Advance Women’s Rights

Women and gender-nonconforming people have always been in the vanguard of the labor movement, combating racism, sexism, bigotry, and capitalist exploitation. Women and gender-nonconforming labor leaders like Clara Lemlich, Mother Jones, Fannie Sellins, Mary Moultrie, Dolores Huerta, and Marsha P. Johnson have led the fight for improved working conditions and gender justice in the U.S. In 1909, the women-led New York Shirtwaist Strike transformed the conditions of garment workers in the country, paving the way for decades of labor reforms for all workers. During the West Virginia coal wars and the Empire Zinc mine strike in New Mexico, women who lived on mine company property played an outsized role in maintaining and organizing strikes and pickets. Women labor leaders also played a prominent role in the liberatory movements starting with the civil rights movement and beyond.

However, despite generations of strong female leadership, women still earn lower wages and face worse conditions than men. Currently, women working full-time make only 83 cents per dollar earned by men, and this pay gap is worse for women of color, with Black women earning approximately 66 cents on the dollar, and Latinas, approximately 59 cents compared to a white man. At this rate, it will take until the year 2088 for gendered pay gaps to be erased.

Much of the gendered pay gap is because our corporatized society penalizes women who juggle the dual roles of worker and caregiver, work that disproportionately falls on women. While under the Biden Administration some laws, like the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers (PUMP) Act, expanded accommodations for pregnant and nursing mothers in the workplace, only 27% of civilian workers have access to paid family leave. Mothers are more likely to face job disruptions than fathers due to unaffordable and inconsistent childcare, and the percentage of women in the workforce has remained lower than prior to the pandemic, with Black women most acutely impacted.

Women have organized not only for better wages and benefits, but also for workplaces free of harassment and discrimination on the basis of gender presentation, sexual orientation, age, and race, among others. In FY 2024, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported an estimated 7,500 to 8,500 complaints, most filed by women. Fifty-eight percent of women report having experienced gender harassment at work. Unions play a key role in reducing gender and racial disparities in pay and rates of unjust firings. Although it is the employer’s legal duty to provide workers with a safe and healthy workplace, it is the responsibility of union members and leaders to aggressively hold the boss accountable and to defend members who face harassment, discrimination, and bullying. Sexual harassment takes an intense physical, mental, and emotional toll and has been shown to limit workers’ careers and force them out of the workforce.

UE locals have been at the forefront of the fight against sexual harassment, winning and enforcing contract protections such as gender equity; nondiscrimination; anti-harassment; and interim relief measures in grievance procedure clauses. Many UE locals, including Local 150 in North Carolina and Local 115 in New Jersey, have organized against sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, citing widespread sexual harassment as one of the main reasons they organized and fought for stronger workplace protections.

Sexual harassment and discrimination are illegal, prohibited under most union contracts, and against UE’s values. Sexual harassment is perniciously deployed against women who are seen as advocating too much for themselves and their coworkers. It is a tool of the boss, used to stoke division and sow distrust between workers and prevent them from claiming their collective power. An environment where sexual harassment is tolerated and perpetuated weakens our union as a whole. The fight against sexual harassment is a fight for women and for all workers.

Beyond combating sexual harassment in the workplace, we must combat all forms of sexual harassment in our union. In the labor movement, women seeking positions of leadership often face sexist attacks, harassment, and bullying. Although UE has led the fight for gender equity, we are not immune from sexism and sexual harassment. Fighting to end sexual harassment must begin with our conduct as union members and leaders, and we must hold each other to account to build a union where women rank-and-file members and leaders are empowered and respected. UE’s call to organize all workers, “regardless of skill, age, sex, nationality, color, race, religious or political belief or affiliation, sexual orientation, disability or immigration status,” must be renewed over and over again.

