The Coalition of Labor Union Women

Speech given at the Women's Equality Conference

The Coalition of Labor Union Women is the only national organization for union women. It is a "constituency group" of the AFL-CIO, with 20,000 members from 60 unions, organized into 75 chapters nationwide. CLUW "strives to make organized labor and the public more sensitive to the needs of working women and their families."

When CLUW was first organized, in Chicago in 1974, it adopted four goals: Organizing the unorganized; Promoting affirmative action; Increasing women's participation in their unions; Increasing women's participation in political and legislative activity. Since then, CLUW has spoken out on many important issues, including pay equity, women's health and workplace safety, child care, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, women in non-traditional jobs, family medical leave, NAFTA, GATT and maquiladoras and sweatshops, domestic violence, social security, full employment and national health care.

In 1980, CLUW's second president, Joyce Miller, became the first woman on the AFL-CIO executive council. CLUW's current president, Gloria Johnson, is also a member of that body.

CLUW is governed by a National Officers Council, composed of 19 women union leaders from a diverse cross-section of unions, and a National Executive Board of more than 350 delegates from unions and from CLUW chapters, elected in proportion to their membership in CLUW. The Board meetings, held three times a year, are usually preceded by educational conferences such as recent ones on affirmative action, social security, and domestic violence.

CLUW conventions and Executive Board meetings are notable for the ethnic and racial diversity of the delegates, and for the leadership roles of African-American women.

I have recently learned that CLUW was very supportive of the organization of Pride at Work, the gay/lesbian workers organization, and its acceptance by the AFL-CIO as a "constituency group" within the union movement.

CLUW encourages the participation of its chapters in Central Labor Councils, and the chapter that I belong to is an active participant in the Sacramento Central Labor Council, with three delegates. This labor council is not a very progressive council, and its executive board has no women members (except the labor council president, who is a member of CLUW) however, CLUW is a voice there for women's issues and other progressive matters.

All the CLUW delegates are members of the Labor Council's Human Rights Committee, which we reorganized after it had been moribund for several years. We also form a link between the labor movement and peace and solidarity organizations like WILPF, as well as women's organizations such as NOW. For example, two years ago NOW held its state convention in a non-union hotel in Sacramento. We raised that issue very strongly with them, and this year the state convention will be held in a unionized hotel. We also got WILPF to have their August Women's Peace Event flyers printed by a union printer, and then got the Labor Council to endorse the event and make a donation.

Over the last few years, our CLUW chapter has held workshops on women's participation in unions, lobbying state government, and sexual harassment, and has a workshop on childcare planned for May. We conducted a workshop on women's issues at the Human Rights conference organized by the California State Workers Association (SEIU #1000) and organized a Working Women's Health Fair in a low-income community in Sacramento.

In addition we have participated in demonstrations supporting Justice for Janitors, home care workers, voting rights, and against sweatshops, to name only a few.

For the past five years we have held an annual International Women's Day awards reception, where we have been able to bring national woman labor leaders, such as Gloria Johnson and Linda Chavez Thompson, to speak in our community, and have honored local woman union and community activists.