It’s Not Only a War Against Unions, But a War Against Women

March 21, 2011

The nationwide anti-union offensive is an assault on the middle class as a whole, but there is a segment of our population that is disproportionately bearing the brunt of these attacks: our union sisters.

As hard right governors in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere try to strip collective bargaining rights from public service workers, it is worth noting that more than half of the workers in the public sector are women.

According to the National Women’s Law Center, women make up 56.8 percent of all government workers. At the state government level, they comprise 51.7 percent of the workforce, and they make up over 60 percent of local government workers.

In this current war of attrition against public sector workers, they have already lost 320,000 jobs, among other things, because most of our teachers, nurses and public-sector clerical workers are women.

As U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and economist Heidi Hartmann point out in this recent article in Politico, “job losses will come as female workers are trying to do more with less because they have already begun in the hole.”

Why? Because due to pay discrimination, women make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. Also, because public service workers with a college degree make 32 percent less than their private sector counterparts.

Women are already economically vulnerable in our society and they stand to lose much more from the ongoing war against the middle class.