[project] Part IV: Reflections

Note to people reading my blog for the Feminisms in North America class: start with the Part I post. You can skip Part II because it's my evidence (boring details) that I use as support for my transnational analysis in Part III, which is the interesting part of the project. Part III is in two parts: first and second.

Now for the project's conclusion:

Since this is a blog and not a more formal paper, I will call this part of my project “reflections” rather than concluding remarks and make it more personal. Although not originally interested in unions, I came across UNITE HERE as I was searching for organizations involved in the anti-sweatshop movement. I was struck by UNITE HERE’s cross-border organizing, history, range of industries, and impressive list of accomplishments. I thought it made an ideal case study for the effectiveness of labor unions in accomplishing transnational goals. From the beginning its efforts transcended borders, ethnicities, and gender to protect the most exploited. Although its leaders may not be aware of its status as a transnational feminist case study, it serves as a good model of transnational organizing success.

[project] Part III: Transnational analysis (continued)

Question 3. How does the organization engage with notions of transnationality – including notions of “North America” – as we have studied them in this course thus far?

One of the best things about UNITE HERE is the fact that it has been cross-border organizing since the early 1900s. The IGLWU (UNITE’s founding organization) started cross-border organizing in 1911, eleven years after its inception. The group recognized the similar struggles women across the U.S.-Canadian border in Toronto were suffering in the garment industry. For almost a hundred years, then, UNITE HERE’s founding unions collaborated across the border to attain fair treatment within the workforce.

UNITE HERE’s membership network extends through Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico. Such transnational organizing is commendable. Whereas it would be very easy to ignore the struggles of people in different countries, UNITE HERE’s commitment to protecting the individuals within its constituent industries transcends borders. However, its membership does not (yet?) extend to Mexico. Although present in 46 states plus the District of Columbia, UNITE HERE’s organizing drive has not extended south of the United States border. It has local unions in the border states – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – but it has not yet crossed the border into Mexico. A good question for the leaders of UNITE HERE is why this is so and if they have plans to expand their membership into Mexico.

Question 4. Do you think the organization/movement is successful at reaching its targeted constituents? Why or why not?

I do think UNITE HERE is successful at reaching its targeted constituents. Its success in unionizing the largest corporations that employ large numbers of minority and women workers is an indication of its accomplishments. However, there are still employers exploiting primarily women and minority immigrant workers who could be assisted by UNITE HERE. Specifically, Mexico is the next logical step for UNITE HERE’s organizing efforts. Women remain an over-exploited section of the low-paid factory and hospitality industries in Mexico. UNITE HERE could help those women.

Question 5. Based on your analysis, what are some of the obstacles faced by your chosen organization/movement?

One problem I noticed in nosing around their website is that UNITE HERE and UNITE HERE Canada have separate websites. It makes me wonder just how unified the two groups are. It is unclear what the relationship between the U.S. constituency and the Canadian constituency is. For example, how much time and resources are spent on U.S. organizing versus Canadian? Is the Canadian constituency helping the U.S. more than the U.S. constituency is helping Canada? Because of its size, is the U.S. constituency bullying Canada?

Another factor that can stymie UNITE HERE’s progress is anti-union sentiments, but I will not address that extensive debate here.

Although Kathleen Staudt (2002, “Transcending nations: Cross-border organizing,” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4:2, 197-215) presses for higher educational institutions to use their weak ties to become leaders in transnational efforts, she mentions some possible roadblocks relevant to transnational organizing, particularly when relying on weak ties. In particular, she asks what such weak ties (without strong support by international institutions or national governments, when the activists are separated geographically) can accomplish other than mere consciousness-raising. She wonders if weak ties alone can culminate in activity. This is a question of locality. Is locality necessary to provoke action? If so, then transnational weak ties will not be as effective as local efforts.

Finally, as manufacturing jobs are shipped to Mexico, India, China, Taiwan, etc., UNITE HERE’s membership will shift from textile industry employees to hospitality sector employees – from a manufacturing focus to a service industries focus. Such a loss in constituency may translate to a loss in bargaining power both at the local level as well as on the institutional and national level. However, if clothing manufacturing jobs do get shipped to other countries, UNITE HERE’s anti-sweatshop campaign is already poised to publicize exploitation of international workers by American and Canadian companies.

