Kids Corner

You probably think of spring break and St. Patrick’s Day when you think of March, but did you know it’s also Women’s History Month?

Women have played a vital role in the growth of the American labor movement.

Today, more women than ever are involved in the top ranks of the country’s large unions. They include CWA’s Barbara Easterling, the first woman to serve as CWA secretary-treasurer and Linda Chavez-Thompson, AFL-CIO executive vice president.

Below are three sketches of women who paved the way for today’s leaders.

Susan B. Anthony, born in 1820 in Massachusetts, was brought up in a Quaker family with a strong sense of activism and justice. As a young woman, she was involved in the women’s rights and anti-slavery movements. She called for better wages for female teachers and argued that all people, including women and ex-slaves, should be able to attend public schools and colleges. She encouraged working women to form their own unions.

In 1868, she published a paper called The Revolution that called for an eight-hour workday and equal pay for equal work. But she is probably best known for her vigorous efforts to win women’s suffrage — meaning the right to vote. She died in 1906, but her fight was rewarded in 1920 with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gave women the vote. The U.S. Mint honored Anthony in 1979 by putting her image on a $1 coin.

Francis Perkins was the first woman appointed by a U.S. president to serve in his cabinet. She was selected by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to be secretary of labor, and today the building that houses the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington is named for her.

Perkins was born in 1882 in Boston. She worked as a social worker and teacher as a young woman and became involved in progressive politics. Roosevelt, as governor of New York in 1929, appointed her as his industrial commissioner, another first for a woman.

As secretary of labor, she persuaded Congress to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which led to the 40-hour workweek, a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour and a ban on child labor.

“Mother Jones” was born Mary Harris Jones in Ireland in 1830, coming to America at age 5. She suffered great losses in her life. Her husband and four children died of yellow fever and her home burned down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. But she didn’t dwell on her tragedies. She devoted herself to the needy and became a fearless champion of workers’ rights.

Mother Jones, who lived to be 100, was a small woman, 5 feet tall with snow-white hair and a kindly grandmother’s expression. But she called herself a “hell-raiser” and lived up to the description. She angered governors, congressmen and businessmen with her strong words.

She helped the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers organize. She cared so much for the workers that she spent weeks inside dark, rat-infested prisons tending to sick miners who were jailed.

The vast differences between rich and poor that Mother Jones observed while sewing for wealthy families in Chicago troubled her deeply.

She is quoted as saying, “I would look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking alongside the frozen lake front. The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice nor to care.”

It’s a Small World

You’ve probably heard the saying “It’s a small world.” Today, globalization — that’s a mouthful, isn’t it? — is making the world even smaller.

Many big corporations, such as General Electric, IBM and Nike, are building factories in countries where wages are very low and workers spend 12 or more hours a day on assembly lines.

This is not acceptable. As union members, we believe all workers deserve respect and dignity. That means fair wages, reasonable hours, a safe workplace and health and retirement benefits. We are also concerned because when companies leave the United States, American workers lose good, living-wage jobs. Families and whole communities suffer.

You can read what affected workers have to say in “Globalization’s Human Toll” in this month’s CWA News by clicking here.

To keep you thinking about the global economy, here’s this month’s game: How many words of three letters or more can you form from word GLOBALIZE? We’ll get you started with “ball” and “leg.” Fifty more are listed below. Good luck! It’s tougher than it looks.

GLOBALIZE Word List

able
age
ago
ail
all
aloe
bag
bagel
bail
beg
bell
big
bile
bilge
bill
blaze
boa
bog
bogle
boil
bole
boll
ego
gab
gale
gall
gel
gill
glaze
glob
global
globe
goal
goalie
gob
ill
label
lag
legal
leo
liable
libel
lie
lobe
lobelia
log
oblige
ogle
oil
zeal