Labor Unions

‘You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take’: On Sustaining Social Change From the Bottom Up

Mainstream media, conservatives and politicians want people to believe that the poor will always be with us. But it’s a lie.

In You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty, Presbyterian minister and long-time anti-poverty organizer Liz Theoharis and writer-organizer Noam Sandweiss-Back deconstruct this fallacy and present dozens of examples of organizing by poor people to win affordable housing, accessible healthcare, high-quality public education, a living wage, nutritious food and most importantly, dignity.

Pregnant Dockworkers in L.A. and Long Beach Need Better Workplace Protection

Post-Dobbs, the fight for abortion access has rightly dominated headlines. While that’s a fight that’s still being waged, reproductive justice comprises many facets, including the right to healthy, dignified working conditions for those who choose to continue their pregnancies. Even in states with strong protections, like California, the fight is far from over to ensure pregnant workers don’t lose their livelihoods simply for starting a family.

The ILWU relies on the powerful labor movement motto: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” The Pacific Maritime Association boasts, “workplace safety is a key consideration” in its operations. It’s time to make the sentiments behind those declarations a reality for pregnant and parenting workers. 

What’s on the Horizon for Working Women?

One year ago this week, I was elected as the first woman to lead the AFL-CIO, America’s largest labor federation—consisting of 12.5 million workers across 60 unions.

The past 12 months have been nothing short of historic in how workers—from nurses in New York, to teachers in Minnesota, to warehouse workers at Amazon, to baristas at Starbucks—have risen up and seized our collective power. As working people continue to push for more, I’ll be focused on how we can continue to build a bold, inclusive and modern movement, empower working women through unions and unleash a wave of grassroots organizing that will put all working people on the path to a better life. And gender equity is essential to the future of our movement. 

‘Working 9 to 5’: A Firsthand Account of the Women’s Movement, Labor Union and Iconic Movie

Ellen Cassedy’s Working 9 to 5: A Woman’s Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie, is part memoir, part political history and part prescriptive look at the ongoing challenges facing workers today. But as much as it acknowledges how much remains to be done to achieve racial and gender equity on the job, it also celebrates 9 to 5’s many successes.

Union Membership Increases Wage Equity for Women—But Stronger Laws Are Needed

Unions have fought long and hard against big business for benefits like weekends, lunch breaks, and overtime pay — which are now considered basic rights. But did you know union membership also decreases the gender wage gap?

According to a new report, union pay transparency can help disrupt a workplace culture of secrecy — one that conceals and amplifies pay disparities for women.

Today in Feminist History: Labor Unions Support the E.R.A. (September 14, 1970)

But at today’s press conference, Dorothy Haener, representing United Auto Workers, noted that laws restricting the amount of weight a woman can lift had only been enforced in regard to keeping women out of high-paying jobs, and brought no benefit to women in minimum-wage jobs such as waitresses. Not only that, domestic workers, among the country’s lowest-paid, have always been exempt from weight-limit and maximum hour restrictions.

Why Labor Union Rights Are a Feminist Issue

Amid fervent protests and desperate pleading, the Michigan House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday that will drastically weaken public unions in a state once known for the strength of its organized labor force. Hours after passing the House, two “right to work” bills, which ban a requirement that nonunion employees pay union fees, were signed […]