[project] Part III: Transnational analysis

In this section I analyze UNITE HERE through a transnational lens.

Question 1. To what extent does the movement/organization employ a transnational analysis to understand women’s, gender and/or sexuality issues?

UNITE HERE, being a labor union, recognizes that the state’s interests are not always in the interests of the workers. In that vein, UNITE HERE organizes individuals in order to force unfair employers to see to the needs of their employees. Following the thread of transnational theorizing, local needs are looked out for when the state is unable or unwilling to assist. Such needs include improvements in working conditions, such as hour limits, safety, vacation time, raises in wages, health care, day care and education. (See section II for a list of UNITE HERE’s workplace successes.)

In addition to bypassing the state to effect changes, however, UNITE HERE’s involvement in political lobbying indicates that UNITE HERE is not limited to a transnational approach in merely organizing locally. Instead, UNITE HERE works at the level of the national government in order to enact legislation protecting workers, such as its participation in lobbying for the defeat of "Fast Track" trade legislation, which would have given the President the authority to negotiate trade deals without Congressional approval.

According to Mary Hawkesworth (chapter 4 in Women, Democracy and Globalization in North America: A comparative study (2006)), much if not all of the United States’ backsliding in women’s issues is due to the rise of neoliberalism, which advocates for the downsizing of government in order to increase individual freedom. However, such a view results in the cutting back of government spending on social programs that primarily protect and support women, minorities and children. In light of neo-liberal movements, organizations such as UNITE HERE are becoming more necessary at the local level as the government withdraws its support for programs assisting those most in need of support: women and minorities who are subject to discrimination, pay inequity, job insecurity as top jobs go to white male breadwinners, etc.

In another thread of transnational feminist theory, Kathleen Staudt (2002, “Transcending nations: Cross-border organizing,” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4:2, 197-215) advocates the use of labor unions as an alternative to her suggestion of higher-educational institutions as a source of weakly tied networks to encourage transnational organizing. She states: “[Labor unions and social movements] are a good illustration of the strength of weak ties, a strength further enhanced with transnational institutions with which they can engage to win occasional victories that legitimize their claims beyond their networks and into official governance mechanisms” (p. 208). UNITE HERE is good example of such a union: starting with small victories locally, UNITE HERE (ACTWU at the time) extended its focus to push for a Code of Conduct with the Clothing Manufacturers' Association in 1993 that required employers to respect international workers' rights. Such an effort demonstrates the union’s going beyond the local level to influence policy at the institutional level.

Question 2. What is the organization/movement’s overall purpose and which sectors of women (and/or men) does it “target” through its activities, policies, etc.?

UNITE HERE’s overall aim is to organize so that people can be in a better position to bargain for better working conditions for the workers in their constituent industries. UNITE HERE hopes to protect all workers in the garment, hospitality, laundry and associated industries. Workers in such blue-collar industries are mostly women and minorities (blacks, Latinos, Asians), many of whom are immigrants. As a matter of fact, UNITE, when it was the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, was formed in 1900 by a group of mostly Italian and Jewish immigrant women toiling in New York City sweatshops.

[project] Part II: A brief history

UNITE
UNITE is the merger of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA). Both unions have a long history of transnational organizing. Eleven years after the ILGWU’s founding in 1900, the ILGWU affiliated with Toronto's Independent Cloakmakers Union (founded 1909). Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America organized men's clothing workers in 1914, organizing laborers in New York and Chicago. Three years later, the ACWA is established in Montreal. The ACWA expanded to include the New York City laundry workers. In 1939 American southerners founded the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA). Six years later, Canada’s Congress of Labor requested the TWUA’s presence in Canada. In the same year the National Textile Workers Union of Canada merged with the TWUA. American Federation of Hosiery Workers merged with the TWUA in 1965. The AWCA and TWUA merged in 1976 to form the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU). Four years later the United Shoe Workers merged with the ACTWU. In 1983 the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers’ International Union affiliated with ACTWU. In 1985 the ILGWU and ACTWU collaborated on their first project, helping to form a national industry-labor coalition for a more equitable system of regulating apparel. In 1995 the ILGWU and ACTWU joined to form UNITE, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. At this time UNITE represented over 250,000 workers across Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico. The Laundry and Dry Cleaning International Union merged with UNITE in 2002.

