Karen Nussbaum

Last updated
Karen Nussbaum
Karen Nussbaum 01.jpg
13th Director of the United States Women's Bureau
In office
1993–1996
Parent
Relatives Susan Nussbaum (sister)
Education Goddard College (BA)

Karen Nussbaum (born April 25, 1950) is an American labor leader and founding director of Working America. Nussbaum was born in Chicago where her mother, Annette Brenner Nussbaum, was a publicist, and her father, Myron "Mike" Nussbaum, was an exterminator, actor, and director. Her parents were active in the anti-Vietnam movement and worked to bring speakers to their community of Highland Park in Chicago including Staughton Lynd.[ citation needed ] During this time, the family was also receiving hate mail from the local John Birch Society. She enrolled in the University of Chicago in 1968 but dropped out to move to Boston and work in the anti-Vietnam movement. In 1975, she earned a B.A. from Goddard College. While in Boston, she began working as a clerical worker at Harvard where she was exposed to inequalities in the workplace for female office workers.

Contents

Biography

Working with 9to5

In 1972, she co-founded 9to5: Organization for Women Office Workers with Ellen Cassedy. 9to5 is an organization that addressed issues female office workers faced, such as sexual harassment. [1] Women became a driving force during the labor movement by leading woman-dominated unions and associations. Female unionists and feminists came together during the 9to5 movement which benefitted both organizations. The labor movement gained female workers and support while the feminists became a much stronger and a recognized feminist union. The 9to5 organization eventually helped create a labor union for female office workers in 1975. As a radical activist, Nussbaum realized that her job in life was to organize powerful unions for groups overlooked by the labor movement. In 1977, 9to5 Boston merged with Cleveland Women Working (est. 1975 primarily by Helen Williams) to create the Cleveland-based Working Women Organizing Project. Based in Cleveland from 1977-1993, the national organization was a coalition of like-minded associations and was headed by Nussbaum. (The name was later changed to 9to5: National Association of Women Office Workers.) In 1978, Karen Nussbaum became the director. In 1981, 9to5 worked as a partner with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) known as District 925. During the partnership with the union, she served as director from 1981 to 1993. [2] [3] [4]

Later work

During the Clinton Administration, Nussbaum served as the director of the Women's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor from 1993 to 1996. During this time, Nussbaum noticed that women's health problems due to the workplace often go unreported and unnoticed. [5] Most reported workplace hazards for women are identified as fertility issues, although there are few regulations to protect female workers from fertility hazards. Nussbaum states that she "plans to work closely with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) " to act as an advocate for workplace safety on a gender-specific basis. [5] As director of the Women’s Bureau, she sent out surveys to working women titled, Working Women Count!, [6] which described the things that working women in the U.S. want and what they are looking to the Administration for. The survey entailed questions asking working women about their jobs where she found a similarity among the complaints. [7] Nussbaum hopes to educate women about their workplace rights regarding the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Civil Rights Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.[ citation needed ]

Later on in life, Nussbaum involved herself with Washington D.C.–based labor union AFL–CIO. In 1996 she served as the head of the AFL-CIO's new Working Women's Department. [8] During her time, a study by her group found that nearly half of the wage gap between men and women is accredited to discrimination. She stated, "One of the biggest reasons for the narrowing of the gap was that many high-paying manufacturing jobs held by men have gone overseas".

Awards and achievements

Bibliography

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Labor history of the United States</span>

The nature and power of organized labor in the United States is the outcome of historical tensions among counter-acting forces involving workplace rights, wages, working hours, political expression, labor laws, and other working conditions. Organized unions and their umbrella labor federations such as the AFL–CIO and citywide federations have competed, evolved, merged, and split against a backdrop of changing values and priorities, and periodic federal government intervention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's Trade Union League</span> U.S. labor rights organization (1903–1950)

The Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) (1903–1950) was a U.S. organization of both working class and more well-off women to support the efforts of women to organize labor unions and to eliminate sweatshop conditions. The WTUL played an important role in supporting the massive strikes in the first two decades of the twentieth century that established the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and in campaigning for women's suffrage among men and women workers.

Thomas Reilly Donahue Jr. was an American trade union leader who served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations from 1979 to 1995, interim president for several months in 1995, and was President Emeritus from 1996 until his death. He was considered as one of the most influential leaders of the post-World War II American trade union movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidential Commission on the Status of Women</span> JFK-era advisory body to the U.S. president

The President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women. It was created by John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10980 signed December 14, 1961. In 1975 it became the National Association of Commissions for Women.

