Women in the Labor Movement
Women have organized in order to better their lives for MANY years and have had a huge impact on working conditions and social conditions that are still important today. Their efforts have often connected to broader struggles for racial justice, gender equity and economic justice. As part of Women’s History Month we’d like to share information on a few women who made a big difference over the years to advance equality in the workplace and in society.
Grace Lee Boggs (1915 – 2015)
Grace Lee Boggs was a Chinese American civil rights and labor activist. She supported the Black Power movement, feminism and the environment in addition to organizing for better wages and better living conditions for people centered in Detroit. During the 1950’s she began editing the radical newspaper Correspondence. The paper covered grassroots organizing efforts, advocated for workers, the poor, the hungry, the under- and un-employed as well as the elderly. She advocated for revolution to support better wages and living conditions. Her theories of how a revolution could come about were developed while she completed her doctoral studies. Those theories promoted personal transformation, reflection and community organizing rather than violence. In 1992 she co-founded Detroit Summer. It was a community based youth empowerment and engagement program. She felt that change did not come from the government or from putting pressure on institutions of power whose functions were largely to protect the status quo. Rather change came from seeking solutions to problems, studying what works and why and then promoting those solutions.
Mother Jones (1837 – 1930)
Mary G “Mother” Harris Jones was born in Ireland and immigrated to the US in 1947. She was an American labor organizer, former school teacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer and activist. After the deaths of her children and husband due to yellow fever, and her dress shop was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she became an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. In 1902 she was called “the most dangerous woman in America” for her success in organizing miners and their families against the mine owners. Throughout her life she helped coordinate major strikes, secure bans on child labor, co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). She was a staunch believer in advocating for the working class to improve the lives and livelihoods of workers.
Sue Ko Lee (1920 – 1996)
Sue Ko Lee was a Chinese American garment worker and labor organizer with the Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Association. In 1938 she participated in a successful fifteen-week strike against the National Dollar Stores garment factory. At the time it was the longest strike in the history of San Francisco’s Chinatown. In the 1950’s Lee joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union in California as a staff member in Local 101. She attended national conventions. Later in her life, Lee reflected on the importance of the 1938 Strike saying “In my opinion, the strike was the best thing that ever happened. It changed our lives. We overcame bigotry, didn’t we? I know it was a turning point in my life.”
Rose Schneiderman (1882 – 1972)
Rose Schneiderman was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Poland and immigrated to the US in 1890. She worked in the garment industry in New York City. She eventually went to work at a cap factory and in 1903 she co-organize Local 23 of the Jewish Socialist United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers’ Union, where they lead a successful strike while she was still in her twenties. As a result, she became a full time union organizer for the New York Womens’ Trade Union League (NYWTUL). She worked with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union to organize and support the 1909 garment worker’s strike in New York City. In 1917 she became the president of the NYWTUL – the first woman to hold that title. In the 1910’s – 1920’s she worked at the state level in New York to enact labor laws to protect working women, like women’s minimum wage (women and men were treated differently under the labor laws at that time). In the 1930’s she was appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. In that capacity she was able to help influence the development of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. From 1937 – 1943 was the secretary of the New York State Department of Labor.
Emma Tenayuca (1916 – 1999)
Emma Tenayuca was a Mexican American labor organizer and civil rights activist. She led a wave of strikes by women workers in Texas in the 1930s. During this time, the Great Depression had led to terrible hardship for many Americans. New Deal laws expanded the rights of workers to organize unions and demand better conditions. But it was leaders like Tenayuca who brought people together to fight for changes in their lives. Her actions empowered her community and inspired workers across the country. Tenayuca was known for leading strikes, walkouts and protests to respond to issues that particularly affected Mexican Americans who faced discrimination in the New Deal jobs and aid programs that were supposed to help workers recover from the Depression. She became particularly famous in 1938 when she led a huge strike by pecan shellers in San Antonio. Pecan production was a big industry in the city and Pecan companies could get away with paying pennies for the dirty and difficult work. On January 31, 1938 hundreds of pecan shellers walked off their jobs at the Delicious Pecan Company in protest of management’s plan to lower wages even further. Tenayuca was elected the leader of the workers and through her efforts the strike grew to include 12,000 workers and lasted for three months. In her 70’s she was interviewed and she told the interviewer that the goal of her activism wasn’t any certain ideology or abstract concept, but simply “Food!”
Rosina Corrothers Tucker (1881 – 1987)
A civil rights and labor activist, Rosina Corrothers Tucker played a pivotal role in the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) and its International Ladies’ Auxiliary Order. Her influence within these organizations challenged the limits often imposed on African American women who sought to lead movements for racial and economic justice in the early to mid-twentieth century. Tucker’s experience with the BSCP led her to organize other groups of workers, including women in the laundry trades and domestic service industries. She was also a leader in the fight to integrate public spaces in Washington, D.C., and advocated for the rights of children and the elderly. Tucker’s activism continued throughout her long life. Widowed in 1963, she remained active in her church community and in local politics. In 1982, she contributed to the documentary Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggles, which chronicled the creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and its International Ladies’ Auxiliary Order. In addition, she authored an autobiography, "My Life As I Lived It." Rosina Corrothers Tucker passed away on March 3, 1987 at the age of 105.