HERE
Information on the website is less comprehensive for HERE. HERE received its original charter from the American Federation of Labor on April 24, 1891. The website does not state if HERE subsumed other labor unions. The information includes some pictures with captions from various events.

In 2004 UNITE and HERE merged to form UNITE HERE.

Throughout their history UNITE and HERE’s founding organizations fought for contracts, limited hour workweeks, wage and hour standards, impartial arbitration of disputes, safer working conditions, unemployment insurance plan, employer-paid health and life insurance programs, paid vacation, pension raise, bereavement pay, contract enforcement, and stringent health and safety measures. They established institutions to help their members: they founded health centers to treat tuberculosis in immigrants, a bank with free checking, cooperative apartment housing for members, day care centers, and educational programs.

UNITE and HERE worked with other groups to eliminate North-South differential in cotton textile wage rates, they participated in the civil rights March on Washington campaign, they participated in restaurant boycotts during the civil rights era, they petitioned the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for stricter cotton dust standards, they formed a national industry-labor coalition for a more equitable system of regulating apparel, they negotiated a Code of Conduct with the Clothing Manufacturers' Association that required employers to respect international workers' rights, they launched a "Stop Sweatshops" campaign to link union, consumer, student, civil rights and women's groups in the fight against sweatshops at home and abroad, they participated in a coalition of groups to defeat "Fast Track" trade legislation, which would have given the President the authority to negotiate trade deals without Congressional approval.

(Information assimilated from http://www.unitehere.org/about/historyhere.php, http://www.unitehere.org/about/historyunite.php, http://www.unitehere.org/about/history.php, http://www.unitehere.org/presscenter/faq.php.)

[project] Part I: Introduction

Transnational organizing is when groups across borders organize to attain goals. This is in contrast to international projects in that transnational efforts are not overseen by governments or international organizations. Also, rather than being an effort to effect nation-wide change, transnational projects aim for more local effects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationality, Pettman 2004). My class is on transnational feminism, with a specific focus on transnational organizing in North America. Since this is an “online resources project,” I will mix traditional journal articles with online resources.

UNITE HERE is an international union that represents 50,000 workers in Canada and 450,000 workers in the United States in the industries of garment manufacturing, garment retail, hotels and restaurants, casinos, sports stadium and airport concessions, and, in Canada, plastics and auto parts manufacturing (http://www.unitehere.org/, http://www.unitehere.ca/pages/default_en.php).

Originally two separate unions, UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) merged on July 8, 2004. The membership of UNITE HERE is mostly minorities: immigrants, Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans. The majority are women (http://www.unitehere.org/about/). Major UNITE HERE employers are:

• ALSCO
• Aramark
• Boyd Gaming
• Brooks Brothers
• Caesars Entertainment
• Harrah's Entertainment
• Hartmarx
• Hilton
• Hyatt
• Levi Strauss
• Liz Claiborne
• Mandalay Resorts
• MGM-Mirage
• National Linen
• Starwood
• TJX
• Walt Disney World Company
• Wynn Resorts
• Xerox

UNITE HERE’s primary aim is “organizing the unorganized in our industries” (http://www.unitehere.org/about/). They are currently running organizing campaigns at Cintas (http://www.cintas.com/, for UNITE HERE’s website on Cintas go to http://www.cintasexposed.org/), Hilton (http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/index.do?WT.srch=1), H&M (http://www.hm.com/) and in the gaming industry. Once organized, UNITE HERE’s local unions bargain for better working conditions, hours, pay, safety, benefits, insurance, etc. In addition, UNITE HERE uses its affiliations to influence policy decisions. Finally, UNITE HERE launched a consciousness-raising campaign on sweatshop labor, the “Behind the Label” campaign.

Introduction

Playing around with blogs. I've been meaning to start a "professional" blog. Now's just as good a time as any. My first "project" will be for a class I'm taking: Feminisms in North America. Once I figure out how to use this blog, I'll start posting information about my project.