Kate Bronfenbrenner is the Director of Labor Education Research at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She is a leading authority on successful strategies in labor union organizing, and on the effects of outsourcing and offshoring on workers and worker rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coalition of Black Trade Unionists</span> US nonprofit organization

The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) is a nonprofit organization of African American trade union members affiliated with the AFL–CIO. More than 50 different international and national trade unions are represented in CBTU and there are 50 chapters in the United States and one in Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Bernard</span> Canadian historian

Elaine Bernard is the former executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She is also a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which she describes as offering "an opportunity to reach across borders, time zones, organizations, communities, and individual interests and grow solidarity".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance</span> U.S. AFL–CIO constituency group

The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) is a nonprofit organization of Asian-Pacific American trade union members affiliated with the AFL–CIO. It was the "first and only national organization for Asian Pacific American union members".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coalition of Labor Union Women</span> U.S. nonprofit organization

The Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of trade union women affiliated with the AFL–CIO. The CLUW is a bridging organization that seeks to create connections between the feminist movement and the labor movement in the United States. The organization works towards overcoming past constraints and conflicts in pursuance of relationship improvement between those movements, and thus enabling broad coalitions. The CLUW is the only national organization solely for women union members and is one of six constituency groups within the AFL–CIO. It is based in the headquarters of the AFL–CIO in Washington, D.C. CLUW pursues by four goals: to bring women into union leadership, to organize unorganized women workers, to bring women's issues onto the labor agenda, and to involve women into political action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Working America</span> Political organizing arm of the AFL–CIO

Working America is the political organizing arm of the AFL–CIO. Its membership is made up of non-union individuals. It is the largest non-union workers' group in the United States, with a self-reported membership of 3.2 million individuals. Working America advocates for progressive policy issues. The organization recruits people in working-class neighborhoods on their doorsteps in an effort to persuade them to support labor-backed candidates at election time.

The Maine AFL–CIO is a federation of AFL–CIO-affiliated labor unions in the state of Maine.

9to5, National Association of Working Women is an organization established in 1973 that is dedicated to improving working conditions and ensuring the rights of women and families in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Randolph Mason</span> American labor activist and suffragist

Lucy Randolph Mason was an American labor activist and suffragist. She was involved in the union movement, the consumer movement and the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Shuler</span> American labor activist (born 1970)

Elizabeth H. Shuler is an American labor activist and, since August 5, 2021, President of the AFL–CIO. She is the first woman to be elected president of the federation. She was previously the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position of Secretary-Treasurer. She is the highest-ranking woman in the labor federation's history. From her election to the retirement of Arlene Holt Baker in 2013 was the first time that two of the three officer positions in the AFL–CIO were held by women; her election as president with Fred Redmond succeeding her as Secretary-Treasurer marked the first time two of the three positions were held by African Americans.

Lin Farley is an American author, journalist and feminist. She was a leader in calling attention to the problems faced by women in the workforce, in particular sexual harassment.

Labor feminism was a women's movement in the United States that emerged in the 1920s, focused on gaining rights in the workplace and unions. Labor feminists advocated for protectionist legislation and special benefits for women, a variant of social feminism. They helped pass state laws regulating working conditions for women, expanded women's participation in unions, and organized to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Pollak Ellickson</span> American trade unionist (1905–1996)

Katherine Pollak Ellickson was an American labor economist. For much of her career, she worked for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). During the Kennedy administration, she was executive director of the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and helped create the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Lane Windham is a historian and the associate director of Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and co-director of WILL Empower at Georgetown University.

Debbie Schneider is a labor organizer who has worked with multiple groups including 9to5, Women Office Workers, and United Healthcare Workers. She served as president of District 925 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and was a member of SEIU's executive board.

Ellen Cassedy is known for co-founding 9to5, an organization coordinating improved working conditions for office workers.

References

  1. ↑ "9 to 5, National Association of Working Women (U.S.) - Social Networks and Archival Context". snaccooperative.org. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
  2. 1 2 "Karen Nussbaum; Transcript (1 Pdf), Nov. 16, 2006 | ArchivesSpace@Wayne". archives.wayne.edu. Retrieved 2023-03-24.
  3. 1 2 "9TO5, NATIONAL ASSN. OF WORKING WOMEN". Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University. 2019-05-31. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  4. ↑ Windham, Lane (1 September 2015). "'A Sense of Possibility and a Belief in Collective Power': A Labor Strategy Talk with Karen Nussbaum". Labor. 12 (3): 35–51. doi: 10.1215/15476715-2920388 .
  5. 1 2 Weinstock, Matthew P. (1994). "How safe are women in the workplace?". Occupational Hazards. 56 (3): 68. ProQuest   213693171.
  6. ↑ Sommers, Christina H. (1996). "A Feminist Camelot". National Review. 48 (16): 74.
  7. ↑ Genasci, Lisa (1994-08-16). "An Advocate for Working Women : Profile: Karen Nussbaum helped found the national organization 9to5 and was tapped to continue her activism in the Clinton Administration". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-03-27.
  8. ↑ Boris, Eileen; Orleck, Annelise (2011). "Feminism and the Labor Movement: A Century of Collaboration and Conflict". New Labor Forum. 20 (1): 33–41. doi:10.4179/NLF.201.0000006. JSTOR   27920539. S2CID   154076421. Project MUSE   413900.
  9. ↑ "Karen Nussbaum | Working America". www.workingamerica.org. Retrieved 2023-05-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.