(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . This Week in the War on Women: Labor Day Edition [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-02 Women in the Labor Movement My first job when I was 16 was a summer job at Alexander’s Department Store in the Bronx. The minimum wage at the time was $1.25/hr. but it only applied to full time workers. When I asked for more hours, they started to schedule me for 39 hours over 6 days per week so they could keep paying me $1.10. Years later when I was a single mother I worked “mother’s hours” as a cashier at a small Massachusetts supermarket chain, where full-time employees had benefits. but front end workers (cashiers and baggers) were not considered full-time, no matter how many hours they worked. The cashiers were almost all women. It seems appropriate on Labor Day weekend to consider women in the labor movement. This timeline begins in 1844 and ends (unfortunately) in 2008: 1844 Women from the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts formed themselves intothe Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA). The women of Lowell, ledby the intrepid Sarah Bagley, testified fearlessly before the Massachusettslegislature that new requirements forcing them to tend more machines ataccelerated rates were endangering their physical well‐being. 1866 Newly freed black women, working as laundresses in Jackson, Mississippi, form aunion and strike for higher wages. 1869 Women shoe stitchers from six states form the first national women’s labororganization, the Daughters of St. Crispin. … 1888The Knights of Labor, the first large scale national labor federation, agrees toadmit women. Leonora O’Reilly, a member of the Knights of Labor, organized afemale chapter naming it the United Garment Workers of America. She laterjoined the Women's Trade Union League and was influential during the “Great Uprising” among garment workers in 1909‐10. The National Park Service page on Women in the Labor Movement is a portal to many stories about people, organizations and events in the movement. Women’s work has powered American history, but it hasn’t always been easy. Here you can find the stories of people and places that have been part of the struggle to make life better for women at work. Some of these women came together in unions to demand fair pay and safe working conditions. They took to the streets in strikes and boycotts to make their voices heard. Others fought in courtrooms and meeting rooms for laws and policies that would protect women workers and give them a fair shake. Often, their struggles connected to broader fights against racism and sexism and for a fairer society. A Woman’s Place Is In Her Union Maybe because I grew up in New York City, I always think of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire first when I think of the early labor movement and women’s rights. Two women from that movement, Rose Schneiderman and Frances Perkins, became part of FDR’s administration, helping to shape New Deal labor policy and making women’s history in the process. In the second half of the 20th century (i.e. during my lifetime) other issues emerged as new kinds of jobs (service sector, office work, etc.) began to organize and women began to deal with sexism in the labor movement and work for leadership positions in the movement and issues affecting women more often than men to be included in contract negotiations. When federal anti-discrimination laws were introduced in the early 1960s, organized labor, under pressure from the emerging feminist movement, supported sex discrimination prohibitions in both the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1974, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) united members across all unions and sought to increase female membership and representation in leadership. CLUW also advocated for union contracts, laws, and enforcement efforts that address a broad range of issues: nondiscriminatory hiring and promotion equal pay paid family leave sexual harassment and violence reproductive rights child care The above quote is from a University of Maryland libraries exhibition featuring photos, buttons, documents and includes a button saying Pro Union/Pro Choice, and pamphlets on the “married” question and on dealing with sexual harrassment/abuse. The Zinn Education Project features short biographies of 24 women leaders in the labor movement. The most recent article I found looks at what happened during the COVID-19 shutdown when so many essential workers were low-pay, low-benefit workers who also had to deal with childcare issues making life impossible while putting themselves and their families at risk. The pandemic, of course, strongly affected hospital/healthcare workers. This article deals with supermarket workers. Over the course of the pandemic, the majority of essential workers were women. The majority of those who lost their jobs in the pandemic were women. The majority of those who faced unstable care situations for their children and their loved ones were women. And now the majority of those organizing their workplaces are women. Kroger workers are part of a surge in organizing led by women, women of color and low-wage workers impelled by this once-in-a-century pandemic. Many said they feel the pandemic has unmasked the hypocrisy of some employers — they were “essential” workers until their employers stopped offering protections on the job, good pay and commensurate benefits. Among them, a deep recalibration is happening, dredging up questions about why they work, for whom, and how that work serves them and their families. For many it’s the chance to define the future of work. Other News Sexual assault often goes unpunished when victims fail to fight back. But investigators, psychologists and biologists all describe freezing as an involuntary response to trauma. www.nytimes.com/... From BBC News- Taliban stop female Afghan students leaving country to study in Dubai And a related petition to the ICC: "Recognize Gender Apartheid as an international crime against humanity so the ICC can put an end to women's systemic oppression by the Taliban." The death of a day care - As many as 70,000 child care centers are projected to close in the next several months as pandemic-era federal funding ends, pushing an industry already in crisis to a breaking point. The Biden administration's $39bn was the single largest allocation for child care in the nation’s history and :more than the U.S. had spent on child care in the past five years combined. yet child care workers across the country remained in the bottom 2 percent of job pay, alongside fast food cooks and theme park employees, but with fewer willing workers. So the #39bn was still only a beginning, and now it's gone. The19thNews looks at how an entire community is affected when a child care center closes. From Jezebel- Alabama AG Would Prosecute Anyone Helping People Travel for Abortion As ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ It was in this context that I convened the Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting in the Bahamas from Aug. 21 to 23. Our goal was to assess the current status of gender equality in the 56 Commonwealth countries and share perspectives to accelerate progress on this priority. Together, we developed a new roadmap, geared towards better delivering for our 1.25 billion women and girls. The roadmap encompasses critical areas such as greater involvement of women in climate action, increased support for women with disabilities, better representation of women in leadership and stronger action on ending violence against women and girls. In particular, our focus is on strategies to prioritize women in climate action — solutions that can concurrently address climate injustice and gender inequality while benefiting society. The proposals from this meeting will be considered by leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa next year. www.nationalobserver.com/... "Records show that twenty-four of the Chicago police officers who were criminally charged with domestic battery remain CPD employees, some even after multiple alleged incidents of gender-based violence. One is Sergeant Richard Bednarek. He was charged with domestic battery twice, once in 2017 in Tennessee, and again in Cook County in 2020. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), which investigates police misconduct, sustained the allegations against him in the 2017 case. Another is Steve Jedd, who is detailed to a K-9 and explosives team. In 2016, he was charged with domestic battery. The year before that incident, Jedd allegedly pushed and punched a pregnant Black woman, before saying, 'You better be lucky I didn’t hit your black ass hard enough to make you lose that damn baby.' In 2019, COPA sustained the allegations against Jedd." southsideweekly.com/... ...Previous research showed an increase in maternal deaths in the United States from 17.4 to 32.9 per 100,000 live births between 2018 and 2021, but approximately 80% of these deaths are preventable, wrote Yousra A. Mohamoud, PhD, of the CDC's division of reproductive health, and colleagues. "Maternal mortality review committees have identified discrimination as one factor contributing to pregnancy-related deaths," the researchers wrote. Respectful care must be part of a larger strategy to prevent these deaths,… www.medscape.com/… The 19th: When it comes to climate, the Republican Party has a woman problem: Nikki Haley was the only contender in Wednesday’s debate to say that climate change is real. The answer mattered to Republican and independent women. 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