Sisters on the Frontline: Organizing Women, Building Power

Conference shares insights on strategies & resources for organizing women

Nancy E. Olumekor, national officer for the American Postal Workers Union, participated in the "Sisters on the Frontline: Organizing Women, Building Power" conference

Photos by Rocco Rorandelli

More than 200 women met recently in New York City to speak frankly about how to maximize the number of women joining unions. Hosted by Cornell University's Institute for Women and Work, senior women organizers joined other women from community coalitions to share effective strategies and resources for unionizing women at the March 30-April 1 conference, "Sisters on the Frontline: Organizing Women, Building Power." It was held at The Joseph S. Murphy Center for Labor, Community & Policy Studies, CUNY.

Julie Kushner, a senior UAW organizer, stressed the importance of keeping your own (organizing) style: "They [the men] changed because I didn't. I kept my own style. The challenges are tremendous to not change."

Women & African-Americans: bright spot in organizing

In the past 25 years, the percentage of American workers in unions has declined significantly. Yet women workers represented one of the few bright spots in union organizing. Women now make up nearly half the U.S. labor force and according to research by Cornell's Kate Bronfenbrenner, women are significantly more likely to join labor unions than men ­ especially if the lead organizer is a woman. Yet women remain a small minority of senior women organizers.

"Race and gender really matter [in organizing and who we organize]," Bronfenbrenner told the audience. "African-American women, and women generally, are the ones being organized in large numbers ­ more than any other groups for the last 20 years [since she began her research.]"

Delegates from wide range of backgrounds

Conference participants came from both AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions, along with unaffiliated workers' centers that organize primarily women of color. They were from diverse cultural backgrounds-- African, Hindu, African-American, Latina, and Asian communities. They discussed racial and class divisions in the labor movement and struggles within their own unions and associations. They focused on work/family challenges and how to confront the prevailing anti-worker practices of employers across the public and private sectors.

Inspired by Berger-Marks report

On how to integrate the institutional part of organized labor with the "movement" part, Sally Alverez from Cornell said, "If we don't succeed in doing that, workers will organize another movement…." The Cornell conference largely grew out of a 2005 report from the Berger-Marks Foundation whose mission is to help women organize into unions. The report has recommendations from 19 senior women organizers about how to organize women and how to recruit and retain more women organizers. The full report, "Women Organizing Women: How to Rock the Boat without Getting Thrown Overboard", is on the Berger-Marks website.

Inspired by this report and the challenge of today's anti-union and anti-worker climate, along with the profound structural and cultural issues faced by women organizers, participants came determined to build on where the Berger Marks report left off.

Importance of networking, mutual support

Beverly Grant singing songs of solidarity

Participants agreed the importance of networking and supporting one another to achieve their goals. They examined the history of women organizers, as well as the relevance of the Berger Marks Report's efforts to understand the different issues that immigrant women and women of color confront as organizers. They spoke about the need to think globally, organize beyond our borders, strengthen coalitions, and look at organizing models in other countries.

Emerging from the conference was a strong sense of solidarity among women organizers across racial, economic and national divisions. They recognized that the labor movement is the only mechanism in today's society that can address gender equality, economic issues and the work and family needs of American workers.

As Cheryl Farrell, delegate from Local 3 of the IBEW Electrical Workers union, put it, "Women need to reinvent the way organizing happens in the labor movement."

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