Women Gain by Joining Unions
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Today is International Women’s Day and a new report points out that while all workers gain through union membership, women gain a lot more. A new report released by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) shows the global pay gap is 22 percent, but women who belong to unions earn more than nonunion women and receive better pay relative to their male co-workers. Click here to read the entire report.
Teresa Griffin, a member of UAW Local 1247 in Hagerstown, Md., has lived the union difference. As a single mother supporting two children, she was making $9 an hour in 1993 working for a small pension plan administration firm. A year later, she was laid off, and took a job with her former firm’s biggest client making $7 an hour. It took her five years to get a $1 an hour raise. When her supervisor asked the company to give her a 25-cents increase, management refused.
A week later, Griffin was hired by Mack Trucks Inc. and became a union member for the first time. Her starting salary was $12 an hour, 50 percent more than her last job. Griffin says:
When I gave my resignation, I was called into the office and asked what it would take to keep me because they didn’t want to lose me. My reply was straight to the point: “Last week I wasn’t worth a quarter and now I’m worth an additional $4. It took me five years to earn [a] $1 [increase], so how long will I have to work to earn another increase?”
Or take Carla Buschjost, who for 10 years was barely able to make ends meet working for a nonunion plumbing company. But when she moved to a union mechanical shop and became a member of the Sheet Metal Workers (SMWIA), her life changed.
