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  • Based on the firsthand stories of dozens of women leaders in the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), Women United examines what workplaces were like for women, how they became involved in the union, and the challenges women faced, sometimes at great personal cost. From struggles for representation in their union to their fight for affirmative action and childcare, and work against gender-based violence and harassment, Peggy Nash and Julie White show how these feminist activists were joined in struggle not only by their union sisters, but also by their sisters from the broader women’s movement, who learned from them about the importance of women’s workplace rights. Nash and White document the decades-long struggles of generations of women activists in the CAW, who, despite their few numbers, managed to build a better, more inclusive union. A testament to the union’s motto that "fighting back makes a difference," Women United makes an important contribution to feminist, labour, and social history. -- Publisher's description

  • [This book] is a collection of original papers that presents a vision of an invigorated and vibrant labour movement, one that would actively seek the full participation of women and other traditionally excluded groups, and that would willingly incorporate a feminist agenda. This vision challenges union complicity in the gendered segmentation of the labour market; union support for traditionalist ideologies about women's work, breadwinners, and male-headed families; union resistance to broader-based bargaining; and the marginalization of women inside unions. All of the authors share a commitment to workplace militancy and a more democratic union movement, to women's resistance to the devaluation of their work, to their agency in the change-making process. The interconnected web of militancy, democracy, and feminism provides the grounds on which unions can address the challenges of equity and economic restructuring, and on which the re-visioning of the labour movement can take place. The first of the four sections includes case studies of union militancy that highlight the experiences of individual women in three areas of female-dominated work: nursing, banking, and retailing. The second and third sections focus on the two key arenas of struggle where unions and feminism meet: inside unions, where women activists and staff confront the sexism of unions, and in the labour market, where women challenge their employers and their own unions. The fourth section deconstructs the conceptual tools of the discipline of industrial relations and examines its contribution to the continued invisibility of gender. --Publisher's description

Last update from database: 6/26/26, 4:10 AM (UTC)

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