Rose Pesotta And The Garment Workers Movement Analysis

Dolores Huerta is a Mexican-American woman whose struggles and activist heart led her to help improve the lives of farm workers, immigrants and women. Her father was an inspiration as an activist, while her mother encouraged the development of her education and extra-curricular activities. Although she was a great student, she like many Mexican Americans, experienced racism. Rather than give up on her dreams, her struggles encouraged her to fight an unjust system.

Seventy-five percent of the workforce was made up of women,9 and most of these women were Mexican. These Mexican women faced extremely harsh treatment while working. The three biggest problems these women had that they wanted to get rid of by unionizing were the “pet” system, when male employees and supervisors would favor women they liked or went out with,10 the piece-rate system, when workers get paid by their work accomplished, not by the hour, and the supervisors, who would constantly watch the women and make sure they were working hard.11 Women particularly hated these three systems, especially since they are discriminatory. Also, the piece-rate system would make it hard to get consistent pay. All of the strenuous work would of course make the workers sore, and soon their workload would slowly start to decrease. Furthermore, it is hard to design the piece-rate system in such a way that women would get about the same amount of money men who are paid by the hour. In addition to discrimination, the jobs were often dangerous, as Julia Luna Mount stated, “After work, my hands were red, swollen, and I was on fire!”12 These working conditions inevitably made the labor force create the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA). Most of the members in this

Throughout coal country during the early 1900's you could find the fiery spirited Mother Jones; a union organizer for the United Mine Workers. Mother Jones fought tirelessly to bring together the ‘rank-and-file miners' in order to improve their working conditions, wages, and give them a voice in the workplace. What made Mother Jones the most feared woman in the 1900's was her power of conviction. Her speeches were extremely moving, which called men to action, and if her energy and passion were not enough she would embarrass them, calling their manliness into question. Mother Jones was so moving she was also able to call the mothers and children of the mineworkers to aid in their efforts. She was one of the most successful union organizers

Imagine a world where the social and economic conditions for the farm workers and immigrants get worst year by year, where the discrimination among these people growth and never decline. What would happen to farm workers if Dolores Huerta shouldn’t have made any action to change their situation? This same question should be in the mind of many Americans who don’t appreciate all the effort and work that Huerta put in to change our nation. Persistent, powerful, brave, strong, simply a heroin are the best words to describe Dolores Huerta, who is one of the most important women who contributed to the creation of an equal and fair society in the United States because, she founded the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) and also she helped create the National United Farm Workers Association (UFWA) with Cesar Chavez, she helped organize a nationwide boycott of abusive grape growers, and she founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

For social reform, the Women’s Trade Union League was on the foremost authority, organizing protests and working against prostitution, white slavery, and other social problems that many women faced (15). For political and labor reform, Frances Perkins was on the vanguard of political protests and building regulations. Not only did she get the attention of Tammany Hall, and helped push it to become more progressive, and pass the fifty-four hour law, which took 20 hours off a worker’s week, but she eventually became the first female cabinet member and pushed for Charles Murphy to endorse voting (218). After the Triangle Factory Fire, “she quickly mastered the details of the sprinkler systems, fireproof stairways, fire drills, and more. She knew, in an intellectual way, that New York Factories were extremely vulnerable” which was invaluable in pushing for more building regulations (195). As for economic opportunity, the overall strikes of the women who had been protesting eventually got the attention of the government, and a minimum wage was established in the early 1930’s. Clara Lemlich was one of the leaders of these strikes for pay raises and better factory conditions, and despite being beaten, she led many strikes and became one of the foremost figure in the labor reform movement. She was, “a new sort of