UE has always held that reproductive rights are a key element of women’s rights, and reproductive rights, like many others, are under assault under the second Trump Administration. While he insisted during his 2024 campaign he would leave abortion “up to the states,” instead we have seen a massive federal intrusion into reproductive care. In April of 2025, Trump attempted to block over 1,000 clinics from family planning funding under Title X, including many Planned Parenthood branches. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” went even further, attempting to cut Medicaid funding to any clinic that provided abortion services (for the moment blocked by a federal judge). To be clear, the Hyde Amendment has stopped federal funding for abortion since 1980. Now the Trump Administration is trying to eliminate all funding for organizations providing services like STI testing, pregnancy testing, or gynecological exams if they also happen to provide abortion services which still remain legal.

The Trump Administration has begun efforts to eliminate access to mifepristone, a safe and effective drug used in miscarriage care and the majority of all U.S. medication abortions. The evidence being used to justify this attack is junk science from a Project 2025 cosponsor. There are even indications that the Department of Justice may use the Comstock Act, a little-known 1873 law which stops the mailing of “obscene” material, to ban the mailing of mifepristone, making abortion access much more difficult unless women have direct access to clinics—clinics which other elements of Trump’s policy are doing everything to shut down.

UE members need to apply ever-greater pressure on politicians and bosses to advance and maintain women’s rights, while also ensuring that women’s rights are fully respected within our own union.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT THIS 79^th UE CONVENTION:

1. Demands that Congress:
   1. Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to cover all caregivers, regardless of family structure;
   2. Enact national paid parental leave and universal childcare policy;
   3. Pass legislation which establishes the right for health care professionals to provide abortion care and the right for their patients to receive care, free from bans and medically unnecessary restrictions that single out abortion care;
   4. Repeal the Hyde Amendment;
   5. Pass legislation to advance health equity for Black women and other women of color, by addressing the drivers of maternal mortality, morbidity, and disparities;
   6. Build subsidized, livable-wage childcare infrastructure;
   7. Ban salary history inquiries to reduce pay disparities;
   8. Expand WIC (Women, Infants, and Children program), SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and other crucial social support programs;
   9. Pass legislation that protects and continues to support the right to reproductive freedom as a whole;
   10. Reinstate and expand global aid programs supporting reproductive justice;
2. Demands state legislators repeal state-level abortion bans and restrictions;
3. Calls on the national union to:
   1. Promote the reestablishment of a UE Women’s and Gender Nonconforming Caucus, including adding it to convention programs or agendas;
   2. Develop anti-sexual harassment workshops, for use at regional council meetings and national conventions;
   3. Require all General Executive Board members and national union staff to attend anti-sexual harassment training;
4. Calls on the union at all levels to:
   1. Oppose harmful legislation targeting women and families;
   2. Bargain for pay equity, safe workplaces, and inclusive policies for all women in the workplace;
   3. Promote leadership development for women and gender non-conforming members;
   4. Condemn all attacks on women and gender-nonconforming people, especially those who are people of color or immigrants;
   5. Commit to fight all forms of sexual harassment within our union and the labor movement;
   6. Educate members, officers, and staff on sexual harassment and create programs, trainings, and workshops to combat harassment, intimidation and sexist attitudes, including making use of the UE Steward article on stopping sexual harassment;
   7. Enforce anti-harassment standards;
   8. Promote employer-funded training for women entering nontraditional fields;
   9. Demand employer-paid childcare and family leave provisions;
   10. Support political candidates who are pro-labor and pro-choice;
   11. Provide quality childcare for meetings and conferences;
   12. Educate members on PWFA and PUMP Act rights and nursing accommodations;
   13. Promote global aid programs supporting reproductive justice;
5. Urges locals to:
   1. Establish women’s caucuses for the purpose of fighting for women’s issues in the workplace, and to provide a space for women and gender-nonconforming people to build community and solidarity;
   2. Establish explicit spaces for members who are women of color to build community and claim their power;
   3. Expand and strengthen protections against sexual harassment and discrimination as a bargaining priority;
   4. Defend our members aggressively against sexual harassment;
   5. Strengthen health and safety contract language and ensure injury reporting in women-dominated jobs;
   6. Negotiate leave benefits for all workers—not just those covered by FMLA;
6. Encourages all members to:
   1. Support and work with organizations fighting for women’s and family rights;
   2. Stay active, organized, and vocal in the fight for workplace and societal gender equity.