Women workers in the U.S.

Hartford Web Publishing is not the author of the documents in World History Archives and does not presume to validate their accuracy or authenticity nor to release their copyright.

Women in construction strengthen union roles
By Juliet F. Brudney, IGC Newsdesk, 27 February 1996. Two Boston construction locals have a substantial number of women members, reports Boston Tradeswomen’s Network. The number of women in Boston construction work is small but their achievements aren’t.
In the struggle for women’s equality—Women’s bittersweet victory in the coal mines
By Barbara Jean Hope, People’s Weekly World, 23 March 1996. After protests demanding that women be included in the action, women became part of the mining work force in the U.S. after coal companies with government contracts were forced to become equal-opportunity employers.
Women in the workplace: labor unions
By Juliet H. Mofford, Women’s History, Spring/Summer 1996. A brief history of the role of women in labor from the time of the Revoltution until the the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Overall progress despite persisting discrimination. Seven thumbnail biographies for women in the 19th to early 20th century.
Two women, two fighters, two fronts
By Bob McCubbin, Workers World, 20 November 1997. Two dynamic and farsighted leaders, each fighting on different fronts in the class struggle, provided fascinating accounts of their battles at a recent San Diego meeting organized by the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers.
Union leaders say women rejuvenating labor movement
By Kieran Murray, Reuters, 19 March 1998. Weakened by a steady decline in members from traditional, male-dominated industries, unions are turning more and more toward women to help rejuvenate the labor movement. Leaders of the AFL-CIO who gathered in Las Vegas this week for an executive council meeting said Thursday that women now make up 40 percent of the nation’s trade union membership and more are joining while the number of male unionists is falling.
Union study: equal pay cuts poverty
UPI, 23 February 1999. A study by the AFL-CIO and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research says that if women earned the same as men then the U.S. poverty rate would be cut in half. 36 years after Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, inequalities in pay is costing the families of working women in the United States some $200 billion a year.
USW’s ‘Women of Steel’ share hopes, struggles
By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette, Tuesday 8 February 2000. Women members of the United Steelworkers of America are in Pittsburgh this week to participate in the union’s first international women’s conference.
9-to-5 Gives Way To 24-7
By Frank Swoboda and Amy Joyce, Washington Post, Friday 10 March 2000. A poll of nearly 800 working women released yesterday by the AFL-CIO indicated that women in two-income families face a growing need to work different hours than their husbands in this 24-7 economy.