Title: How the Rise of Women in Labor Could Save the Movement | The Nation
Headings: How the Rise of Women in Labor Could Save the Movement
How the Rise of Women in Labor Could Save the Movement
A new wave of female labor leaders are winning by thinking big.
By Bryce Covert Twitter
January 10, 2014

Content: And outside the traditional labor movement, in the so-called “alt-labor” sector, female leaders dominate: Jayaraman at ROC United, Ai-jen Poo at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Caring Across Generations, Nadia Marin Molina with day laborers at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Sarita Gupta at Jobs With Justice, and Madeline Janis bringing workers together with other groups in Los Angeles through LAANE. These women are bringing new ideas and strategies to labor organizing, many of which are borrowed from the women’s movement—like making the connection between what workers face on the job and what they’re dealing with at home. They don’t only target corporate bosses but bring together a variety of stakeholders within communities to fight for change in the workplace and beyond. And they’re bringing an influx of new members to the movement by reaching out to primarily female workforces that have often been excluded. Most importantly, for a movement accustomed to a steady erosion of power: they’re winning. Women have only recently made headway into real positions of power in organized labor, after making slow progress over the movement’s history. “ The male leadership have been very pleased to accept the assistance and support of women union activists and leaders,” said Ileen Devault, a professor of labor history at Cornell, “but they haven’t been so eager to give them actual power in the union movement.” The early labor movement organized workers by occupation, in highly gender-segregated workforce, women were often left out of jobs that became unionized.