September 1, 2017 • 45 mins
Women are poised to make up the majority of union members by 2020. This Labor Day, E&B look back at the history of women in the US labor movement as well as women’s significance in labor’s future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily, and this is and you're listening
to stuff Mom never told you. Today, in honor of
Labor Day, we wanted to take a look back at
(00:25):
the history of the labor movement here, especially in the
United States, as it relates to women. And what I
have loved learning in preparation for today's episode is that
women are not only a huge part of where the
labor organizing movement is headed in the United States, but
also an instrumental part of labor's past. And so I'm
(00:48):
really excited bridget to talk this through with you, Um,
because I know you've at one point mentioned that you
were a part of a union yourself, right I was, Um,
I was a part of a labor union for freelancers
called the Freelancers Union. Shout out to them instrumental during
my time as a freelancer. I don't think I would
have been able to navigate getting things like healthcare if
(01:10):
not for them. So shout out to the Freelancers Union. Awesome.
And I think it's important. You know, we talk a
lot on this show about career stuff and and work
relations today and just how fraught companies and employee employer
relationships can really be today, especially when we were talking
through things like the gig economy and its impact on
(01:31):
gender equality issues like equal pay. The list goes on
and around Labor Day every September. It's important to not
forget just how significant the movement for workers rights has
been in setting the standard for what we deem essential
and expected for basic human rights of working class people
(01:55):
and working people. That's so true. I think it's easy
to think of Labor Day as that holiday that marks
when your kids have to go back to school, or
there's gonna be a big sale on tires, so By
Tires or whatever, um. But really Labor Day highlights these
things that we think of as integral parts of how
we work as Americans, things that we we love and
(02:16):
that we don't want taken away. And so it's really
important to highlight how important these things have been. I'm
talking about things like the five day work week and weekends.
Who doesn't enjoy a good weekend? Um. I know not
everybody has the luxury of having weekends, particularly if you
are a service job where you don't get Saturdays and
Sundays off as a given. Maybe you get Tuesdays and
Thursday's off, or something like that UM the eight hour
(02:39):
work day. You know this idea of eight hours of work,
eight hours of sleep, eight hours of what you will,
um this idea that you don't just have to work
yourself to death and that's okay. UM. Safe for working conditions,
making sure that you're not going into a workplace that's
unsafe or going to get you hurt or killed. In fact,
one of the practices that I was horrified to find
out is that used to be normal and back in
(03:02):
the Industrial Revolution era when we were packing people into factories,
was in order to keep employer employees from taking too
many unsanctioned, non sanctioned breaks, they would lock the doors
and lock workers into the factory. And that changed after
a factory fire combined with those locked doors led to
(03:26):
a situation of complete and total horror and a tragic situation.
That was the impetus for UH the labor organizers there
to demand safer and fairer working conditions that didn't put
workers lives at risk. So really, these are basic rights, UH,
to be able to know that you're going to go
to work and be safe and be protected as a
(03:49):
worker who is a human being and deserves to have
that freedom and have that safety as a basic expectation.
And these things were hard funt people lost their lives
fighting for these protections, and it's so important to lift
that up and really protect them and make sure that
we honor the fact that our fore mothers and forefathers
they fought for this stuff, and it's important to make
(04:10):
noise that we keep it and that we protect it exactly.
And things that we take for granted now like minimum
wage laws or child labor laws not being a thing.
We can't have six year olds changing fimbles and our
factories anymore. That's all thanks to the labor movement. So
regardless of of what you feel about labor unions, which
(04:31):
I think of the labor movement and labor unions, sometimes
there's two different things or one that fits into the other.
Um these are these are protections for working people that
companies and corporations were not going to volunteer. Okay, these
were hard fought battles. So in starting this conversation and
(04:51):
thinking about how those battles were really one, let's take
it back. I'd like to go back to the beginning
of early early women who stood out out in the
earliest part of labor organizing here in the United States.
You know, the roots of women's involvement in the labor
movement were formed during the reconstruction era following the Civil War.
(05:13):
So it was really during that era when people were
moving to cities because of the Industrial Revolution and innovations
that were creating specialized workforces. Uh where you know, women's
work really did move out of the private sector into
the public sphere for the first time in a large way.
(05:33):
And again we're not talking about the Betty Drapers of
the world. We're not talking about the sort of middle
class housewife, the white middle class housewife who was still
on the whole being a full time homemaker. But really
there were a lot of working class people, women and
women of color, who made up eighteen percent of the
(05:55):
non agricultural workforce as of nineteen hundred. So is not
but it's still that's a significant amount of women. That's
a good chunk. And I also think it's important to
note that we're talking about work like seamstresses and working
in textile mills and laundry, still work that's considered sort
of segregated from men's work, but driving into the workforce
(06:16):
in these um in these kinds of ways. Exactly. So,
even though they were working to create the same kind
of end products, women's work was still very segregated from
the men who were doing the more industrial type machine
ing and riveting, you know, all the sort of metal
work and things were very much more dominated by men
(06:36):
at the time. Still. Um So back in eighteen sixty nine,
that's when the first national women's labor union was formed
in the United States, and it originated in Lynn, Massachusetts.
So shout out to what is that the Bay State? Yeah,
(06:59):
so in mass its us its um, that's where women
came together to form the first national women's labor union,
known as the Daughters of St. Crispin, which was actually
a spinoff of the Knights of St. Crispin, which I
find very interesting talk about internalized patriarchy and benevolent sexism.
(07:19):
They had to classify themselves as daughters daughter warranting of
protection because wouldn't what's the what's the female word for night?
I don't know. I'm pretty sure John of Arc was
a night. Yeah. Side note, that's interesting how gendered the
our language is, where you know, daughters versus knights. You know,
what's the female version of this or that. It's interesting
how it's not just an ungendered thing. Even in the
(07:42):
name of their union. It sort of goes back to
highlighting their status as women. Well, and it's one is
much more patronizing, definitely fantalizing than the other. I mean,
would you rather be a daughter or a knight? Right? Exactly?
Maybe some nights are somebody's daughters too, but that's a
whole other thing. So I I just wanted to highlight
that because I thought it was significant. But Daughters of St.
(08:03):
Crispin were a spinoff of the Knights of St. Crispin Um,
which was a cobbler's union. So these were shoemakers that
we're talking way early. This is even really pre pre industrial.
And both of those unions were named in honor of
the patron Saint of cobblers Um. And what's interesting here
is that this is the first national women's labor union,
(08:26):
which they had to create separately because the men weren't
exactly welcoming women into their union. Uh, And they what
was their first battle? What was their first battle? And
we still seem to be talking about today equal pay.
It's absurd to me that as women we are still
fighting this battle that are our grandmothers and our grandmother's
(08:47):
grandmother's fought for equal pay for their for equal work,
and here we are in seventeen still fighting for it.
So Um, the Daughters of St. Crispin, they sought the
same equal pay as their male counterparts, staging successful protests
in eighteen Sick Sea and later again in eighteen seventy two.
The group dismantled in eighteen seventy three, and many of
them ended up combining with the informing the Nights of Labor,
(09:09):
which basically brought the Male Labor Union and the Female
Labor Union together. This was the first union that was
formed to really activate and engage women in particular in
the United States. So you know, this is some This
is a battle. Equal pay is something we've been fighting
now for allowing time since eighteen sixty nine, and with
(09:29):
mixed success, they were successful, which is great to hear, Um.
But there was also one woman's story that really stood
out to me that I want to dive deep into
for a second. Here in this industrial age, in this
Civil War construction era, as all of these huge changes
are sweeping the nation, and as you might recall from
(09:53):
our history books in high school or middle school. This
is also during the era of monopolies forming for the
US big time in a huge way and setting us
up for the Great Depression. So in the early nine hundreds,
with all of these sweeping economic socio economic changes happening
in the labor force, one woman's story really stood out
(10:14):
to me who became very much active and engaged and
involved in the labor movement and later in the socialist
um movement in the United States. And that woman is
named Lucy Parsons. Now, Lucy Parsons is not the kind
of person you picture when you think of labor union organizer,
(10:36):
which still today has a very masculine, older white dude reputation.
If if am I alone in that, I would say
definitely masculine. Even even the non white figures you think
of as integral to the labor movement are mostly men
women that you think of, even even if they're these
like total badasses, Allah, Lucy Parsons, don't you don't see
(10:59):
them on T shirts, on posters and things like when
this woman needs to be on a T shirt. So
I'm going, yeah, get get your losy Persons Organizer T
shirt ready, because this woman was born in Texas, and
there's a little bit of historical controversy over her heritage.
