Noon at 9 to 5: Reflections on a Decade of Organizing

Abstract

[Excerpt] As manufacturing jobs have been automated, shipped abroad and shut down for good, traditional sources of employment as well as union members have dried up, with severe effects for the labor movement. For the past decade, job growth has been highest in the new "service economy," with office jobs becoming both the largest and fastest growing job category for the newest growth sector of the labor force — women. Fully one of every three employed women is an office worker. What effect has this shift had on organizing and on the union movement?