Women Increase Participation in Labor Movement
Leadership training programs for union women are growing in New York.
New York’s largest public employee union, District Council (DC) 37, is set to welcome more than 30 students this month to its second Lilian Roberts Women’s Leadership Academy. This is twice the size of their last graduating class. The six-month program is available to women officers and activists at the local level. Its curriculum is geared toward training women for future leadership roles within the union.
In late July, the 2019 UALE Northeast School for Women in Unions and Worker Organizations welcomed its largest cohort of 166 participants to its annual summer school. Participants attended leadership training workshops, and even helped coordinate the local Best Market workers’ protest in Long Island.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up almost half the membership of all unions nationally. But they still lag far behind in leadership roles. AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of unions, represents 12.5 million workers. Only one-fifth of its executive positions are held by women.
This also holds true at the local level. Over 60 percent of DC 37’s 125,000 members are women but less than one-fourth of its executive board is female.
With these training programs, labor organizations are allocating more resources to create opportunities for potential female leaders in unions, and women are showing up.
Elizabeth Shuler, 49, the current and first female Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, is the highest-ranking woman in the labor movement. She rose through the ranks after becoming an activist for the electrical workers’ union IBEW in Portland, Oregon after Enron purchased her local utility company in 1997. She is one of only three women to run the federation since its creation in 1955.
“We have not yet attained the levels of leadership that we need,” said Shuler. “But we’re making great strides.”
Co-Coordinator of the 2019 UALE Northeast summer school, Diana Robinson, said that the workshops this year were bilingual, run by female instructors, and thirteen scholarships were available. The program consisted of a leadership skills workshop, and three special electives: Women in the Economy, Nontraditional Jobs and Green Jobs.
“We’re at a moment where women are really interested in leadership,” said Robinson.
Barbara Edmonds, one of the lead coordinators of the DC 37 Lillian Roberts Women’s Leadership Academy, said promoting female leadership is a must for the future of the labor movement.
According to Shuler, making training opportunities more accessible for hopeful leaders is also a priority for the AFL-CIO.
Its Women’s Global Leadership Program (WGLP), a collaboration with the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), is open to female activists and leaders in the labor movement from all over the country. The four-day program allows participants the opportunity to study the global economy and build advocacy skills.
“The labor movement is actually the largest women’s organization in the country,” said Shuler. “We want our women members to see the labor movement as a place for them.”
