Labor organizing is experiencing a surge, specifically in majority female-industries like healthcare and education, reported Bloomberg Nov. 3.
Many of the essential workers praised and touted as heroes throughout the pandemic work in female-led industries. Strikes at hospitals across the country, walkouts for teachers in Scranton, Pa., and strikes of flight attendants at American Airlines all demonstrate some recent labor movement moves.
Now women are getting more involved in union activity, making up a larger share of the unionized workforce at a record 47 percent, up from 37 percent three decades ago. Union membership has declined since its peak in the 1950s, but as men have left at a faster rate, more women have been left to make up the share.
Many women are now leading large unions across the country. The largest federation of unions in the country, AFL-CIO, is led by a woman, as is the Association of Flight Attendants and the Service Employees International Union.
"The most dynamic leaders in the labor movement, both on the national and the local level, are women," Brishen Rogers, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Bloomberg.
The image of unions still brings to mind industrial manufacturing, a traditionally male-dominated space. However, as the nation relied on healthcare workers and teachers to get through the pandemic, a renewed focus was brought to employment issues they face.
"A lot of the most innovative and effective organizing in recent years has occurred in female-dominated service-sector jobs," said Kate Andrias, a professor at Columbia University Law School.
Research has shown that women who belong to unions have increased access to benefits and better compensation. The Institute for Women's Policy research found that unionization increased the proportion of female workers who had access to paid sick leave by 20 percentage points and to paid vacation by 15 percentage points. There is also a slightly lower gender pay gap for unionized women, with them earning 87 cents on the dollar that men make, as compared to non-unionized women, who earn 82 cents.