickering...
...The radical and/or homosexual women usually reject the homemaking and dependency role of women, so they are more assertive in the union and elsewhere...
...WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...who were influenced by the suffrage movement, or by socialist, union, or religious convictions...
...These local officers administer the local union...
...Women's Bureau...
...At issue ALL THIS AGITATION had little real effect...
...After all, most of the women assembled— perhaps all of them—were rather far Left of Center as measured by most political yardsticks, myself and others like me among them...
...Large numbers came from the AFSCME (State, County, and Municipal Workers), the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and the American Federation of Teachers...
...So there is less conflict among them...
...Without some substance to it, speech is only lip movement...
...Stanton was there arguing that women could not follow careers unless they won the vote and urging them to endorse women's suffrage...
...Even if you don't look so good when you get off work, you accomplish something...
...The company representatives were a little shocked when she first walked into 'bargaining sessions, she says, but they got used to it...
...Delegates came from 58 unions and every part of the country...
...While men are also competitive, they engage in many more group and collective activities with other men during their work and leisure...
...More women are farm workers (501,000) than craftsmen (360,000...
...Women workers do it...
...The exact figure is unknown...
...she asked...
...They called it "Bob's Follies...
...In 1972 there were 5.6 million children under six who had working mothers, but only 905,000 day-care slots...
...More of these jobs are open to them, and women make a higher proportion of the average male salary (69 percent) than in other occupations...
...By and large, the CLUW convention was a superb performance, a demonstration of organizational talent and •the ability to outcaucus and out-maneuver the disrupters...
...So it has been with blacks, children, and women workers...
...The biggest change among workers has been in the number of married women who work...
...To Our Contributors • When sending manuscripts, please make sure that you do not send your only copy...
...Their brief resolution on legislation began: "The major concerns of women workers which require legislation are: the economy as it relates to their livelihood...
...It happens to us all to WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...Women experience two main handicaps as bargainers, neither having to do with ability...
...A few of the more obvious are: Women workers (of the same age) are stouter than the Steinems...
...Women workers are not children...
...391 some degree, but it is more exaggerated with workers, and doubly so with women workers...
...While the older working-class women keep to traditional styles, the younger ones look and dress more like middle-class and college women...
...The civil rights movement too was born of an economy that could offer oppor ; tunity in industrial jobs (and education) to blacks...
...We counsel our own women, we carry on community action programs, and we branch out into other areas...
...It has taken a long time to get it together...
...It was almost a footnote to the law, but to women it has made all the difference...
...We rarely handbill a plant with office workers...
...The League interlocked with two other major activities of women workers: the Industrial Department of the YWCA and the college summer schools, run first at Bryn Mawr, with faculties drawn from all the fancy women's private schools—Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, Mt...
...the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America...
...Even worse, women workers will often call themselves "Jane...
...Nobody seems to care very much...
...It's pioneering...
...Most people look at me like I was crazy...
...This vast discrepancy has less to do with unequal pay for equal work, an issue that has been settled on most industrial jobs, than with upgrading, promotion, hiring, and the kinds of jobs women perform...
...Coming out of a strong union tradition also helps—or being Jewish, or black...
...Most people regarded these issues as marginal and/or divisive...
...Some popular styles are never seen on the Upper East Side these days...
...Many said "equal pay...
...Symptomatic of the problem are reports from various unions that women workers often raise "grievances" about other workers with their union representatives...
...Sometimes women can leap WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...Authority/Respect WE ARE TRAINED by home, school, and life for leadership or servility...
...Courage to speak and be judged has not been women's strong suit...
...their incapacity or unwillingness to see, to listen, to respond to what was going on...
...Then we come to the second line of the union's offense: political action...
...It would take a lot of cleaning up...
...About 600 delegates were expected when the meeting was planned a year earlier...
...Castings come to her covered with large burrs and she grinds them until they are smooth...
...manpower...
...A "gay caucus" advertised a WORKERS (FEMALE) ARISE...
...Gloria Steinem, who came to the convention, resembled nobody else there...
...Also, when unions started calling strikes, and when they became successful, the rich women (and their husbands) took a second look...
...Clara Lemlich, a -teen-age girl, asked for the floor: I am a working girl, and one of those who are on strike against intolerable conditions...
...Almost nothing we do is held against us so much as what we say, as though these weightless symbols were the voice of the heart, mind, and spirit, when often they only mask our inner qualities...
...Still, if there were a righteous God or a righteous capitalism, they would not have visited these plagues on a suffering humanity...
...Girls, you must take this matter to heart seriously now, for you have establis'hed a union, and for the first time in woman's history in the United States, you are placed, and by your own efforts, on a level with men, as far as possible, to obtain wages for your labor...
...Among the barriers to women's participation in work and unions is language...
Vol. 21 • July 1974 • No. 3
