In the months prior to the conference the AFL-CIO working women's department organized a survey of 50,000 working women. The results were released to the press as the conference opened and every conference participant received a summary. It reported that, responding to a multiple choice question, 94 percent said equal pay for equal work was a very important issue to them and more than one-third said they did not get it in their current job. According to the government Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly pay of full-time working women was 75 percent of men's median pay in 1996.

Conference participants heard plenary speeches, and took part in discussions both in workshops and spontaneous discussions in the corridors about challenges facing working women and all unionists today.

Workshop topics included affirmative action, child care, organizing the unorganized, equal pay for equal work, the North American Free Trade Agreement and proposed "fast track" trade legislation, immigrant workers, medical and pension benefits, part-time (or "contingent") workers, welfare reform, violence against women, sexual harassment, workplace issues for gay and lesbian workers, safety and health, and women in the trades.

Most of the workshops on the final day of the conference were devoted to promoting involvement in upcoming elections. "Working Women Vote `98" was the title of the workshop chaired by Karen Nussbaum, director of the AFL-CIO working women's department. Nussbaum was a founder of 9 to 5, a group that organizes around issues of concern to working women.

Featured speakers at the conference included John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO; Richard Trumka, secretary- treasurer of the AFL-CIO; Linda Chavez-Thompson, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO; U.S. vice president Albert Gore; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters; Ann Richards, former governor of Texas; and Alexis Herman, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.

"Today the AFL-CIO launches a new campaign to make jobs better for working women," AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said in opening remarks to the conference. "One-third of the AFL-CIO's members are women. With five-and-a-half million women members, we are the largest working women's organization in the country."

Many participants involved in struggle
While the main plenary speakers were politicians and top union officials, the breadth of participation in the conference was reflected in some of the women who were asked to say a few words before they introduced the main speakers. One of them was Ellen Ortiz, a member of International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 952 in Orange Country, California.

Ortiz introduced herself as a six-year part-time worker for UPS and a 36-year-old mother of two. "We have just won one of the greatest victories for working families ever," she said, as the audience responded with enthusiastic applause. "Thanks to what we won out on the picket line, we will one day have full-time jobs, more benefits, and higher wages. Our demands struck a chord with the American public," she said, "and I want to thank you on behalf of all of the Teamsters for your support. We got a great boost when other unionists joined us on the picket lines."

Ortiz told the conference, "The struggle isn't over yet." She described what she called company harassment and retaliation where she worked. Her job as a part-time driver for UPS air deliveries was eliminated by the company when she returned to work. She now works as a part-time loader. "The battle continues," she said, "but we will not stop until these problems are resolved. With your support, we've proven that we can win." She then introduced one of the keynote speakers, Congresswomen Waters.

Sounding a theme repeated by many of the speakers, Waters said, "We've got to not only be on the picket lines, we've got to register people to vote." She urged conference participants to "organize to keep the White House, take back the Senate, and get our own Speaker of the House."

Others who gave brief introductions included Brenda Lee Isbill, a ticket agent at U.S. Airways, who spoke on behalf of 10,000 workers at the airline who are trying to organize a union. "Injustice, disrespect, and sexual harassment," are some of the issues motivating workers to fight for a union, she said. "We are determined to get respect for the work we do."

Jorja Starr, a worker at Stemilt Growers, Inc., a fruit packing warehouse in the Yakima Valley in Washington State where workers are on an organizing drive in a campaign called Teamsters United for Change, also spoke. She described the conditions faced by the poorly paid and largely female workforce at Stemilt, where the majority of workers have expressed their support for union representation. She spoke of the problems of toxic chemicals and even the overflow of waste from toilets that drip onto workers and the cherries they pack.

Rojana Cheunchujit, a garment worker who is from Thailand, was one of the workers enslaved in El Monte, California, whose abusive treatment made national headlines in 1995. "I came to the U.S. to work and was forced to live with nine people in a room," she said. "I was freed in 1995 from a slave shop in California but conditions have not changed. By fighting for better wages, I am fighting for women's rights."

Giaconda Kline, a member of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) Local 226, noted the victory this year by 1,000 casino workers in Las Vegas who won their fight for a union contract. She described how thousands of workers and their supporters demonstrated as part of the campaign for a union.

On September 6 between 400 and 500 conference participants marched from the hotel where the conference was held to Union Station and rallied in support of a HERE union organizing drive at the Ark restaurants in the train station.

`We need a union'
Tara Davis, a worker at Smithfield Foods meatpacking plant in North Carolina, also spoke. She described the plant as the largest hog slaughterhouse in the world, with 3,000 workers. "We're not even allowed to go to the bathroom," she said. She described a confrontation with management thugs who "beat us, spit on us, and sprayed mace on us." She looked over at Vice President Gore, who was sitting near her on the platform, and said, "Vice president Gore, come to North Carolina." She had to pause before continuing because of the loud applause. "See what Smithfield is doing to workers and the environment. We need a change. We need a union." Davis' husband, Ray, also participated in the conference. He has been fired by Smithfield for his pro- union activities. He described some of the experiences of the organizing campaign in one of the conference workshops.

Ernestine López, a packinghouse worker from Greeley, Colorado, spoke in the "Organizing Food Processing" workshop about the victory won in a 12-year-long campaign to organize the UFCW at the Monfort beef slaughterhouse where she works. She said that one of the results of the fight has been that the line speed has been reduced from 400 to 350 cattle slaughtered per hour.

Anna Jiménez, an asbestos laborer and volunteer organizer for the Laborers' International Union, spoke at a workshop on "Women in the Trades." Jiménez is Guatemalan and lives in Los Angeles, where asbestos workers, whose job consists of removing asbestos from buildings, have been organizing for several months to win union recognition for about 3,000 workers. They are also demanding better wages, medical insurance, vacation, and pension benefits. Workers have picketed worksites and employers' homes. "I'm learning and meeting people of all races here," Jiménez said of the conference, "and I see that we all have the same problems."

A delegation of twenty-three came from the National Postal and Mailhandlers Union Local 300 in Westchester, New York. At least ten came from United Steelworkers of America Local 8888, which organizes shipbuilders in Newport News, Virginia.

Sarita Stepney is a United Auto Workers (UAW) member who participated in the recent strike against General Motors in Oklahoma City. She has worked at the plant for 18 years. "What is hard for a working woman like myself, is deciding priorities, what to pay, child care, getting the first or second shift in order to spend time with the children. This conference makes me feel like I am not alone." Other UAW members came from Kentucky, Mississippi, West Virginia, Alabama, New York, and Michigan.

Another national gathering that will take up the issues facing women workers and the unions was publicized at the Ask a Working Woman conference. That is the ninth biennial convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), which will take place November 6-9 in Seattle.

Nan Bailey is a member of IAM Local 1103 in Kent, Washington. Charlotte Hernández is a member of the IAM in Washington, D.C.  
 
 
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