Alongside her father, Dolores at 11 years old, sold pots and pans door to door and watched him as he was constantly slaving for long periods of time in the heat continually harvesting beats, a little at a time to earn a couple dollars, and those dollars which were most likely going to be spent on her. As he faced the dreadful working conditions, he became a labor activist and accomplished getting on the board of the CIO local at the Terrero Camp of the American Medals Company as the secretary-treasurer. Yet Dolores’s father was only on the committee for a brief amount of time due to how blunt and outspoken he was (Novas 160). He wanted to get his point across and explained his point in very rash tones, but even with his rash tones, Dolores Huerta admired her father in attempting to help the union and labor workers, which were the reasons Dolores Huerta pursued activist roles in the community. When teaching for a brief amount of time at an elementary school, she suffered seeing her students come to class with the face of hunger and in need of shoes, she believed that rather than trying to teach peoples hungry kids, a greater impact could result from organizing a union filled with the participation of farm workers, to petition in order to enforce better rights in regarding the way they were being mistreated.(Doak 34). Through experiencing and visually seeing what occurs due to families not having the advantage or

A fresh, personal, bottom-up approach to the women’s labor movement in the early 20th century

Across cultures and throughout history, women have experienced ongoing systemic oppression; and they have responded with progressive movements of protest and creative alternatives. Harriet Tubman in the fight against slavery: Fannie Lou Hamer for voting rights: Ella Baker and Mary White Ovington in the civil rights movement: Rosa Luxemburg in the German socialist movement: Winnie Mandela in the anti-apartheid movement: Puerto Rican independence leader and poet Lolita Lebron: and American Indian movement activists Anna Mae Aquash, Ingrid Washinawatok, and Winona LaDuke (Mink and Navarro). Women have pioneered in movements for labor rights, prison reform, reproductive rights and health, education, affordable housing, affirmative action and equal rights, human rights, and environmental safety. These women’s leadership styles span a range from soft to harsh, from wielding individual, hierarchical power to possessing a commitment to collectivism, and from identifying as “woman as caretaker of life” to woman as requiring and utilizing equal power to man. There is no one characteristic that applies to all women as social change leaders (Hurtado).

The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their

At a time when labour unions were gaining in memberships, organization, and bargaining power, women in the workforce made marginal gains during this period considering the booming economy. Sociologically, a healthy economy should in theory provide the framework for change. When citizens have low unemployment and more money in their pockets, time and attention is less directed at bread and butter issues like sustenance and poverty, and aimed at equality and social progress. For women unfortunately, this was not necessarily the case. Their battle with employers was still a struggle between classes than gender parity. Male union leadership would naturally further male worker interests first,8 and this shows a culture of sexism in the workplace that was clearly difficult for working women to overcome. Even union-dues paying women rarely openly questioned their subordination as a sex.9 They were most likely outnumbered and the consequences of being a whistle blower did not want to be entertained. In the mindset of women who worked however, was a developing identity as female wage earners and unionists.10

Union organizing required more than simply providing a setting. The women workers needed to define themselves in relation to the conflicting family and social

In her book, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan, E. Patricia Tsurumi details the working conditions of women employed in the textile factories of Japan during the Meiji Era of Japanese history. Tsurumi attempts to give a comprehensive description of the women’s stories and struggles, detailing the reasons for which women worked in the industry, as well as the working conditions they faced. Tsurumi begins her text by describing the importance of the women’s work to the nation of Japan, and ends it by discussing the sacrifices many women made for the good of their country, effectively painting them as heroes. However, she spends the vast majority of her text detailing the poor working and living conditions faced by the women

Women workers were among the first laborers to experience the hardship of industrial revolution and probably the first to form unions. Many iconic women have participated in the labor movements in supportive roles as well as leadership roles throughout the entire history of labor organizations. Jessie Lopez De La Cruz is one of the celebrated women who played a significant role in fighting against gender stereotype in work and became a union organizer for the United Farm Workers (UFW). Becoming a union organizer was not easy for Lopez considering the circumstances that existed during that time where male workers could not take orders from female organizers. Despite the difficult circumstances and the stereotyped roles of women, Lopez played a significant role in advocating for inclusion of women in unions.

The two large movements we went over this unit were the Campus Anti-Sweatshop Movement, and the Convention 189, for domestic workers. While these were very different environments, both of these movements had a very similar goal. They wanted to improve working conditions, for women and children. The convention 189, fought for “clearly

This rightly illustrates Mohanty’s form of the “processes of capitalist domination” by discussing power in labor politics and explaining the oppression against women worker’s within the structure of a greater