Some people say that she was definitely born the daughter
(11:22):
of slaves in the Deep South. UM. She in many
ways denied her African American heritage throughout the course of
her life UM, potentially for reasons related to wanting to
avoid over racism and discrimination UM, and instead identified more
prominently with her Native American heritage and Mexican ancestry. So,
(11:47):
like many of us in the United States, she has
a very diverse heritage that she draws upon throughout the years.
She actually used different surnames, different last names to sort
of shield her identity, play up different parts for ancestry.
But she ended up marrying a white dude from Texas,
didn't she be? She did, and so it's important to
note that their marriage was illegal since he was white. UM.
(12:10):
They had to flee to Chicago to avoid Jim Crow
air persecution. Albert sounds like a real badass himself. He
wrote for the Chicago Times during the Great Depression and
was part of the socialist and anarchist ideology coming to
the USA. UM. But side note, uh Lucy was actually
considered to be more quote unquote dangerous than her husband
because she was a woman exactly. So Albert and Lucy
(12:34):
Parsons created quite a name for themselves upon arrival in Chicago.
Now this is at peak Great Depression times, so the
fact that Albert had a job writing for the newspaper,
the Chicago Times, um was sort of a godsend in
a lot of ways. So the fact that he ended
up losing his job and being blacklisted from being involved
(12:55):
in any journalistic practices later on because of his radical
political organizing goes to show you just how important these
fights were to Lucy and Albert because they were willing
to risk losing their livelihood in the Great Depression to
stand up for what they thought was wrong, which is
(13:16):
how working people were being treated. So this all came
to a head, uh during a nationwide strike that took
place related to the iron workers on the Baltimore, Ohio
rail line. So national Railroads, Um, we're trying to reduce
wages and basically just cut wages for workers for no
(13:38):
other reason other than they could, and um, it was
the Great Depression, so they could take advantage of that, uh,
And they weren't. And labor organizers like Lucy and Albert
weren't having it, so they joined the strike. They joined
the sort of labor organizers as it all came to
a head in Chicago, and Albert Parsons ended up addressing
(14:01):
crowds of something like twenty five thousand people who were
there present during riots and picket lines and striking against
the Baltimore Ohio railroads. And this is really what put
Albert Parsons at the forefront of what was deemed the
anarchist movement in Chicago. I love that, um. I also
(14:24):
love how this trajectory really put Lucy at the forefront
of these movements too. After her husband was fired, she
opened a dress shop to support her family, and together
with her friend Lizzie Swank, began hosting meetings for the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and she sort of became
became more and more involved in this union. She started
writing for the Socialist The Alarm. These are these great
(14:46):
anarchist publications, so was clearly sort of getting more more
and more entrenched in all of this socialist anarchist ideology.
Allah myself back when I was this is a hard
course she was really. I just I feel like I'm
channeling her in a kind of way, because starting to
write for these sort of like super lefty publications and
getting involved in hosting meetings, that is so what you
(15:09):
think of when you think of someone becoming sort of
activated in their in their political ideology. Definitely, I mean,
and she was no doubt a radical. They both were.
And basically when she started writing, Lucy Parsons was advocating
and making the case that only violent direct action or
threat of such action would win the demands of workers.
(15:33):
So she was, you know, it could be said that
she was inciting violence, and that's part of the reason
why the police force, who at the time were um
really freaking out about the influence of socialism in the
United States and really freaking out over how to manage
mass worker strikes that were occurring as a result of
(15:53):
the Great Depression and as a result of these monopolies
trying to uh squeeze every last time out of their
profit margins that they could. Um. She was freaking out
the police force because she was not just a woman
who refused to you know, stay stay in the kitchen
at home with intent to her children. But she was
writing these radical, sometimes like violent proclamations of workers uprising
(16:20):
in the newspaper. What I think is so fascinating about
that that aspect of her life is I think that
we think of people who advocate for social change, we
think of them when we think of them advocating for
non violence and peaceful resistance. They sort of get this
elevated status, but we forget that a lot of women
in history were the ones advocating for arming yourself, for
(16:40):
violent revolution, for threats of violence, if it called for that.
I'm not saying that violence is a good thing right,
that we should be advocating for that, or you know,
I think it's important to note that we think of
men as the ones who were driving, you know, calls
for violence and armed resistance, when in fact, in history
a lot of women have done the same. Yeah, but
it doesn't they're like no space in our brains to
(17:01):
hang that, you know what I mean, Like, there's it's
so bucks the norm of what we've been taught to
think of women as that. It's I think it's hard
to reconcile, like where in our historical collective memory we
can put women like Lucy Parsons, Like where did like
she just so doesn't align with everything we expect from women,
and especially in her time, we think of women as peaceful,
(17:23):
non violent peacemakers finding a way through without sort of
ruffling up too many feathers. But that could not be
further from the actual historical reality that women faced. True,
And when you're watching, you know, mass starvation hit the nation,
when you're watching something like the Great Depression take hold,
and companies are still using six year old kids to
(17:45):
change the bobbins in their huge machines, and people are
dying because they were locked into the factory that caught
on fire because God forbid they should take a break.
You know, it's it's I can understand where violent revolution
would become a tactic because it's not like there wasn't
blood on the hands of corporations. That's really what these
(18:06):
folks were thinking at the time, And I completely understand that.
And it all it all got more violent, didn't it.
So it got it got so much more violent. I
completely agree. I think that I'm not someone who was
who thinks violence is never the answer. I understand where
where these where the sentiments come from. So this did
get more violent. So as things in Chicago hit a
(18:27):
boiling point following the Baltimore, Ohio Railroad General Strike. Um,
you know, this was really all about worker protections as
it came to eight hour work days and maintaining the
current wages that they were at. So they were asking
for that was the critical demand here, the eight hour
work day and standing up for wages that they had
(18:48):
been historically paid. And this is when what's known as
the Haymarket Uprising occurred, which was originally a peaceful, non
violent gathering that even included the Mayor of Chicago as
being present, when basically workers after striking had come to
Haymarket Square to gather peacefully, right to demonstrate peacefully, and
(19:13):
after the mayor left the square, the police didn't keep
that nonviolent action up and they say that there was
a bomb hurled their way. So the police maintained that
there was a bomb someone in the crowd hurled at
the police, but nobody knows to this day who exactly
did it. And that's when things really got out of control.
(19:35):
The police thought this happened, that things really got violent.
The police went on raids looking for any and all
anarchists and this, unfortunately is where Lucy Parson's husband Um
lost his life. Yeah, so he was brought in with
five other known anarchists and and labor organizers UH and
given what was deemed a really unfair trial UM that
(19:57):
resulted in five of them being victed as guilty for
inciting violence. Three of them ended up being hanged, including
Albert parsons Um. Two went on to have serving long
jail sentences, and actually three of them never made it
to their death sentence because one of them killed themselves.
(20:17):
That's so sad, I know. And what's worse is that
on her way to see her husband Albert for the
last time, Lucy had her children in tow because they
had kids and they she was bringing them to see
their father one last time before he was going to
be hanged, and she was identified and she had long
(20:40):
been UH stalked basically and monitored by the police because
of her connections to Albert, and so when she showed
up to wish her hasband a final farewell, the police
arrested her and detained her, stripped her down, and left
her in a jail cell naked with her children until
after the hanging was her so she didn't even get
(21:00):
a chance to say goodbye. That's so horrible to me
because It's like a final way of dehumanizing her and
robbing her of her humanity. Not enough that her husband
is being killed, It's not enough that all of this
is happening. They have to deny her that final last
thing that all humans would want us to say goodbye
to their loved one. Right. It was a total power
(21:21):
move and it just goes to show you how ugly
the labor movement fights have been historically. These are not fights,
I mean fighting for an eight hour work days what
led to all of this violence. So just knowing that
this is where some of our basic rights around workers
rights in the United States come from give gives me
(21:42):
a lot of pause. And then knowing beyond that people
like Lucy Parsons, of which there are many, by the way,
there are many incredible women in the labor early labor
movement history books that just do not get talked about enough.
But Lucy went on for decades more as a speaker
as a writer. She became more involved in the socialist
movement in the United States and in the um Socialist
(22:06):
Party in the United States. I mean she went on
to continue to speak around issues relating to workers rights
and freedom of the press well into her eighties. So
she made this her life's work, and you know it
cost her a lot along the way. And again, I
think for me, when you I think back to our
episode around the gig economy, when you think about how
(22:27):
important and weighty and bloody and lethal these fights were,
the fact that in we don't cherish the eight hour
work day, we don't cherish what Lucy Parsons fault for.
