NET-workers

Lots on good information in this article by Kari Lyderson. She takes a close look at the causes and consequences of women's exclusion from positions of power in the labor movement. I'd definitely recommend reading the whole article. It's quite a mental exercise to imagine if women ran the world, what the labor movement would look like??

Out of 56 unions in the AFL-CIO, only two—the Screen Actors Guild and American Nurses Association—are headed by women. Women are equally unrepresented in other top union jobs, making up less than a fifth of top leadership.

Lyderson raises a serious issue that I have with the U.S. based union movement (at least). Almost everyone acknowledges that women and people of color are the future of the labor movement, yet unions are cutting their women's departments left and right and women still haven't made it into the top leadership positions.

However, the article states that:

[W]hile men have maintained a firm grip on official leadership positions in organized labor, women are gaining power and attention in different ways. A handful of vocal, female-dominated unions have become more daring, non-traditional and holistic in their approach to fighting for workers’ rights and in uniting union members with the general community.

Lyderson's example of this is the California Nurses Association. Personally, I am interested in what kind of militancy and activism women workers may be engaged in outside of the traditional labor movement. If the unions can't meet their needs, do the women workers go elsewhere?