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In 1955, in the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau hosted a Conference on the Effective Use of Womanpower. The Department of Labor was worried that the United States was producing too few engineers and scientists as compared to the number produced in the U.S.S.R., and found that the recruitment and training of women in science and engineering fields could help to alleviate the disparity.  read more »

Women have been a part of SEIU since its inception, when Elizabeth A. Grady was elected Trustee at the founding convention in 1921. Grady often reminded her fellow executive board members, all of whom were men, “You men must know that you cannot get very far or make any real progress if you have women workers who compete with you, unorganized and working for less wages” (Union Sisters, p. 16). Indeed, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) was keenly aware of the importance of organizing women, demonstrated by correspondence found in the SEIU Historical Records. Amidst the correspondence are documents sent by AFL’s then president Sam Gompers, such as reports detailing labor’s organization of women in Europe during the 1920s, as well as questionnaires to AFL Internationals, generating data on women in industry. However, given SEIU’s initial gender integration, in part due to SEIU’s organization of flat (apartment) janitors whose wives were expected to share in the work, SEIU already recognized the importance of women in the labor movement. Indeed, while not always in the most visible of positions, women, both rank-and-file members, and those within SEIU’s leadership, have made great contributions to SEIU and the greater labor movement over the years. In honor of Women’s History Month, we take a look at some of SEIU’s more prominent female leaders.  read more »