One of the things that is new about the new economy is the number of women workers. Since 1950 there are three times as many women in the workforce, and the percentage of women has gone up 50 percent. In 1950, 29.6 percent of the workforce was female; today it is up to 46.2 percent.

The economy is now set up to allow every available adult to be working. This has had profound effects on family structure, with few changes in benefits and pay and policy. We did a survey in 1997 called "Ask the Working Woman." We had 50,000 self-selected respondents along with a scientific survey conducted by Lake Research. The findings from the volunteer respondents did not differ that much from the results from people who were called randomly.

We found huge gaps between the benefits and compensation that women workers thought were important and what they actually received. Ninety-nine percent of them thought that equal pay was important, but only a third felt they had it. In terms of basic benefits like sick leave for themselves and sick leave to care for a family member, ninety-nine percent felt those benefits were important, but fifty percent said they were inadequate.

Less than one in ten women were getting help with child care on their jobs. Many of them still do not have paid vacation time, paid maternity leave, paid family medical leave--either for the short term or the long term. Short term leave is to attend Parent-teachers conferences or court appearances for adoption, and longer-term leave is to deal with the birth of a child or the serious illness of a child or a family member.

Unions have an important role in solving these problems. The CWA, for example, has been at the forefront of bargaining for work and family policies in their contracts as well as lobbying for those changes in the law.

Working women are the future of the labor movement. They are voting with their feet. In 1962 women constituted nineteen percent of union members, and today they constitute over thirty-nine percent. Women are more likely than men to join unions. Fifty percent of the women we polled said they would join a union tomorrow if given the opportunity, compared to forty percent of men. And four out of five women in our survey told us they think collective action is a better way to deal with job issues and changes in the law than trying to do it on your own. All of these things are bringing women into the union movement--as activists as well as members.

There is some evidence that unions are responding. There is still a long way to go, but we are seeing changes. There is an increase in the number of women organizers, who are in the forefront of talking one-on-one to workers trying to bring them into unions. Over half of those who graduate from the summer organizer training program at the AFL-CIO are female. Over half the graduates of the organizing institute are now female, and a lot of them are people of color as well. We are seeing an increase of women in the leadership of local unions, state associations, and state federations, as well as at the national level.

At the AFL-CIO under John Sweeney we have seen a big increase in the number of women heading departments, as well as a real change in the things the affiliates are bargaining for, such family policy and flexible work schedules. Local unions are fighting for child care, better family medical leave, and better benefits that support women in the workplace. A number of unions, particularly industrial female-dominated unions, are creating work-and-family positions and working-women positions within the structures of their unions to deal with these issues.

Due to the overwhelming response we received from the Ask the Working Woman survey in 1997, we are going to conduct another round. It is very important to have an ongoing conversation with workers and with women workers. People want to be heard. They want to feel as if the organization will listen to them and respond to what they want, and that it is accessible. They want to have a role, to have the leadership open to them to run and hold office, and to make policy. This is what will attract them into union membership. So, we want to continue a conversation with our base membership about the issues that are important to them. Listening to the membership, particularly women workers, is what will encourage more women to join the union movement, and what will lead the movement into the New Economy. Women are also very important for the issue of democratizing the global economy, both as workers and as consumers.

[Suzanne Granville is the Assistant Director of the AFL-CIO's Working Women's Department. In that position, she overseas all field activities and outreach to affiliated unions, labor councils and state federations, elected officials, and issue organizations for the department. Ms. Granville joined the federation after holding several positions of increasing responsibility at the National Association of Letter Carriers. Her last position there was Special Assistant for Political Education. In that role, she oversaw the legislative and political grassroots programs as well as the administration of the political action committee. Ms. Granville was Deputy Director of the Office of Voter Participation at the Democratic National Committee. In that capacity, she assisted state parties in the development of voter registration, absentee ballot and get out the vote programs. Ms. Granville has devoted her career to grassroots legislative and political organizing in both unions and campaigns. She is a native of California and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.]