We're fine with maybe eroding that a little bit and
sort of not we don't. We don't think of it
as precious and people lost their lives for it, and
(22:48):
we're being sold to us like it's being sold as
a as a gift or as a positive thing that
you what is that poster from five It was like
you eat coffee for breakfast, you never sleep, you know,
you always follow up on your follow up. Like that
kind of culture of overwork is now being repackaged as
a privilege. You're going to die behind the desk, Isn't
that great? I think you're so about that, Bridget, and
(23:11):
I think it's diver us to take a quick break.
Sound good? And when we come back, let's talk about
a couple of notable women in the labor movement in
more recent history. We'll be right back after a quick
word from our sponsors, and we're back, and we are
(23:35):
talking about women in the labor movement, especially here in
the United States. And I want to zoom forward a
little bit further now into the post World War two era,
because there were also a lot of women we would
love to talk about in terms of the more modern era.
So post World War Two, what was going on in
(23:56):
terms of women in the work for US? Post World
War Two, everything kind of change. Rosie the Riveter, A
lot of women who entered the workforce and droves the
first time. They weren't going back. There was no going
back to the way things were before, and they were
here to stay. And we talked earlier about how a
lot of these women were joining sort of female dominated
workplaces that were still segregated from what you might think
of as traditionally male spaces. But now those same women
(24:19):
weren't joining what you might think of us traditionally male workspaces,
things like operating machinery, um being mechanics, etcetera. And so
women were really joining these fields a lot. And Rosie
the Riveter is that famous sort of female archetype of
we can do it right with the mechanics shirt rolled up,
(24:40):
showing off her bicep, with that sort of hair tied
up in a bandanna. And what she really represented was
how patriotic it was for women to fill in and
contribute to the war effort through their labor outside of
the home. And so this is when the sort of
revolution of not just working class women but also um,
(25:04):
the Betty Drapers of the world starting to get more
into the workforce outside of the homes. This is really
you know, it's you Once. Once that happened, it was
impossible for that to be undone, right, it just became
part of the culture. And really shout out to Rosie
the Riveter for launching a million easy feminist Halloween costumes
(25:26):
still true today, that's true. Have you ever been a
Rosie the River I have? Yeah, it's an easy How
many of y'all were, if you were tagg Us and
some photos, I'm sure a lot of y'all were. I'd
love to see that on our Instagram. Um, but Rosie
was a fictional character, right, so she was she was
sort of a she was a symbol, an icon for
(25:46):
women entering the workforce. Like you said, into those otherwise
traditionally male spaces, and what that meant was, like the
unions that had been present for those male spaces, women
were also a ring sort of industries that had more
labor organizing, and during this time women became much more
(26:07):
involved in the labor rights movement. One of those women
who we'd like to once again sort of zoom in
on Um was heavily involved when it came to the
National farm Workers Association. Right by his side throughout the
entire uh founding of the National farm Workers Association was
(26:30):
Dolores Guerta, and she ended up becoming in nineteen the
first female leader of the United farm Workers, who combined
forces to launch a very successful national boycott of California grapes.
Because the workers, the farm workers who were um really
(26:51):
picking grapes in California and who were the labor force
behind the entire California grape industry, we're not being paid
what was equivalent to the national minimum wage. So that
was their basic demand, and Dolora Suerta was a huge
part of the massive strike that she really started and
(27:12):
led with, saysar Travis. Something that I love about her
story is that we really even today base a lot
of what you know about labor organizing and political organizing
in general from the United farm Workers UM. Today. A
lot of organizers go through training at Harvard University with
Marshall Gans. Shout out to him, did you go through
that training? It was in that fellowship him talk about it. Yes, yeah,
(27:33):
well he talks about it because he actually was a
Harvard dropout, Marshal Gans who went to join Star Traves
and Delora Suerta during the strike movement, and they were
so successful because they were able to actually engage the public.
So they were able to take UH an issue related
to paying farm workers a basic living wage, which is
(27:55):
already on the books right. This was like the minimum
wage had already been established, but they were being being
skirted that basic human right or that basic workers right
UM through a few different loopholes. And what Marshall Gangs
always points to is the tactics that they engaged actually
made it very easy for the average American consumer to
understand how they can make a difference. And that's one
(28:17):
of the basic lessons of organizing is tell me what
I can do and why it's significant. So people started
boycotting nationwide, the buying of California grapes in the grocery store.
That's so incredible because it really underscores the importance of
storytelling and making people see what's at stake, making them
feel it and see it and understand it in their bones.
(28:38):
Not just throwing a bunch of facts and figures about
why they shouldn't do this or why they shouldn't do that,
but really illustrating, um, why, like what's at stake here
and how they're a part of it. And I just
think it's so important to note that this is people
are still benefiting from that in the political organizing space today.
So this isn't just fights of yesteryear that it's good
to talk about. If you are an organizer coming up
(29:00):
right now in you are problem and you're doing it right,
you have probably been, um, you know, been a student
of this. This theory of organizing people power and change.
That's the name of the course that I took with Marshall,
and it was pretty profound, and it so reminds me
of a lot of the things we talked about here,
which is knowing where your dollars are going right, knowing
(29:22):
the implication of what your dollars are going to support
and how you as a consumer can have an impact.
And the grape strike in the nineteen sixties really made
it clear how the average American consumer can stand up
for workers rights and stand up for their principles and
stand up for the minimum wage through buying or not
buying table grapes. And if Yeah, it's interesting that you
(29:44):
bring that up in that framing, because we were just
talking off air about how the same way a lot
of folks that you want to be like a good shopper,
you maybe don't shop at Walmart because they, you know,
fund all this bad stuff and it's bad for your community.
The same way that that is happening now that was
happening then with grapes. So it was people didn't buy
table grapes because they didn't want to go to support
(30:04):
awful things exactly. And this actually has a really happy
ending to it too, because Dolora Sweart that ended up
negotiating a contract between the United farm Workers Organizing Committee
and the Shenley Schlenley It's kind of hard to pronounce,
but Slenley Wine Company, uh, making it the first time
(30:25):
that workers successfully bargained with an agricultural enterprise. So These
are workers who have historically been abused. Right. These are
workers who aren't always documented, who don't always have um
irreplaceable skills. Right. These are workers who are really used
and abused. And they did, in fact bus in workers
(30:46):
from across national boundaries during the strike when the American
farm workers were not you know, picking grape. So there
were lots of tactics that were leving on both sides
of this fight. So the fact that Dolora Swearter was
able to successfully negotiate a contract and come to an
agreement and and have that victory for working people on
on her record, and thanks to her hard work and
(31:08):
the organizing work up so many others, UM was a
huge deal for workers in the fields across the country.
So another thing I love about Huerta, who I could
talk about all day, is that even now, as a
woman in her eighties, she's not retreated, she's not shut
up about this kind of stuff. She still continues to
be a badass civil rights and labor and immigrant activist today,
(31:31):
well in her eighties. UM. I was lucky enough to
meet her during my time on the Clinton campaign this
past year. I've seen her speak and she's amazing and
again she's just as fierce as she probably was in
her in her youth. She still speaks with such a
I mean, I have chills even just thinking about it.
She still speaks with such intense fervor, and she makes
(31:53):
you feel like she's speaking just to you. She makes
it so clear what's at stake. The way that she
frames these story raising these fights, it makes the hair
in the back of your next stand up. She's amazing, amazing.
I love it, and I love to hear how the
women of the labor movement whose stories we've really delved
into today have long careers of fighting on half of
(32:14):
working people. And I know we we could go on
for forever because there are so many great women in
the labor movement. But one other woman who you just
reminded me of, who is still fighting hard on the
half of what she believes in, is a little Supreme
card Justice y'all might know as the Notorious r b J.
Notorious and Ruth Vader Ginsburgh, as it turns out, has
(32:39):
we We could do a whole episode on her, and
we probably Should's something we should do, um, But she
can't be glossed over in thinking through the women of
the labor movement here in the US because she founded
the Women's Rights Project, a project of the a c
l U that was focused specifically on fight getting discrimination
(33:01):
towards women, and that's still alive and kicking today. Yeah,
that's still alive today. It's still a pretty active project
of the a C l U. And I mean I
was looking at the different kinds of fights they have
been involved in at a legislative at a legal level.
