Would You Let Someone Do This to Your Sister?: The UAW, SEIU, and Working Women’s Organizations Fight Against Sexual Harassment

Amanda Walter, Towson University

Sexual harassment was endemic to the office as the predominantly women clerical workforce had significantly less power than their bosses. It also permeated through factories. Working women’s organizations, such as 9to5 and Women Office Workers, emerged in the 1970s to focus on the adverse job conditions of women workers, especially clerical workers. The working women’s movement and unions targeting women office workers in the 1970s, such as SEIU Local 925 and District 925, sought to appeal to the largest number of workers possible, pushing controversial issues, such as sexual harassment, to the sidelines and making the groups intentionally distinguish themselves from women’s liberation. At the same time, unions like the UAW were already very active on combating sexual harassment with representatives participating in conferences on the topic in the late 1970s and producing numerous publications throughout the 1980s. All of this came years before the Supreme Court defined sexual harassment as sex discrimination and when sexual harassment reached increased public salience during the Anita Hill hearings. This presentation contends that the UAW was able to combat the issue more publicly earlier, as they were focusing on combating harassment within already established union locals, unlike SEIU Local 925 and District 925 which were conducting organizing campaigns. The UAW also did not have to combat the same criticism of radical feminism that working women’s organizations and their affiliated unions did. Even as dramatic incidents of sexual harassment occurred in sectors where working women’s organizations were active in the 1980s, working women’s groups did not make the issue a campaign priority until the 1990s. The organizations never entirely ignored sexual harassment, as evident by sporadic speeches and writings. Despite an increase in scholarly attention, the working women’s movement’s complicated relationship with other women’s rights organizations and sexual harassment has not been closely examined.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 218. Worker and Community Activism