The Role of Union Feminists in Building Coalitions and Alliances between Social Movements

The Role of Union Feminists in Building Coalitions and Alliances between Social Movements

Mary Kay Henry, President of the Service Employees International Union, told Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times (November 27,2016) that in these very challenging times, unions would need to team up with the women’s movements, the environmental justice movement and immigrant groups to press the struggle for decent wages and better working conditions We examine the role of union feminists in building organizational bridges between labor and these other social movements. We focus on how the insights and experiences of union feminists with building coalitions and alliance across movements and diverse constituencies might hold the key to building a broad-based mass movement with labor and economic justice at the core. Such movement building necessitates an intersectional analysis and practice to ensure that gender, race, sexuality, immigration status, indigeneity, and disability are not subordinated to a labor politics where the unmarked important subjects and actors are men. Unions offer the spaces, structured opportunities and material resources for movement building and women are taking advantage of such opportunities to challenge the sexual and racial politics of unions, to reform the culture and practices of unions, and to form alliances with other social movements. Their activism is helping to revitalize the labor movement and its relationship to other social movements. We draw from our research on union feminists in Canada, Australia, UK, and US to illustrate the strategies, discourses and practices being utilized by feminists for social movement building. We focus on how feminist union activism is sustained during challenging and uncertain times for labor. What new models of leadership, organizing and mobilizing are emerging in this climate? What do feminist bring to the table?