ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses women's appeals to unions for economic empowerment, and then turns to the benefits and limits of legal remedies when advancing women's status at work. It then focuses on these two broad categories, unions and the law, because much of the scholarship situates women's workplace status as contingent upon inclusion in these two institutions. Feminism of the 1960s and 1970s spurred greater organizing activity among pink-collar women as well. Unions turned their attention towards female-dominated, public-sector occupations, such as teaching, as well as towards certain gender-specific issues, such as pay equity. While activists have formed, supported and led labor organizations, others have turned to the law to improve the status of women, shifting strategies from embracing difference-based to equality-based rights. Feminist and labor organizations pushed for the gender-neutral Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), eventually passed in 1993.