It's massive. So definitely, if you're if you're interested in that,
this could be a whole episode of the various fights
and legal challenges that that project that she started have
(33:23):
done to stick up for women, women employees. So let's
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about women today and how we are
shaping the future of the American labor movement. We'll be
right back, and we are back, and let's talk a
(33:48):
little bit now about how women and labor are looking
ahead to the future. So to bring this whole conversation
into the modern day, it has to be noted that
as of two thousand fourteen, according to the Wall Street Journal,
UH union membership represented only eleven point one percent of
(34:08):
the workforce, which was down from twenty point one percent
in three And so when we think about the average
American union member, that sort of demographic is starting to
shift as the population of American work workers who are
represented by a union shifts as well. Totally. So, even
(34:30):
as men's union membership is falling, steeply of labor is women.
And if these projections continue, you will have a majority
female labor movement pretty soon. Um. According to the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, they predict that women will
be the majority of unionized workers. So really, women women
of color are are sort of the growing demographic of
(34:50):
folks who have union representation. But just because the percentage
of women making up the population of unionized workers is increased, ing,
don't let the data confuse you, because it's actually not
the number of union members that skyrocketing. Rather because labor
unions are representing a smaller and smaller proportion of the
(35:10):
overall American workforce and men are happen to be dropping
out of labor unions at higher rates. Women's percentage is increasing,
but not necessarily the sheer numbers. So in just to
give you sort of a perspective on this, nearly a
quarter of working men were represented by unions, now just
twelve point eight percent of them are, according to the
(35:31):
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the same time period, the
percentage of women represented by unions also fell to eleven
point seven percent from only fifteen point nine percent. But
there is one huge, notable exception to this, which is nurses.
The union, the National Nurses United, really stands out in
(35:51):
its expansion. It's the largest union of nurses in the
United States, and really they are this huge force to
be reckoned with in labor. Um. It's run almost entirely
by women and has a largely female membership, is added
twenty members since two thousand and nine and expects to
grow as the healthcare field continues to grow. Um the
Economist has called nurses quote the new auto workers because
(36:12):
of their growing strength and willingness to fight cuts. UM.
I don't know if any of you guys have nurses
in your families, or maybe you're a nurse yourself, but
I always thought that nurses like you do not mess
with nurses, and I think you see that in the
personality of nurses. I think and you also see that
in these fights. This Nurses Union is this massive massive
force of political power. Um, they are not a union
(36:35):
that you want to tangle with. There are so many nurses,
and nurses, unlike other professions, aren't so easily replaced. If
you're a nurse, you have training, you have schooling, you
have a real specialized field. And so I think these
are people who are largely female identified, who know that
they are not easily replaceable, and they are more than
happy to roll up their sleeves and and engage in
(36:57):
these really amazing fights. Definitely, and wall public employee unions
in states across the country like Michigan and Wisconsin, the's
right to work states have been decimated by laws that
are restricting their collective bargaining rights. The nurses were pushing
bills in the California state House that eventually became law.
(37:17):
So meanwhile, the auto workers were agreeing to have some
of their members pay cut in half. When it came
to fighting Arnold Schwarzeneger when he was the governator in California. Um,
you know, Schwartzeneger was pushing to cut patient to staff
ratios and the National Nurses United fought back and he
(37:41):
eventually dropped it. So they beat, you know, a fight
a basic wage and labor fight with the governator and one.
I love that, and I think that their their power
and their presence. It's kind of proof that unions may
not be on the way out. They might just look
a little different than what we're used to when I
love at nurses are at the forefront of this fight
(38:01):
because they really are talking about issues that we all
should care about, which is our health right now, this
needing is at the forefront of the fight for single
payer healthcare in California, and I just love seeing them
continuing to get into these amazing fights. Yeah, and it's
also interesting to hear from the leadership because the end
in you is pretty hardcore in their tactics. And when
(38:24):
hearing straight from their leadership, what um, what they sort
of turned to when talking about why it's easier for
them to go to the mat and fight really hard
is that they're not out for their own pay right,
They're not necessarily fighting for better pensions or wages. They're
out for their own personal safety while on the job
(38:46):
and the safety of their patients. Right. Because if you
go into a hospital, even if you're not a nurse,
even if you don't care about labor you don't want
your nurse to have a zillion other patients that she
has to worry about and be frazzled. Your health care
is on the line, and exact, really being able to
tell that story, just like you were telling talking about before,
really being able to sell why that's a story that
you should care about and be invested in, is a
(39:08):
great way to do it totally. And I think that tactic,
the use of effective storytelling and impact making clear like
what the impact is for workers rights, is such a
thread that we've seen continue from successful labor fights all
the way back in the Industrial Revolution through today. But
one of the things that you mentioned briefly earlier, which
(39:30):
it really stood out to me, which is the tactics
are changing. Some of the ways in which labor fights
are being waged don't quite look the same anymore. And
that can be said about strikes. A general strike like
the one that led to the haymarket uprising is not
exactly viable today. I don't think of the American workforce
is as willing to strike and pick it as we
(39:54):
might have used to have been. And instead, where the
rise of unions and strikes might be on the decline,
we have seen in very successfully executed labor disputes across
the country that workers are forming instead smaller work site
(40:14):
committees that basically used the expansive powers of the National
Labor Relations Board. Thank you FDR who set that up
during his administration to form these committees that really pushed
for singular issues. So there were workers in New Mexico
UH in Santa Fe in particular, that had a specific
(40:37):
UH issue around mandatory five am work meetings that were
held weekly, but nobody was being compensated for them. The
fact that they were asked to be in at the
office at the I think it was a car wash
at their car wash at nine am, but weren't allowed
to clock in until eleven am. Like they were basically
being underpaid and just totally not compensated for their time.
(40:59):
Elite Gale. If if one person, if one worker had protested,
if one worker had tried to fight on his or
her behalf against the employer, they could have easily been
fired and would have had less collective bargaining ability. But
instead they formed a small committee. They got in touch
with a local organizing group and they wrote a letter
(41:24):
as a small work site committee and because they did
that as a collective. When they were all fired for
doing that, they were able to go to the l
r B and take that employer to court. That employer
ended up having to pay them back wages and hire
them all back. Yes, and that's happened in lots of
different work sites throughout Santa Fe because it's spread like wildfire.
(41:47):
It's this small example of using collective bargaining even if
you're not in a union. You can still use the
expanse of powers of the National Labor Relations Board to
basically form work site committees and use collective bargaining tactics
even if you're not in what would look like as
a measurable traditional labor movement. What's fascinating is that you
(42:08):
actually find people doing that exact same thing, but they're
doing it online. There's an amazing website called coworker dot
org where folks who maybe don't have traditional union representation
can really band together and advocate for a specific cause.
And right now you're really seeing that with Starbucks employees.
So Starbucks employees are not unionized, but coworker dot org
(42:28):
has been at the forefront of getting different Starbucks employees
and baristas to advocate for for changes in their work situation.
And right now there is a hugely successful campaign where
a growing number of baristas are speaking out about the
lack of company morale and chronic understaffing at Starbucks and
things like having to make specialty drinks and the increased
use of mobile ordering, where they're saying, hey, we're not
(42:50):
able to give customers this relaxing coffee experience that you
want us to provide because you're not setting us up
for success in terms of staffing. And so if you
go to coworker dot org, they have a petition from
a barista, Jamie Pratt or that now has eighteen thousand,
sixty five signatures trying to get Starbucks to change their
staffing situation. So I just love this idea of labor
(43:14):
organized labor and this kind of bargaining maybe just looking
a little bit different than maybe it did during where
this day, yes, and women are still at the forefront
of it. Yes. So keeping in mind that if you
are feeling like you have grievance in your workplace, know
that there are ways to band together to fight back,
(43:36):
to channel your inner parsons or where at that, and
you know, continue the legacy of being outspoken women who
are standing up for working people. I think we need
that now more than ever. Uh, in an environment where
the traditional infrastructure of the labor movement might not cut
it anymore, might not be doing what we needed to do. So,
(43:57):
whether it's coworker dot org or forming us work site committee,
or just knowing your rights and talking to the folks
um who can help you band together and collectively bargain
or collectively organize, I think it's important for us to
continue to rise up and now that we have the
power to do so as workers of the world. I'm
about to start singing Hamilton's right now. I love it well.
(44:21):
I want to hear from our listeners, sminty listeners, tell
us what you think about today's conversation. Tell us what
are the women in the labor movement that really spoke
to you the most. What other great women's stories should
we dive deeper on. Because we know that women have
played an instrumental role in labor movements here in the
United States and of course in labor movements abroad as well.
