Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (1971-1982)
Photographs by
Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (Union WAGE) was
an organization of socialist and progressive women from 1971
through 1982. It supported women organizing in the work place
and included struggles for democratic rank and file unions.
Most of its work was in the San Francisco Bay Area, although
chapters formed in Seattle, Indiana and New York. Growing
out of a NOW conference at UC Berkeley in 1971, Union WAGE
was distinctive in connecting older women who had been activists
since the 1930s with a new generation of women labor activists,
feminists and lesbian feminists.
WAGE members shared their hard-won organizing skills, taught
each other parliamentary procedure, and collectively engaged
in laying out newspapers and creating newsletters. They lobbied
for an Equal Rights Amendment that would not only retain existing
legislation protecting women but would extend these standards
to men. WAGE members fought for, and successfully organized,
the first California union women's conference sanctioned by
the AFL-CIO. WAGE supported the United Farm Workers Union,
and in coalition with other groups, worked against the Bakke
decision (anti-affirmative action), the Briggs initiative
(anti-gay) and San Francisco's Proposition L (anti-clerical
workers).
Union WAGE members distributed their newspaper at work places
and union meetings. In addition to articles on current actions,
the newspaper profiled women activists of the past, and discussed
health and safety issues, family issues, and the rights of
lesbians and older women workers. A complete set of the newspaper
and other materials are available at S.F. State University's
Labor Archives and Research Center. Some of these newspapers
are available at the IIR LIbrary.
Cathy Cade
Union WAGE was wonderfully supportive of me as a new photographer-they
wanted my photos and they printed them big! I came from the
Southern Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation
Movement. I was a raised-middle-class woman and new lesbian
who wanted to support working class struggles. WAGE was the
only place in the women's movement where I was taught by older
women activists. I am very grateful to them for all that I
learned. As resources become available I hope to keep working
with the photographs and stories of Union WAGE -- passing
information on to others as it was passed on to me. For more
information about me (and more photographs) visit www.CathyCade.com.
I can also be reached at 2202 Rosedale Avenue, Oakland, CA
94601 and (510) 532-3545.
This is the fifth in a series of photo exhibits sponsored
by the Institute of Industrial Relations Library. |
