What is the influence of women social workers in the United States labor movement?

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4129511 – What is the influence of women social workers in the United States labor movement?

The existence of a union in a workplace is often the difference between a good job and a bad one. It's the difference between a decent and a low standard of living. The existence of a union in a workplace means that you don't have to work in constant fear of your boss, and if you are disciplined or fired, there's the grievance and arbitration process. In essence, being a member of a union means you have some power in the workplace.

Unions were formed and workers continue to join unions to this day for a number of reasons: dangerous working conditions, low wages, no benefits and general abuse at the hands of the employer. As unions grew, so did the creation of laws to protect all workers, such as health and safety acts, pensions, workers' compensation, employment standards and labour relations acts. It did not matter if you worked in the public or private sector, in unionized or non-unionized workplace-all wage earners benefited from gains made by unions.

The face of the American labor movement in its heyday was that of a burly man, a trucker or assembly-line worker, joining with his brothers to fight for better wages and safety standards.

Labor's ranks have dwindled over the years as America's manufacturing base has eroded and companies have tightened reins on their employees.

While the issues of concern have not changed one bit, the face of labor is changing rapidly with the rise of the service sector economy. While the burly men are still out there walking the lines and holding the signs, more now than ever the face of labor is that of a working woman, often a mother, often a single mother, trying to make ends meet, buy a house, maybe even save a little.

Of the 13 million people in unions today, 5.6 million, or 43 percent, are women. Labor officials say the percentage of women in unions has risen steadily over the years, and will likely increase faster as the U.S economy continues its shift toward service sector industries. As a result, labor operatives are turning more to "pocketbook issues" to appeal to women, and convince them that unions hold the key to better pay, better benefits, better hours and more safe.

Currently around the world women in social work have actually changed the structure of the American labor force. Women workers are breaking new ground and rising to face new challenges, and the labor movement is no exception.

Women workers have slowly learned that their only protection is to be found in trade unions. Since 1914 there has been an amazing growth of women's memberships in unions: up to that date there were never more than 350,000 women in the unions: at the beginning of 1920 there were 1,328,000 women in the unions. The growth of trade unionism among women was due not only to the growth of unionism among men but to the entrance of women into skilled trades during the war. Many skilled women who served as substitutes for men learned for the first time the advantages of a union scale of wages. When they went back to their own trades they carried the union spirit with them.

The increase in the proportion of working women who are working or looking for work that began shortly after World War II has been one of the most significant social and economic trends in modern U.S. history. By the 1980's, there were signs that the rise was beginning to slow and, during the early 1990's, no increase in the proportion of women in the labor force (women's labor force participation rate) took place. Beginning in 1994, however, growth appears to have resumed.

The transformation of the American labor force that resulted from the largescale entrance of women has been reflected in the trade unions. The female labor force participation rate rose from 37.7 percent in 1960 to 57.9 percent in 1993. The number of organized women increased from 3.2 million in 1956 to 6.5 million in 1993, and by the latter year almost 40 percent of all union members were women, up from 19 percent in 1956.

Women employees are still less well-organized than men; the relative percentages being 13 to 18.4 percent. But this does not say much about present organizational trends. The two most rapidly growing sectors of the economy, government and services, are where most new female entrants into the labor market have been going. The three most rapidly growing unions in the AFLCIO, Food and Commercial, State County, and Service, were respectively 51, 50, and 45 percent female in 1990. The decline in the union density ratio has been much smaller for women than for men.

There is a traditional belief that women are more difficult to organize than men, despite early unionisation of some occupations that were largely female clothing workers and telephone operators, for example. This has been attributed to a number of factors: looser female attachment to the labor market, greater concern with domestic responsibilities than with jobs, less time for participation in union activities, and fear of strikes and picket line violence, among other things.

Recent studies and experience have altered this view. Data from a 1984 poll commissioned by the AFL-CIO suggest that the lower female unionization rate is due to the fact that women have had less opportunity to become acquainted with unions and to vote for them. Given the same opportunity, as many women as men vote pro-union. In white-collar occupations, and even in blue-collar trades, there is a trend in this direction. In short, when women are confronted with the same decision to make as their male counterparts under similar circumstances, they are at least as likely as men to vote Union Yes.

Another question is whether the growing feminization of the labor movement owes anything to new techniques of organization. The results of Marion Crain's recent study – based upon interviews, questionnaires, and correspondence with directors of organization and field personnel of a number of unions – throw a good deal of light on the efforts unions are making to attract women members.

Special reference is made to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the most rapidly growing organization in the AFL-CIO:

  1. Of eight organization directors interviewed, seven said that women were more receptive to unions than men, one found the two equal. Almost all female field organizers believed that women were easier to organize, or no more difficult (including the SEIU organizers), and a majority of the men agreed with them
  2. Some organizers felt that women had less experience with unions and had picked up fewer negative preconceptions about them. A special effort had to be made to tell them about union benefits, but once they had committed themselves, women were unshakeable. It was also suggested that women had more pent-up anger in the way they were treated on the job, making them more militant.
  3. The secondary wage earner status of many women was looked upon as a favorable factor. They were more willing to engage in strikes and risk income because the family had a primary wage earner
  4. All but two of the directors believed that gender was irrelevant to organizing strategy or style. The field personnel were more ambivalent. Eighty-five percent of them disagreed with the following statement: "Organizing strategies that are successful with one group of workers will be successful with all groups of workers." Half the field personnel believed that a different and sometimes unconventional style was more effective with women. Female organizers in particular found it useful to emphasize issues of more concern to women--work conflicts and workplace discrimination, for example.
  5. More women arganizers have been hired in recent years. This is difficult to do, since organizers are poorly paid, have the toughest jobs, and have a high burn-out rate. Women are also reluctant to commit themselves to irregular hours and a good deal of travelling
  6. Some organizational directors, particularly in manufacturing, were critical of their unions for unwillingness to commit sufficient funds for them to operate successfully. Figures of 2 to 4 percent of budgeted costs were cited as the norm. The unions seemed to believe that money was better spent for servicing the current membership. Those that had done best had created special entities to organize particular groups; the SEIU and the UAW were cited in this respect
  7. Apart from the SEIU, the organizational directors observed that that there was little targeting of specific enterprises. The initiative generally came from disgruntled employees
  8. There was a division of opinion on the value of issues that were primarily of interest to women--day care, comparable worth, sexual harassment, maternity leave. The term "family issues" was preferred to "women's issues." Despite some negative views, gender-specific strategies were being pursued, however they were identified
  9. Finally, the SEIU appears to have departed more than most unions from customary organizing attitudes and techniques, focusing on participation in workplace decisionmaking and other strategies that women seemed to favor
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The strategic approaches committee and the Organizing Institute were institutional devices that the AFL-CIO created to promote targeting and a more scientific approach to organization. A committee on the needs of the working family was another response to the growing importance of the female factor.

Female Membership and Leadership in Selected Large Unions, 1990

Convention resolutions have called for federal support for day care. But the AFL-CIO has tended to steer clear of such controversial issues as abortion and the achievment of pay equity through job evaluation. As far as union leadership is concerned, there is still a ...

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