Women's History month: healing and hoping in public health and organized labor

March is Women’s History Month,  and this year’s theme is “Women providing healing, promoting hope” – a fine way to recall and appreciate women in health care and in organized labor, past and present.

Citing contributions of Native American women in the fight for climate justice, African American women presence in ending slavery and working for civil rights and the Voting Rights Act; suffragists leading in the passage of the 19th Amendment so no Americans would be denied the right to vote based on gender; and LGBTQ+ women working for justice, President Biden’s Feb. 28 proclamation on Women’s History Month also made a point of praising women unionists.

“Women of the labor movement are achieving monumental reforms to help all workers secure the better pay, benefits, and safety they deserve,” he said.

“Despite the progress being made, women and girls — especially women and girls of color — still face systemic barriers to full participation and wider gaps in opportunity and equality,” he added.

Women’s History Month has been traced to a week-long celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history and society organized by the school district of Sonoma, Calif., in 1978. Two years later, President Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week. The U.S. Congress followed suit in 1981, approving a resolution establishing a national celebration. Six years later, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March.

Globally, International Women’s Day, a worldwide celebration of the economic, political and social achievements of women, first occurred on March 8, 1911, and the United Nations has sponsored International Women’s Day since 1975.

Currently, the nonpartisan National Women’s History Alliance designates the annual theme for Women's History Month.

“Women have long advocated for compassionate treatments and new directions in public health and in women’s mental and physical health, the Alliance said. “Women have also historically led the way in mending divisions, healing wounds, and finding peaceful solutions. This timeless work, in so many ways and in addition to so many other tasks, has helped countless individuals in our communities recover and follow their dreams.”

The theme is “both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.”

Indeed, women hold 76% of all health-care jobs, according to the U.S. Census.

Meanwhile, organized labor has benefited from the dedication and talents of many women for decades, from Mary Harris “Mother” Jones to Peoria native Betty Friedan, the ground-breaking feminist who also was an ardent unionist who in the 1940s and ’50s worked as a writer and activist for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE),

Today, the most visible women leaders include National Nurses United (NNU) President Deborah Burger; Mary Kay Henry, leader of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Liz Shuler, the first female president of the AFL-CIO; and Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA).

Shuler grew up in a union household. Her father was a power-company lineman and she worked summers at Portland General Eletric while the University of Oregon. She first became active in union work as an organizer for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245, and rose through the ranks.

“The coronavirus pandemic – coupled with our country’s prolonged shortage of jobs that provide living wages, good benefits, and adequate working conditions –  has created momentum for our movement on a scale we’ve never seen before,” Shuler told Harper’s BAZAAR. “For too long, women have been underpaid, undervalued, and expected to take on most of the unpaid care work. That’s why on the national level, we’re working to pass the Build Back Better Act, which will put gender equity at the center of our economic recovery where it belongs.”

Nelson as a young adult had to work four jobs, including as a substitute teacher and in sales, but in 1996 she was hired by United Airlines, where she’s worked since.

Early on there, a dispute over wages prompted Nelson to get involved in labor organizing. In 2002, when United declared bankruptcy, the union representing the airline’s flight attendants turned to then 29-year-old Nelson, who was active in the Boston Association of Flight Attendants union, to assume the role of chief of communications. In the years that followed, Nelson proved shrewd in the public relations department in both the face of the SARS outbreak that hurt international air travel, and after United attempted to cut workers’ pensions. By 2011, her impressive record in union commnications propelled her to international vice president, the union’s number-two leadership position, and three years later, she assumed the position of international president.

“I’m a representation of the people,” Nelson has said. “This is definitely not just about me. This is about whether or not our economy actually works.”

During 2019’s government shutdown, Nelson stepped up and said if the White House didn’t end it, she would consider calling for a general strike. Speaking at Reagan National Airport in Washington, Nelson advocated for the thousands of federal workers at U.S. airports.

“Many of these people are fighting for our country right now, and we are not paying them,” she said.

The next day, East Coast air traffic controllers didn’t show up for work, briefly grounding flights in New York, and hours later, President Trump announced a deal that reopened the government.

“I think that for the majority of people who were defined as essential workers—the majority of them being women and people of color—the pandemic shined a light on jobs that are oftentimes left in the shadows or cast aside,” said Nelson, who’s now organizing flight attendants at Delta Air Lines, one of the few airlines that still has a mostly non-union workforce.

History is still being made.