(44:44):
We can't wait to hear what you have to say,
so send us a tweet at mom Stuff podcast tag
us on your Rosie the Riveter or Halloween costume or
anything else you want to share on Instagram at stuff
Mom Never Told You, And as always, we'd love to
have your thoughts and feedback in our inbox at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com m
Hey, this is Emily, and this is and you're listening
to stuff Mom never told you. Today, in honor of
Labor Day, we wanted to take a look back at
(00:25):
the history of the labor movement here, especially in the
United States, as it relates to women. And what I
have loved learning in preparation for today's episode is that
women are not only a huge part of where the
labor organizing movement is headed in the United States, but
also an instrumental part of labor's past. And so I'm
(00:48):
really excited bridget to talk this through with you, Um,
because I know you've at one point mentioned that you
were a part of a union yourself, right I was, Um,
I was a part of a labor union for freelancers
called the Freelancers Union. Shout out to them instrumental during
my time as a freelancer. I don't think I would
have been able to navigate getting things like healthcare if
(01:10):
not for them. So shout out to the Freelancers Union. Awesome.
And I think it's important. You know, we talk a
lot on this show about career stuff and and work
relations today and just how fraught companies and employee employer
relationships can really be today, especially when we were talking
through things like the gig economy and its impact on
(01:31):
gender equality issues like equal pay. The list goes on
and around Labor Day every September. It's important to not
forget just how significant the movement for workers rights has
been in setting the standard for what we deem essential
and expected for basic human rights of working class people
(01:55):
and working people. That's so true. I think it's easy
to think of Labor Day as that holiday that marks
when your kids have to go back to school, or
there's gonna be a big sale on tires, so By
Tires or whatever, um. But really Labor Day highlights these
things that we think of as integral parts of how
we work as Americans, things that we we love and
(02:16):
that we don't want taken away. And so it's really
important to highlight how important these things have been. I'm
talking about things like the five day work week and weekends.
Who doesn't enjoy a good weekend? Um. I know not
everybody has the luxury of having weekends, particularly if you
are a service job where you don't get Saturdays and
Sundays off as a given. Maybe you get Tuesdays and
Thursday's off, or something like that UM the eight hour
(02:39):
work day. You know this idea of eight hours of work,
eight hours of sleep, eight hours of what you will,
um this idea that you don't just have to work
yourself to death and that's okay. UM. Safe for working conditions,
making sure that you're not going into a workplace that's
unsafe or going to get you hurt or killed. In fact,
one of the practices that I was horrified to find
out is that used to be normal and back in
(03:02):
the Industrial Revolution era when we were packing people into factories,
was in order to keep employer employees from taking too
many unsanctioned, non sanctioned breaks, they would lock the doors
and lock workers into the factory. And that changed after
a factory fire combined with those locked doors led to
(03:26):
a situation of complete and total horror and a tragic situation.
That was the impetus for UH the labor organizers there
to demand safer and fairer working conditions that didn't put
workers lives at risk. So really, these are basic rights, UH,
to be able to know that you're going to go
to work and be safe and be protected as a
(03:49):
worker who is a human being and deserves to have
that freedom and have that safety as a basic expectation.
And these things were hard funt people lost their lives
fighting for these protections, and it's so important to lift
that up and really protect them and make sure that
we honor the fact that our fore mothers and forefathers
they fought for this stuff, and it's important to make
(04:10):
noise that we keep it and that we protect it exactly.
And things that we take for granted now like minimum
wage laws or child labor laws not being a thing.
We can't have six year olds changing fimbles and our
factories anymore. That's all thanks to the labor movement. So
regardless of of what you feel about labor unions, which
(04:31):
I think of the labor movement and labor unions, sometimes
there's two different things or one that fits into the other.
Um these are these are protections for working people that
companies and corporations were not going to volunteer. Okay, these
were hard fought battles. So in starting this conversation and
(04:51):
thinking about how those battles were really one, let's take
it back. I'd like to go back to the beginning
of early early women who stood out out in the
earliest part of labor organizing here in the United States.
You know, the roots of women's involvement in the labor
movement were formed during the reconstruction era following the Civil War.
(05:13):
So it was really during that era when people were
moving to cities because of the Industrial Revolution and innovations
that were creating specialized workforces. Uh where you know, women's
work really did move out of the private sector into
the public sphere for the first time in a large way.
(05:33):
And again we're not talking about the Betty Drapers of
the world. We're not talking about the sort of middle
class housewife, the white middle class housewife who was still
on the whole being a full time homemaker. But really
there were a lot of working class people, women and
women of color, who made up eighteen percent of the
(05:55):
non agricultural workforce as of nineteen hundred. So is not
but it's still that's a significant amount of women. That's
a good chunk. And I also think it's important to
note that we're talking about work like seamstresses and working
in textile mills and laundry, still work that's considered sort
of segregated from men's work, but driving into the workforce
(06:16):
in these um in these kinds of ways. Exactly. So,
even though they were working to create the same kind
of end products, women's work was still very segregated from
the men who were doing the more industrial type machine
ing and riveting, you know, all the sort of metal
work and things were very much more dominated by men
(06:36):
at the time. Still. Um So back in eighteen sixty nine,
that's when the first national women's labor union was formed
in the United States, and it originated in Lynn, Massachusetts.
So shout out to what is that the Bay State? Yeah,
(06:59):
so in mass its us its um, that's where women
came together to form the first national women's labor union,
known as the Daughters of St. Crispin, which was actually
a spinoff of the Knights of St. Crispin, which I
find very interesting talk about internalized patriarchy and benevolent sexism.
(07:19):
They had to classify themselves as daughters daughter warranting of
protection because wouldn't what's the what's the female word for night?
I don't know. I'm pretty sure John of Arc was
a night. Yeah. Side note, that's interesting how gendered the
our language is, where you know, daughters versus knights. You know,
what's the female version of this or that. It's interesting
how it's not just an ungendered thing. Even in the
(07:42):
name of their union. It sort of goes back to
highlighting their status as women. Well, and it's one is
much more patronizing, definitely fantalizing than the other. I mean,
would you rather be a daughter or a knight? Right? Exactly?
Maybe some nights are somebody's daughters too, but that's a
whole other thing. So I I just wanted to highlight
that because I thought it was significant. But Daughters of St.
(08:03):
Crispin were a spinoff of the Knights of St. Crispin Um,
which was a cobbler's union. So these were shoemakers that
we're talking way early. This is even really pre pre industrial.
And both of those unions were named in honor of
the patron Saint of cobblers Um. And what's interesting here
is that this is the first national women's labor union,
(08:26):
which they had to create separately because the men weren't
exactly welcoming women into their union. Uh, And they what
was their first battle? What was their first battle? And
we still seem to be talking about today equal pay.
It's absurd to me that as women we are still
fighting this battle that are our grandmothers and our grandmother's
(08:47):
grandmother's fought for equal pay for their for equal work,
and here we are in seventeen still fighting for it.
So Um, the Daughters of St. Crispin, they sought the
same equal pay as their male counterparts, staging successful protests
in eighteen Sick Sea and later again in eighteen seventy two.
The group dismantled in eighteen seventy three, and many of
them ended up combining with the informing the Nights of Labor,
(09:09):
which basically brought the Male Labor Union and the Female
Labor Union together. This was the first union that was
formed to really activate and engage women in particular in
the United States. So you know, this is some This
is a battle. Equal pay is something we've been fighting
now for allowing time since eighteen sixty nine, and with
(09:29):
mixed success, they were successful, which is great to hear, Um.
But there was also one woman's story that really stood
out to me that I want to dive deep into
for a second. Here in this industrial age, in this
Civil War construction era, as all of these huge changes
are sweeping the nation, and as you might recall from
(09:53):
our history books in high school or middle school. This
is also during the era of monopolies forming for the
US big time in a huge way and setting us
up for the Great Depression. So in the early nine hundreds,
with all of these sweeping economic socio economic changes happening
in the labor force, one woman's story really stood out
(10:14):
to me who became very much active and engaged and
involved in the labor movement and later in the socialist
um movement in the United States. And that woman is
named Lucy Parsons. Now, Lucy Parsons is not the kind
of person you picture when you think of labor union organizer,
(10:36):
which still today has a very masculine, older white dude reputation.
If if am I alone in that, I would say
definitely masculine. Even even the non white figures you think
of as integral to the labor movement are mostly men
women that you think of, even even if they're these
like total badasses, Allah, Lucy Parsons, don't you don't see
(10:59):
them on T shirts, on posters and things like when
this woman needs to be on a T shirt. So
I'm going, yeah, get get your losy Persons Organizer T
shirt ready, because this woman was born in Texas, and
there's a little bit of historical controversy over her heritage.
