More black and Latina women are leading unions and changing the way they work

But Black and Latina women are starting to gain ground, claiming top positions at some of the largest unions in the United States. That has led to victories at the bargaining table focusing more on family-friendly benefits like parental leave and health care coverage, as well as protections against sexual harassment.

Usually when people think of unions, “they think of a white guy wearing a hard hat. But in fact, studies show that approx two-thirds of people are working Georgetown University labor historian Lane Windham said the people covered by union contracts were women and/or people of color.

Indeed, members of the UNITE HERE hotel association are overwhelmingly women and people of color. And last month, there were more than 12,000 of them in six states went on strike push for higher wages, fair workloads and more affordable health care under the leadership of Gwen Mills, who in June became the first woman elected union president in its 130-year history year of the organization.

Data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that black and Latina women face particular hardship wide gender pay gap. They also face interference the headwinds of both racism and sexism in their careers, making them even more attuned to workplace inequality and motivating them to increasingly step up the fight as union leaders.

Black and Latina women are driving the growth of labor unions in America on the scene the decline lasted decades in membership. In 2023, Black women’s union membership increased slightly from 10.3% to 10.5%, while Latinas increased from 8.5% to 8.8%. But this number is still higher than white men and women as well as Asian women, whose membership numbers fell over the same time period.

Momentum for Black and Latina women to rise to labor union leadership has increased over the past five years. But the work began long before that by “our predecessors who laid this foundation and have been pushing and kicking those doors open for decades,” according to Liz Shuler, who entered June 2022 became the first woman in history to lead the AFL-CIO, a federation of 60 national and international labor unions.

“Female #MeToo movementI think, really encouraged women in general, even in labor, you know? I’m not going to sit on the sidelines,” Shuler said. The pandemic also put a spotlight on essential workers like nurses, service staff and care staffmainly women and ethnic minorities.

Today’s examples of diverse union leaders include Becky Pringle, a black woman who leads the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union; Bonnie Castillo, the first Latina to serve as executive director of National Nurses United; and April Verrett, who in May became the first black woman to lead the Service Employees International Union, said about 60% of their service workers are people of color and two-thirds are women. female.

“If we want to build power for those who are perceived to have the least power, then we have to create spaces for people with those identities to be able to lead,” Verrett told the Associated Press.

However, while female-dominated sectors have made strides in diversity in union leadership, “there is still a long way to go” for unions in male-dominated sectors dominant professions like construction and manufacturing, says labor historian Emily Twarog of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Although there is some progress through DEI and apprenticeship programs“There has never been such a cultural change.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men still have higher union membership rates than women — 10.5% versus 9.5%, respectively. And sexual harassment and bias in the workplace remains rampant in many places, including for Lisa Lujano, a journeyman-degree carpenter and member of Carpenters Union Local 13, based based in Chicago.

Things could get better, she said, if more Black and Latina women held union leadership roles and were more aware of their members’ needs, including safety equipment fits a woman’s body or offers parental leave that Lujano doesn’t have.

“I think we will get more respect in this industry,” she said.

Here’s a look at the impact women union leaders have at the bargaining table:

Education

Teachers unions in recent years have begun to use their collective power to advance common interests to help their surrounding communities in an approach known as “common good bargaining.” ”, which aims to go beyond wages and benefits at the bargaining table and address broader social issues. For example, the Chicago Teachers Union includes the need for affordable housing across the city during a strike in 2019 — organized in part by then-vice president Stacy Davis Gates, now CTU president.

Some teachers unions are also fighting for racial justice, including United Teachers Los Angeles, which is demanding that school districts Stop subjecting students to random metal detector tests and checking lockers for no reason, criticizing the practice as disproportionately targeting black and minority students.

“We need to address the inequities that exist in every social system in this country to determine whether our students come to school ready to learn every day,” Pringle said. “It’s our female leaders, especially our leaders of color, who really care about that.”

Hospitality

Hotel union like Maria Mata have made strides in combating widespread sexual harassment in their profession.

Mata, a Hispanic housekeeper and UNITE HERE union leader at the W San Francisco, helped successfully push at his hotel to equip workers with panic buttons in 2018 to summon workers. security assistance in case of emergency, currently implemented by several large hotel chains.

“We need more protection,” explains Mata, who was sexually harassed twice on the job, especially during the night shift, cleaning entire floors alone. “It’s very dangerous.”

Mata, whose hotel is currently negotiating a new contract, said it is important that working women also come to the bargaining table, “because sometimes as women, we need something That’s what men don’t know.”

flight attendant

Keturah Johnson in 2022 became the first queer woman of color to serve as international vice president for flight attendants association AFA-CWA, led by Sara Nelson and representing more than 50,000 flight attendants at 20 airlines.

People often think of a flight attendant as “a white woman with her hair in a bun,” Johnson said, and black flight attendants often face criticism from managers about their appearance. “It’s happened to me many times because of my natural hair.”

And for gender non-conforming flight attendants, being able to wear uniforms that reflect their gender identity is important, Johnson said. So she’s leading the fight to update uniform standards to be gender-inclusive and allow for natural hairstyles, leading some airlines to make changes.

United AirlinesFor example, updated its uniform standards to include gender-neutral options in 2021, and Alaska Airlines management has adopted gender-neutral uniform and appearance standards in 2022, according to AFA. Frontier allows flight attendants to wear natural hairstyles in 2021, and this year introduced standardized pricing for all uniforms regardless of size or gender.

“We’re not just there to serve Diet Coke. So it’s our job to make sure that flight attendants are represented and seen for who they are,” Johnson said. “The world has changed now.”