Tracy Lai, 54, first joined the American Federation of Teachers Union in 1984. She was just out of graduate school and had landed a job at Seattle Central Community College. At the time, the movement was in the midst of a massive decline. What began as a slow bleed in 1950s had by the end of the 1980s become a critical wound. One that threatened its entire relevancy.
But Lai felt no trepidations about joining a union. She became immediately aware of the importance of understanding and negotiating contracts. And she says she was inspired by many in the movement, including a large community of incredibly strong women.
In the last two decades, union membership overall has continued to decline. Many argue one reason it has endured decades of union-busting and spates of anti-union policies such as “Right-to-Work” has been its ability to evolve. In particular, its ability to recruit women and immigrants into the fold. Yet today union leadership continues to reflect what the movement once was — white and male.
“In the labor movement that’s been the most heart-breaking part,” says Lai about sexism and gender equality.
“Here’s this movement that talks about social justice issues, issues of race and class. Yet we go about it in the same old way,” she said. “Yes there are more women and minorities, but it is still not enough. Even as we have tried to break earlier patterns. The worst part of the earlier pattern is there were no women in leadership positions. If that was the early part of it, and we kind of change that up a little bit by adding one woman union leader or one man of color even if the faces look a little different, we are all still going about the status quo.”
Lai describes changes in the labor movement as circular as opposed to real progress. And the lack of women in leadership positions is being only one of many tangible issues that speak to sexism in the movement. In order to really get passed issues of race and sex, there must be a fundamental change in the structure of the movement, she said.
“It’s hard to let go,” Lai said. “If you have the same leaders year after year, you are not adding new voices. It’s hard for people to step aside.”
Lai recently returned from a national conference which was ironically hosted by the Coalition of Labor Union Women. Being a delegate at this event was an honor and opportunity to meet new people. More importantly, it was an opportunity to weigh in on actionable goals that will be addressed throughout the year. Yet each year, each union sends the same small number of delegates. The same faces. With that structure, real change will be difficult, she said.
“That doesn’t lead to different outcomes because you aren’t hearing new voices,” she said. “In the end you have to ask yourself, how are we going to make the kind of difference that needs to be made?”
Since the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, the wage gap between the genders has narrowed somewhat. After hovering at 60 percent, meaning women earned .60 for every male dollar, it rose to 70 percent by 1990. By 1997, it rose 75 percent. Yet in the last decade, it’s only risen one percentage point.
Yet, women union members fair much better. The wage gap between male and female union members is slimmer. Union members earn an average of $917 per week compared with $717 for nonunion members. Women union members earn nearly a third more than their nonunion counterparts, according to the National Women’s Law Center http.
Latina women, who earn the least of all demographic groups, earn 48 percent more than their nonunion counterparts. Black women earn 25.4 percent more than their nonunion counterparts.
Marlene Pedregosa, 56, is the current Secretary/Treasurer of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, Local 6, here in Seattle. She first got involved in the labor movement in 1990 and has been working for the SEIU full time for the last six years. She, too, believes sexism has been a very real part of the union story. But she feels a bit more optimistic about the future.
“As a woman you deal with things when you are in the labor movement. It’s there. Of course it’s there. It’s even here in the SEIU. But not as much because there are women in the SEIU rising in the ranks,” she said. “(The racism and sexism) came from the old school and their membership.”
One issue that speaks directly to how the “old school” way of thinking is changing, she says, has been the entrance of immigrants into the movement.
Just four years ago, many national unions were largely anti-immigrant saying immigrants were being used to suppress union wages and replace union workers. But things changed quickly once the AFL-CIO began organizing immigrant workers.
“When the AFL-CIO started to embrace immigrants, it forced the other unions to re-educate their membership,” she said. “In the beginning, there was a lot of push-back from other unions.”
In the end, immigrants started joining unions en masse. According to Pedregosa, a union is little more than the sum of its membership. As the unions become more diverse, as more women and women of color rise up the ranks, the less pervasive issues like sexism and racism will be.
“I really does all depend upon who your members are,” she said.
David Macpherson, an Economics Professor at the Florida State University, has studied unions for two decades. He says the fact that women have become a critical force in the labor movement is quite obvious if you look at where unions are growing and where they are shrinking.
For instance, SEIU has organized more than a million new members in the last decade. The majority of its membership are women and people of color. Back in 1996, more than half of its members were in local unions led by either a woman or people of color. By contrast, construction and trade unions, historically the least diverse, have all but disappeared.
“But It’s hard to say what’s more important to them, the gender or the sector,” he said. “In the end, I think all they really care about is getting more members.”
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