Some people say that she was definitely born the daughter
(11:22):
of slaves in the Deep South. UM. She in many
ways denied her African American heritage throughout the course of
her life UM, potentially for reasons related to wanting to
avoid over racism and discrimination UM, and instead identified more
prominently with her Native American heritage and Mexican ancestry. So,
(11:47):
like many of us in the United States, she has
a very diverse heritage that she draws upon throughout the years.
She actually used different surnames, different last names to sort
of shield her identity, play up different parts for ancestry.
But she ended up marrying a white dude from Texas,
didn't she be? She did, and so it's important to
note that their marriage was illegal since he was white. UM.
(12:10):
They had to flee to Chicago to avoid Jim Crow
air persecution. Albert sounds like a real badass himself. He
wrote for the Chicago Times during the Great Depression and
was part of the socialist and anarchist ideology coming to
the USA. UM. But side note, uh Lucy was actually
considered to be more quote unquote dangerous than her husband
because she was a woman exactly. So Albert and Lucy
(12:34):
Parsons created quite a name for themselves upon arrival in Chicago.
Now this is at peak Great Depression times, so the
fact that Albert had a job writing for the newspaper,
the Chicago Times, um was sort of a godsend in
a lot of ways. So the fact that he ended
up losing his job and being blacklisted from being involved
(12:55):
in any journalistic practices later on because of his radical
political organizing goes to show you just how important these
fights were to Lucy and Albert because they were willing
to risk losing their livelihood in the Great Depression to
stand up for what they thought was wrong, which is
(13:16):
how working people were being treated. So this all came
to a head, uh during a nationwide strike that took
place related to the iron workers on the Baltimore, Ohio
rail line. So national Railroads, Um, we're trying to reduce
wages and basically just cut wages for workers for no
(13:38):
other reason other than they could, and um, it was
the Great Depression, so they could take advantage of that, uh,
And they weren't. And labor organizers like Lucy and Albert
weren't having it, so they joined the strike. They joined
the sort of labor organizers as it all came to
a head in Chicago, and Albert Parsons ended up addressing
(14:01):
crowds of something like twenty five thousand people who were
there present during riots and picket lines and striking against
the Baltimore Ohio railroads. And this is really what put
Albert Parsons at the forefront of what was deemed the
anarchist movement in Chicago. I love that, um. I also
(14:24):
love how this trajectory really put Lucy at the forefront
of these movements too. After her husband was fired, she
opened a dress shop to support her family, and together
with her friend Lizzie Swank, began hosting meetings for the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and she sort of became
became more and more involved in this union. She started
writing for the Socialist The Alarm. These are these great
(14:46):
anarchist publications, so was clearly sort of getting more more
and more entrenched in all of this socialist anarchist ideology.
Allah myself back when I was this is a hard
course she was really. I just I feel like I'm
channeling her in a kind of way, because starting to
write for these sort of like super lefty publications and
getting involved in hosting meetings, that is so what you
(15:09):
think of when you think of someone becoming sort of
activated in their in their political ideology. Definitely, I mean,
and she was no doubt a radical. They both were.
And basically when she started writing, Lucy Parsons was advocating
and making the case that only violent direct action or
threat of such action would win the demands of workers.
(15:33):
So she was, you know, it could be said that
she was inciting violence, and that's part of the reason
why the police force, who at the time were um
really freaking out about the influence of socialism in the
United States and really freaking out over how to manage
mass worker strikes that were occurring as a result of
(15:53):
the Great Depression and as a result of these monopolies
trying to uh squeeze every last time out of their
profit margins that they could. Um. She was freaking out
the police force because she was not just a woman
who refused to you know, stay stay in the kitchen
at home with intent to her children. But she was
writing these radical, sometimes like violent proclamations of workers uprising
(16:20):
in the newspaper. What I think is so fascinating about
that that aspect of her life is I think that
we think of people who advocate for social change, we
think of them when we think of them advocating for
non violence and peaceful resistance. They sort of get this
elevated status, but we forget that a lot of women
in history were the ones advocating for arming yourself, for
(16:40):
violent revolution, for threats of violence, if it called for that.
I'm not saying that violence is a good thing right,
that we should be advocating for that, or you know,
I think it's important to note that we think of
men as the ones who were driving, you know, calls
for violence and armed resistance, when in fact, in history
a lot of women have done the same. Yeah, but
it doesn't they're like no space in our brains to
(17:01):
hang that, you know what I mean, Like, there's it's
so bucks the norm of what we've been taught to
think of women as that. It's I think it's hard
to reconcile, like where in our historical collective memory we
can put women like Lucy Parsons, Like where did like
she just so doesn't align with everything we expect from women,
and especially in her time, we think of women as peaceful,
(17:23):
non violent peacemakers finding a way through without sort of
ruffling up too many feathers. But that could not be
further from the actual historical reality that women faced. True,
And when you're watching, you know, mass starvation hit the nation,
when you're watching something like the Great Depression take hold,
and companies are still using six year old kids to
(17:45):
change the bobbins in their huge machines, and people are
dying because they were locked into the factory that caught
on fire because God forbid they should take a break.
You know, it's it's I can understand where violent revolution
would become a tactic because it's not like there wasn't
blood on the hands of corporations. That's really what these
(18:06):
folks were thinking at the time, And I completely understand that.
And it all it all got more violent, didn't it.
So it got it got so much more violent. I
completely agree. I think that I'm not someone who was
who thinks violence is never the answer. I understand where
where these where the sentiments come from. So this did
get more violent. So as things in Chicago hit a
(18:27):
boiling point following the Baltimore, Ohio Railroad General Strike. Um,
you know, this was really all about worker protections as
it came to eight hour work days and maintaining the
current wages that they were at. So they were asking
for that was the critical demand here, the eight hour
work day and standing up for wages that they had
(18:48):
been historically paid. And this is when what's known as
the Haymarket Uprising occurred, which was originally a peaceful, non
violent gathering that even included the Mayor of Chicago as
being present, when basically workers after striking had come to
Haymarket Square to gather peacefully, right to demonstrate peacefully, and
(19:13):
after the mayor left the square, the police didn't keep
that nonviolent action up and they say that there was
a bomb hurled their way. So the police maintained that
there was a bomb someone in the crowd hurled at
the police, but nobody knows to this day who exactly
did it. And that's when things really got out of control.
(19:35):
The police thought this happened, that things really got violent.
The police went on raids looking for any and all
anarchists and this, unfortunately is where Lucy Parson's husband Um
lost his life. Yeah, so he was brought in with
five other known anarchists and and labor organizers UH and
given what was deemed a really unfair trial UM that
(19:57):
resulted in five of them being victed as guilty for
inciting violence. Three of them ended up being hanged, including
Albert parsons Um. Two went on to have serving long
jail sentences, and actually three of them never made it
to their death sentence because one of them killed themselves.
(20:17):
That's so sad, I know. And what's worse is that
on her way to see her husband Albert for the
last time, Lucy had her children in tow because they
had kids and they she was bringing them to see
their father one last time before he was going to
be hanged, and she was identified and she had long
(20:40):
been UH stalked basically and monitored by the police because
of her connections to Albert, and so when she showed
up to wish her hasband a final farewell, the police
arrested her and detained her, stripped her down, and left
her in a jail cell naked with her children until
after the hanging was her so she didn't even get
(21:00):
a chance to say goodbye. That's so horrible to me
because It's like a final way of dehumanizing her and
robbing her of her humanity. Not enough that her husband
is being killed, It's not enough that all of this
is happening. They have to deny her that final last
thing that all humans would want us to say goodbye
to their loved one. Right. It was a total power
(21:21):
move and it just goes to show you how ugly
the labor movement fights have been historically. These are not fights,
I mean fighting for an eight hour work days what
led to all of this violence. So just knowing that
this is where some of our basic rights around workers
rights in the United States come from give gives me
(21:42):
a lot of pause. And then knowing beyond that people
like Lucy Parsons, of which there are many, by the way,
there are many incredible women in the labor early labor
movement history books that just do not get talked about enough.
But Lucy went on for decades more as a speaker
as a writer. She became more involved in the socialist
movement in the United States and in the um Socialist
(22:06):
Party in the United States. I mean she went on
to continue to speak around issues relating to workers rights
and freedom of the press well into her eighties. So
she made this her life's work, and you know it
cost her a lot along the way. And again, I
think for me, when you I think back to our
episode around the gig economy, when you think about how
(22:27):
important and weighty and bloody and lethal these fights were,
the fact that in we don't cherish the eight hour
work day, we don't cherish what Lucy Parsons fault for.
