Suzanne Franzway
and Mary Margaret Fonow,
"Queer Activism, Feminism and the Transnational Labor Movement"
(page 2 of 4)
As the experiences, issues and concerns of LGBT workers become
increasingly visible, two points emerge: firstly, this category of
workers is no more homogenous than any other, and secondly, progressive
gains can only be made with persistent and focused political activism.
To the first point, John Blandford argues that although sexual
orientation has significant influence on income, its submergence within
categories of married or non-married serves to distort analyses of
causes, and therefore the framing of political campaigns to achieve pay
equity.[9]
Likewise, American research on heterosexism in the workplace
has found that studies on the impact of race and gender in the workplace
that ignore sexual orientation tend to underestimate or misconstrue the
effects of multiple identities on workers themselves, as well as on the
value of anti-discrimination policies.[10]
The second point about the necessity for political activism by and
for LGBT workers recognizes that, overall, little attention has been
paid to issues of sexuality in the politics or research literature of
trade union movements, and still less has been paid to the hegemonic or
homophobic dimensions of such movements. The general silence on issues
of sexuality among union activists stands in strong contrast with the
clearly articulated view that the male dominance of the labor movement
can no longer be ignored or overlooked, including issues of union
leadership and sexual harassment.[11]
Considerable uncertainty and timidity
remains about LGBT issues in the labor movement at both local and
international levels.
Queer organizing is strongest in unions where other marginalized
workers have carved out self-organizing spaces, where union feminism is
active, and where there are large numbers of women.[12]
Examples of women's
self-organizing include women's conferences, caucuses, committees,
forums, workshops, special educational programs, and websites. The
rationale for creating separate forms of organizing is predicated on the
minority status of women in a male-dominated union and in their
experiences of sexual harassment and sex discrimination on the job.
These separate spaces can serve as staging areas for broader forms of
organizational and movement participation. As Katzenstein (1998) makes
clear: "For protest to occur inside institutions there must be protected
spaces or habitats where activists can meet, share experiences, receive
affirmation, and strategize for change."[13]
Although these spaces are
clearly defined and defendable by activists, their boundaries are not
necessarily permanent or fixed. For women, self-organizing in unions
provides the political space to construct union feminism. According to
Curtin (1999), "separate spaces provide the opportunity for women to
alter the discursive frameworks through which women's claims are
constituted."[14]
These spaces serve as mobilizing structures and are not
ends in themselves.
Similar self-organizing internal support structures and policies have
been developed by LGBT union members despite resistance from some union
officials and members. LGBT labor activists have mounted campaigns on
explicit issues around sexuality such as protection from homophobia in
the workplace and collective bargaining for domestic partner benefits
since the early 1970s. The first Australian Gay and Lesbian Trade
Unionists Group (GayTUG) was formed in 1978. Twenty years later, GLAM
(Gay and Lesbian Australian Services Union Members) was established to
articulate their issues to the broad labor movement as well as within
their union. In Canada, similar self-organizing by networks of lesbians
and gay men established internal structures such as The National Pink
Triangle Committee of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in
1991. In 1997, the Canadian Labor Council organized its first national
conference for gay and lesbian unionists, attended by about 300
people,[15]
and in 1999, the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) added transgender
issues to its bargaining agenda.[16]
The first public endorsement of LGBT
rights by an American labor union was in 1970, when the executive
council of the American Federation of Teachers passed a resolution
denouncing discrimination against teachers solely on the basis of
homosexuality. In 1983, the American peak body, the American Federation
of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), formally
condemned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Around the same
time, gay and lesbian unionists for equality formed GLUE in Wellington,
New Zealand to gain union recognition of the need to promote and protect
the interests of lesbian and gay workers. In 2000, the New Zealand
Council of Trade Union's network, CTU Out@Work, was established for
lesbian, gay, takataapui, bisexual, intersex, transgender and
fa'afafine union members.[17]
It is notable that these campaigns have advanced through the kinds of
alliances with broader social movements that we have identified as
critical to a new feminist politics. As McCreery and Krupat have
argued, "the challenge for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered
movements to confront elitism and inequalities in their own ranks, is to
acknowledge common cause with other social movements, and to wage their
struggles at the intersections of class, race, and gender."[18] Such
alliances have fueled internal campaigns by feminist and LGBT activists
to push unions to address the issues and workers' concerns. In 1981,
for example, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of LGBT
community activists, organized a gay contingent to participate in the
Australian May Day parade, the annual celebration of workers'
rights—despite the fact that "it was not well received by some in the
union hierarchy."[19]
Over the last decade, unions have participated in the
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras march through the heart of the city,
which attracts enormous crowds and live television coverage. Although
the march is a major annual expression of the LGBT movement, union
involvement is not without serious internal conflicts that have even
resulted some union officials threatening to resign. Robyn Fortescue
argues that the significance of events like Mardi Gras are not just
about what happens on the night of the march; rather, their impact
derives from the organization, debates and material support that must be
negotiated within the labor movement beforehand. She argues that such
an alliance makes Mardi Gras "the biggest labor festival of the
year."[20]
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