Women and Labor…
Women in labor merits our attention and respect.
Labor Day is nigh upon us, and there’ll be a plethora of postings exalting workers, unions, etc. I thought I’d get a leg up and comment on a topic that deserves our attention and respect – women in the labor movement, historically and contemporaneously. [Note: in different contexts, I’ve written about some of the women I discuss here.]
Women: a major force in the labor movement…
Women have been a major force in the labor movement – and they continue to be. Some, like Dolores Huerta and Dorothy Day, are well known. [Day was not a union organizer, per se, but she and her Catholic Worker movement consistently stood with workers who were part of a striking union or who were organizing unions.]
But there are many “unsung heroines” whose work may not be well known but, I believe, should be. Women, some even as teenagers, were a great impetus to the American Labor movement. Some examples:
* In 1909, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) in New York City led a strike of over 20,000 workers, virtually all females in their teens, from 500 factories, demanding better wages and working conditions. Within a month all the factories settled and met the workers’ demands. The momentum created by these female unionists was a great boost to the developing labor movement in the U.S.
Josefina Fierro de Bright at El Congreso Nacional, 1939.
* In Los Angeles in the 1930s, 18-year-old Josefina Fierro de Bright organized boycotts of businesses in Mexican American barrios that did not hire Mexican American workers. With Luisa Moreno (discussed below), Fierro de Bright organized Spanish-speaking union workers in various industries.
* In 1938 18-year-old Emma Tenanyuca, of San Antonio, Texas, led a strike of 12,000 workers—almost all Mexican American women—of the International Pecans Shellers Union, challenging pay violations, unfair production quotas, and unsanitary working conditions. She and many others were arrested and beaten by police, but they eventually prevailed.
* In the 1930s-1940s, while in her early 20s, Guatemalan immigrant Luisa Moreno unionized Mexican women cannery plant workers in California, fighting for maternity leave, equal pay for women, and racial equality.
* In 1939, Moreno and Josefina Fierro de Bright (discussed above) brought together 73 organizations in El Congreso Nacional de Pueblos de Habla Hispana (National Congress of Spanish-Speaking Peoples), the first national effort to unite Latino workers to work for civil, labor, and women rights.
Women played a key role in the historic 1951 Empire Zinc strike.
* Women played a key role in the historic 1951 International Mine Mill and Smelters Workers Union strike against the Empire Zinc Company in New Mexico. When a court order prohibited Empire employees from picketing, the miners’ wives took over the picket lines. In January, 1952, the strike was settled. The Empire Zinc strike is memorialized in the movie “Salt of the Earth.”
[Note: Anita Torrez, 94 – one of the women who took up the picketing in the 1951 International Mine Mill and Smelters Workers Union-Empire Zinc Company strike described above – recently passed away here in Tucson, AZ. Anita’s husband Lorenzo was one of the strikers. Anita worked for 18 years in a garment factory where she organized the workers into the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Up until her age and health prevented her from doing so, she was a constant presence on union picket lines and rallies in the Tucson area.]
* In the 1950s while in her 20s, union organizer Soledad “Chole” Alatorre led strikes that improved working conditions for garment workers in Los Angeles. Alatorre also fought fiercely for humane immigration reform. Those efforts led to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized 2.7 million undocumented persons.
There are many more examples, but the above make the point: historically, women have been major players in the U.S. labor movement.
But it’s not all historical…
Women being key players in unions and labor continues, viz.:
In May, 1983, the copper miners of Local 616 in Clifton-Morenci, AZ, went on strike against mine owner Phelps Dodge.
* In May, 1983, the copper miners of Local 616 of the United Steel Workers in Clifton-Morenci, AZ, went on strike against mine owner Phelps Dodge. The Governor mobilized the National Guard, who dispersed the rallying miners and their families with tear gas. As in the 1951 strike by the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers union against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico (described above), a court order forbade union men from picketing. The miners’ wives and daughters walked the daily picket lines and stood up to the occupying army of the National Guard.
* In the late 1990s, the Tucson Unified School District shut down negotiations with the teachers’ union, the Tucson Education Association. A strike was voted on. Under the leadership of Pernela Jones (TEA Vice President and, later, President), the strike was averted when one of the hold-out TUSD board members was convinced to join two other board members to continue negotiations. TEA obtained a good contract and school was not interrupted.
* Worker-rights and civil-rights dynamics often intersect. An example of this symbiotic relationship is a fight the public employee union AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) took up against Tucson’s Pima Community College (PCC) in 2015. A PCC proposed action would have displaced 37 employees. [Arizona is a “right-to-work” state; thus, the affected employees were not necessarily union members.] Under the leadership of AFSCME officers Arlene Muñiz, Rosa Bolz, and Virginia Ortega, the union intervened and stopped the proposed action and employee displacements.
Trish Muir is the Chairperson of the Pima Area Labor Federation.
* Trish Muir is the Chairperson of the Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF), comprised of 43 local unions. She also is the Communications Coordinator for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 104. Muir’s PALF role entails interacting with political people (elected officials, candidates, etc.). A defining characteristic of Muir’s is that she always has her members and the community in mind when dealing with the political people. She deals respectfully with the political folks but doesn’t let them push her around. Reflecting her family-community orientation, Muir is an active member of the Barrio Neighborhood Coalition, a group that fights gentrification and displacement of families. Muir and her sons donate time regularly to Casa Maria, a Catholic Worker House committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers also actively protest injustice and racism.
* Linda Hatfield is the President of the Communications Workers of America, Local 7000, which operates in Tucson and So. Arizona. Besides being a productive unionist and advocate for her members and workers in general, she goes beyond union issues and engages with her members’ communities. In 2011, she was the Chairperson of the Pima Area Labor Federation (PALF), comprised of 43 local unions. During that time we – the Mexican American community and allies – were fighting strenuously to save Ethnic Studies (a misnomer in that the only curriculum at issue was Chicano Studies), which the Republican legislature had deemed to be “un-American” and illegal. She got PALF to pass a resolution supporting Ethnic Studies and presented it to the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board, who was deciding the fate of Ethnic Studies. Engaging with the communities of her/his members is the sign of a good unionist.
Obviously, these are Arizona-Tucson examples. Every community has similar ones. Look yours up and celebrate them! Labor Day is nigh upon us. c/s
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