We're fine with maybe eroding that a little bit and
sort of not we don't. We don't think of it
as precious and people lost their lives for it, and
(22:48):
we're being sold to us like it's being sold as
a as a gift or as a positive thing that
you what is that poster from five It was like
you eat coffee for breakfast, you never sleep, you know,
you always follow up on your follow up. Like that
kind of culture of overwork is now being repackaged as
a privilege. You're going to die behind the desk, Isn't
that great? I think you're so about that, Bridget, and
(23:11):
I think it's diver us to take a quick break.
Sound good? And when we come back, let's talk about
a couple of notable women in the labor movement in
more recent history. We'll be right back after a quick
word from our sponsors, and we're back, and we are
(23:35):
talking about women in the labor movement, especially here in
the United States. And I want to zoom forward a
little bit further now into the post World War two era,
because there were also a lot of women we would
love to talk about in terms of the more modern era.
So post World War Two, what was going on in
(23:56):
terms of women in the work for US? Post World
War Two, everything kind of change. Rosie the Riveter, A
lot of women who entered the workforce and droves the
first time. They weren't going back. There was no going
back to the way things were before, and they were
here to stay. And we talked earlier about how a
lot of these women were joining sort of female dominated
workplaces that were still segregated from what you might think
of as traditionally male spaces. But now those same women
(24:19):
weren't joining what you might think of us traditionally male workspaces,
things like operating machinery, um being mechanics, etcetera. And so
women were really joining these fields a lot. And Rosie
the Riveter is that famous sort of female archetype of
we can do it right with the mechanics shirt rolled up,
(24:40):
showing off her bicep, with that sort of hair tied
up in a bandanna. And what she really represented was
how patriotic it was for women to fill in and
contribute to the war effort through their labor outside of
the home. And so this is when the sort of
revolution of not just working class women but also um,
(25:04):
the Betty Drapers of the world starting to get more
into the workforce outside of the homes. This is really
you know, it's you Once. Once that happened, it was
impossible for that to be undone, right, it just became
part of the culture. And really shout out to Rosie
the Riveter for launching a million easy feminist Halloween costumes
(25:26):
still true today, that's true. Have you ever been a
Rosie the River I have? Yeah, it's an easy How
many of y'all were, if you were tagg Us and
some photos, I'm sure a lot of y'all were. I'd
love to see that on our Instagram. Um, but Rosie
was a fictional character, right, so she was she was
sort of a she was a symbol, an icon for
(25:46):
women entering the workforce. Like you said, into those otherwise
traditionally male spaces, and what that meant was, like the
unions that had been present for those male spaces, women
were also a ring sort of industries that had more
labor organizing, and during this time women became much more
(26:07):
involved in the labor rights movement. One of those women
who we'd like to once again sort of zoom in
on Um was heavily involved when it came to the
National farm Workers Association. Right by his side throughout the
entire uh founding of the National farm Workers Association was
(26:30):
Dolores Guerta, and she ended up becoming in nineteen the
first female leader of the United farm Workers, who combined
forces to launch a very successful national boycott of California grapes.
Because the workers, the farm workers who were um really
(26:51):
picking grapes in California and who were the labor force
behind the entire California grape industry, we're not being paid
what was equivalent to the national minimum wage. So that
was their basic demand, and Dolora Suerta was a huge
part of the massive strike that she really started and
(27:12):
led with, saysar Travis. Something that I love about her
story is that we really even today base a lot
of what you know about labor organizing and political organizing
in general from the United farm Workers UM. Today. A
lot of organizers go through training at Harvard University with
Marshall Gans. Shout out to him, did you go through
that training? It was in that fellowship him talk about it. Yes, yeah,
(27:33):
well he talks about it because he actually was a
Harvard dropout, Marshal Gans who went to join Star Traves
and Delora Suerta during the strike movement, and they were
so successful because they were able to actually engage the public.
So they were able to take UH an issue related
to paying farm workers a basic living wage, which is
(27:55):
already on the books right. This was like the minimum
wage had already been established, but they were being being
skirted that basic human right or that basic workers right
UM through a few different loopholes. And what Marshall Gangs
always points to is the tactics that they engaged actually
made it very easy for the average American consumer to
understand how they can make a difference. And that's one
(28:17):
of the basic lessons of organizing is tell me what
I can do and why it's significant. So people started
boycotting nationwide, the buying of California grapes in the grocery store.
That's so incredible because it really underscores the importance of
storytelling and making people see what's at stake, making them
feel it and see it and understand it in their bones.
(28:38):
Not just throwing a bunch of facts and figures about
why they shouldn't do this or why they shouldn't do that,
but really illustrating, um, why, like what's at stake here
and how they're a part of it. And I just
think it's so important to note that this is people
are still benefiting from that in the political organizing space today.
So this isn't just fights of yesteryear that it's good
to talk about. If you are an organizer coming up
(29:00):
right now in you are problem and you're doing it right,
you have probably been, um, you know, been a student
of this. This theory of organizing people power and change.
That's the name of the course that I took with Marshall,
and it was pretty profound, and it so reminds me
of a lot of the things we talked about here,
which is knowing where your dollars are going right, knowing
(29:22):
the implication of what your dollars are going to support
and how you as a consumer can have an impact.
And the grape strike in the nineteen sixties really made
it clear how the average American consumer can stand up
for workers rights and stand up for their principles and
stand up for the minimum wage through buying or not
buying table grapes. And if Yeah, it's interesting that you
(29:44):
bring that up in that framing, because we were just
talking off air about how the same way a lot
of folks that you want to be like a good shopper,
you maybe don't shop at Walmart because they, you know,
fund all this bad stuff and it's bad for your community.
The same way that that is happening now that was
happening then with grapes. So it was people didn't buy
table grapes because they didn't want to go to support
(30:04):
awful things exactly. And this actually has a really happy
ending to it too, because Dolora Sweart that ended up
negotiating a contract between the United farm Workers Organizing Committee
and the Shenley Schlenley It's kind of hard to pronounce,
but Slenley Wine Company, uh, making it the first time
(30:25):
that workers successfully bargained with an agricultural enterprise. So These
are workers who have historically been abused. Right. These are
workers who aren't always documented, who don't always have um
irreplaceable skills. Right. These are workers who are really used
and abused. And they did, in fact bus in workers
(30:46):
from across national boundaries during the strike when the American
farm workers were not you know, picking grape. So there
were lots of tactics that were leving on both sides
of this fight. So the fact that Dolora Swearter was
able to successfully negotiate a contract and come to an
agreement and and have that victory for working people on
on her record, and thanks to her hard work and
(31:08):
the organizing work up so many others, UM was a
huge deal for workers in the fields across the country.
So another thing I love about Huerta, who I could
talk about all day, is that even now, as a
woman in her eighties, she's not retreated, she's not shut
up about this kind of stuff. She still continues to
be a badass civil rights and labor and immigrant activist today,
(31:31):
well in her eighties. UM. I was lucky enough to
meet her during my time on the Clinton campaign this
past year. I've seen her speak and she's amazing and
again she's just as fierce as she probably was in
her in her youth. She still speaks with such a
I mean, I have chills even just thinking about it.
She still speaks with such intense fervor, and she makes
(31:53):
you feel like she's speaking just to you. She makes
it so clear what's at stake. The way that she
frames these story raising these fights, it makes the hair
in the back of your next stand up. She's amazing, amazing.
I love it, and I love to hear how the
women of the labor movement whose stories we've really delved
into today have long careers of fighting on half of
(32:14):
working people. And I know we we could go on
for forever because there are so many great women in
the labor movement. But one other woman who you just
reminded me of, who is still fighting hard on the
half of what she believes in, is a little Supreme
card Justice y'all might know as the Notorious r b J.
Notorious and Ruth Vader Ginsburgh, as it turns out, has
(32:39):
we We could do a whole episode on her, and
we probably Should's something we should do, um, But she
can't be glossed over in thinking through the women of
the labor movement here in the US because she founded
the Women's Rights Project, a project of the a c
l U that was focused specifically on fight getting discrimination
(33:01):
towards women, and that's still alive and kicking today. Yeah,
that's still alive today. It's still a pretty active project
of the a C l U. And I mean I
was looking at the different kinds of fights they have
been involved in at a legislative at a legal level.
