ABSTRACT
Despite their long-standing involvement in the U.S. labor movement, women have been less represented and less active than men in the labor movement (Foner 1987; Milkman 1990; Needleman and Tanner 1987; Roby and Uttal 1988; Strom 1983). This gender difference in labor movement involvement has been attributed to sexist, exclusionary, and discriminatory actions of male trade unionists; the allegedly, greater psychological passivity of female workers; patterns of occupational and industrial sexual segregation in employment; inattention of unions to recruiting female members and to working women's employment issues; and the constraints of household and family gender roles. The labor movement, however, has become increasingly attuned to working women's issues, such as child care, pay equity, and occupational safety and health, as it has "feminized"—that is, as women have come to be a larger proportion of U.S. labor union membership and leadership during the post-World War n era (Cornfield 1987, 1989, 1990). Nonetheless, unions may approach women's issues haltingly when these issues jeopardize collective bargaining and seniority-based personnel systems, as in some instances of implementing comparable-worth reforms (Acker 1989).
