Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Union WAGE (Organization)
- Abstract:
- The Union W.A.G.E. Pamphlet collection contains 200 items with a large focus on equity for women. Subjects include workers rights, women's liberation, feminism, child care, internationalism, anti-imperialism, and safe working conditions.
- Extent:
- 5 Cubic Feet (10 boxes)
- Language:
- Languages represented in the collection: English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Union W.A.G.E. Pamphlet Collection, larc.pam.0006, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Union W.A.G.E. Pamphlet collection contains 200 items with a large focus on equity for women. Subjects include workers rights, women's liberation, feminism, child care, internationalism, anti-imperialism, and safe working conditions.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Union WAGE (Women's Alliance to Gain Equality) was founded on International Women's Day, March 8, 1971, at an educational conference sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), at the University of California, Berkeley. Union WAGE was a politically non-partisan, non-profit organization for "working women" which included housewives, unemployed, retired, and welfare women. The organization's purpose was to achieve "equal rights, equal pay, and equal opportunity" for working women.
Union WAGE was created at a workshop during the NOW conference entitled "Extending Protective Legislation to All Workers." The panelists included future Union WAGE leaders Jean Maddox, president of the Office and Professional Employees Union, AFL-CIO, Local 29, and Ann Draper, West Coast Union Label Director for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, AFL-CIO. By the end of the panel discussion the participants all agreed on the necessity of a working women's feminist organization and voted to reconstitute themselves as that organization.
The main groups which first made up Union WAGE were the Committee to Extend Protective Legislation to Men, a caucus of the International Socialists; San Francisco State's Independent Campus Women; U.C. Berkeley's Graduate Sociology Women's Caucus; and many members of the Office and Professional Employees Union Local 29. Although Union WAGE considered itself a national organization, the bulk of its membership, as well as its headquarters was located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
One of the organization's main activities was publishing a bi-monthly newspaper, Union WAGE, which focused on working women's issues from a feminist and labor movement perspective. Another focal point of Union WAGE activity was the California Industrial Welfare Commission. Through the members' testimony, lobbying efforts and serving on I.W.C. wage boards Union WAGE sought to represent the interests of working women. Issues they brought before the I.W.C. included the need to preserve and extend protective legislation threatened by the Equal Rights Amendment, and raising the minimum wage requirements. Union WAGE also sponsored educational conferences and events, and published literature for women workers. Topics the organization covered included: organizing non-union workplaces; fighting sexism on the job and in the unions; preventing job-related health hazards for women workers; fighting for rank-and-file control and democracy within the unions; and promoting women's labor history.
- Acquisition information:
- Donated in 1996, accession number 1996/083.
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged as received.
- Physical location:
- Materials are stored offsite; requires advance notice.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
Copyright has not been assigned to the Labor Archives and Research Center. All requests for permission to publish or quote from materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of the Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Labor Archives and Research Center as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Union W.A.G.E. Pamphlet Collection, larc.pam.0006, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
- Location of this collection:
-
J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 4601630 Holloway AveSan Francisco, CA 94132-1722, US
- Contact:
- (415) 405-5549