It's massive. So definitely, if you're if you're interested in that,
this could be a whole episode of the various fights
and legal challenges that that project that she started have
(33:23):
done to stick up for women, women employees. So let's
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about women today and how we are
shaping the future of the American labor movement. We'll be
right back, and we are back, and let's talk a
(33:48):
little bit now about how women and labor are looking
ahead to the future. So to bring this whole conversation
into the modern day, it has to be noted that
as of two thousand fourteen, according to the Wall Street Journal,
UH union membership represented only eleven point one percent of
(34:08):
the workforce, which was down from twenty point one percent
in three And so when we think about the average
American union member, that sort of demographic is starting to
shift as the population of American work workers who are
represented by a union shifts as well. Totally. So, even
(34:30):
as men's union membership is falling, steeply of labor is women.
And if these projections continue, you will have a majority
female labor movement pretty soon. Um. According to the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, they predict that women will
be the majority of unionized workers. So really, women women
of color are are sort of the growing demographic of
(34:50):
folks who have union representation. But just because the percentage
of women making up the population of unionized workers is increased, ing,
don't let the data confuse you, because it's actually not
the number of union members that skyrocketing. Rather because labor
unions are representing a smaller and smaller proportion of the
(35:10):
overall American workforce and men are happen to be dropping
out of labor unions at higher rates. Women's percentage is increasing,
but not necessarily the sheer numbers. So in just to
give you sort of a perspective on this, nearly a
quarter of working men were represented by unions, now just
twelve point eight percent of them are, according to the
(35:31):
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the same time period, the
percentage of women represented by unions also fell to eleven
point seven percent from only fifteen point nine percent. But
there is one huge, notable exception to this, which is nurses.
The union, the National Nurses United, really stands out in
(35:51):
its expansion. It's the largest union of nurses in the
United States, and really they are this huge force to
be reckoned with in labor. Um. It's run almost entirely
by women and has a largely female membership, is added
twenty members since two thousand and nine and expects to
grow as the healthcare field continues to grow. Um the
Economist has called nurses quote the new auto workers because
(36:12):
of their growing strength and willingness to fight cuts. UM.
I don't know if any of you guys have nurses
in your families, or maybe you're a nurse yourself, but
I always thought that nurses like you do not mess
with nurses, and I think you see that in the
personality of nurses. I think and you also see that
in these fights. This Nurses Union is this massive massive
force of political power. Um, they are not a union
(36:35):
that you want to tangle with. There are so many nurses,
and nurses, unlike other professions, aren't so easily replaced. If
you're a nurse, you have training, you have schooling, you
have a real specialized field. And so I think these
are people who are largely female identified, who know that
they are not easily replaceable, and they are more than
happy to roll up their sleeves and and engage in
(36:57):
these really amazing fights. Definitely, and wall public employee unions
in states across the country like Michigan and Wisconsin, the's
right to work states have been decimated by laws that
are restricting their collective bargaining rights. The nurses were pushing
bills in the California state House that eventually became law.
(37:17):
So meanwhile, the auto workers were agreeing to have some
of their members pay cut in half. When it came
to fighting Arnold Schwarzeneger when he was the governator in California. Um,
you know, Schwartzeneger was pushing to cut patient to staff
ratios and the National Nurses United fought back and he
(37:41):
eventually dropped it. So they beat, you know, a fight
a basic wage and labor fight with the governator and one.
I love that, and I think that their their power
and their presence. It's kind of proof that unions may
not be on the way out. They might just look
a little different than what we're used to when I
love at nurses are at the forefront of this fight
(38:01):
because they really are talking about issues that we all
should care about, which is our health right now, this
needing is at the forefront of the fight for single
payer healthcare in California, and I just love seeing them
continuing to get into these amazing fights. Yeah, and it's
also interesting to hear from the leadership because the end
in you is pretty hardcore in their tactics. And when
(38:24):
hearing straight from their leadership, what um, what they sort
of turned to when talking about why it's easier for
them to go to the mat and fight really hard
is that they're not out for their own pay right,
They're not necessarily fighting for better pensions or wages. They're
out for their own personal safety while on the job
(38:46):
and the safety of their patients. Right. Because if you
go into a hospital, even if you're not a nurse,
even if you don't care about labor you don't want
your nurse to have a zillion other patients that she
has to worry about and be frazzled. Your health care
is on the line, and exact, really being able to
tell that story, just like you were telling talking about before,
really being able to sell why that's a story that
you should care about and be invested in, is a
(39:08):
great way to do it totally. And I think that tactic,
the use of effective storytelling and impact making clear like
what the impact is for workers rights, is such a
thread that we've seen continue from successful labor fights all
the way back in the Industrial Revolution through today. But
one of the things that you mentioned briefly earlier, which
(39:30):
it really stood out to me, which is the tactics
are changing. Some of the ways in which labor fights
are being waged don't quite look the same anymore. And
that can be said about strikes. A general strike like
the one that led to the haymarket uprising is not
exactly viable today. I don't think of the American workforce
is as willing to strike and pick it as we
(39:54):
might have used to have been. And instead, where the
rise of unions and strikes might be on the decline,
we have seen in very successfully executed labor disputes across
the country that workers are forming instead smaller work site
(40:14):
committees that basically used the expansive powers of the National
Labor Relations Board. Thank you FDR who set that up
during his administration to form these committees that really pushed
for singular issues. So there were workers in New Mexico
UH in Santa Fe in particular, that had a specific
(40:37):
UH issue around mandatory five am work meetings that were
held weekly, but nobody was being compensated for them. The
fact that they were asked to be in at the
office at the I think it was a car wash
at their car wash at nine am, but weren't allowed
to clock in until eleven am. Like they were basically
being underpaid and just totally not compensated for their time.
(40:59):
Elite Gale. If if one person, if one worker had protested,
if one worker had tried to fight on his or
her behalf against the employer, they could have easily been
fired and would have had less collective bargaining ability. But
instead they formed a small committee. They got in touch
with a local organizing group and they wrote a letter
(41:24):
as a small work site committee and because they did
that as a collective. When they were all fired for
doing that, they were able to go to the l
r B and take that employer to court. That employer
ended up having to pay them back wages and hire
them all back. Yes, and that's happened in lots of
different work sites throughout Santa Fe because it's spread like wildfire.
(41:47):
It's this small example of using collective bargaining even if
you're not in a union. You can still use the
expanse of powers of the National Labor Relations Board to
basically form work site committees and use collective bargaining tactics
even if you're not in what would look like as
a measurable traditional labor movement. What's fascinating is that you
(42:08):
actually find people doing that exact same thing, but they're
doing it online. There's an amazing website called coworker dot
org where folks who maybe don't have traditional union representation
can really band together and advocate for a specific cause.
And right now you're really seeing that with Starbucks employees.
So Starbucks employees are not unionized, but coworker dot org
(42:28):
has been at the forefront of getting different Starbucks employees
and baristas to advocate for for changes in their work situation.
And right now there is a hugely successful campaign where
a growing number of baristas are speaking out about the
lack of company morale and chronic understaffing at Starbucks and
things like having to make specialty drinks and the increased
use of mobile ordering, where they're saying, hey, we're not
(42:50):
able to give customers this relaxing coffee experience that you
want us to provide because you're not setting us up
for success in terms of staffing. And so if you
go to coworker dot org, they have a petition from
a barista, Jamie Pratt or that now has eighteen thousand,
sixty five signatures trying to get Starbucks to change their
staffing situation. So I just love this idea of labor
(43:14):
organized labor and this kind of bargaining maybe just looking
a little bit different than maybe it did during where
this day, yes, and women are still at the forefront
of it. Yes. So keeping in mind that if you
are feeling like you have grievance in your workplace, know
that there are ways to band together to fight back,
(43:36):
to channel your inner parsons or where at that, and
you know, continue the legacy of being outspoken women who
are standing up for working people. I think we need
that now more than ever. Uh, in an environment where
the traditional infrastructure of the labor movement might not cut
it anymore, might not be doing what we needed to do. So,
(43:57):
whether it's coworker dot org or forming us work site committee,
or just knowing your rights and talking to the folks
um who can help you band together and collectively bargain
or collectively organize, I think it's important for us to
continue to rise up and now that we have the
power to do so as workers of the world. I'm
about to start singing Hamilton's right now. I love it well.
(44:21):
I want to hear from our listeners, sminty listeners, tell
us what you think about today's conversation. Tell us what
are the women in the labor movement that really spoke
to you the most. What other great women's stories should
we dive deeper on. Because we know that women have
played an instrumental role in labor movements here in the
United States and of course in labor movements abroad as well.
(44:44):
We can't wait to hear what you have to say,
so send us a tweet at mom Stuff podcast tag
us on your Rosie the Riveter or Halloween costume or
anything else you want to share on Instagram at stuff
Mom Never Told You, And as always, we'd love to
have your thoughts and feedback in our inbox at mom
stuff at how stuff works dot com m
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