Women and Unions: Still the Most Difficult Revolution?
A conference celebrating the anniversary of Alice Hanson Cook’s 100th Birthday
November 21 and 22, 2003
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
The conference will begin with a dinner from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, November 21. Arlene Kaplan Daniels (Professor Emerita, Northwestern University, Sociology) will provide a summary of the book she co-authored with Alice Cook and Jennifer Curtin (Monash University, Politics and Public Policy, Australia), will give the keynote address.
The conference continues Saturday morning, beginning with a breakfast meeting at 8:30 a.m. This first session will consist of a celebration of Alice Cook’s life and contributions. Fran Herman (Professor Emerita, Cornell University), Joyce Najita (University of Hawaii), and Adelheid Troescher (Former member, German Bundestag) will speak about the influence Alice had on their lives. Three roundtable strategy sessions will round out the substance of the conference, each consisting of one or two formal papers, three commentators and practitioners from around the world, and a respondent. At 10:00 am, Session I will focus on “Innovative Models: Community-based organizations”; at 1:15, Session II will explore “Internal gender relations in unions”; and at 3:15, Session III will discuss “Increasing working women’s voices.” Formal papers for the sessions will be available on the conference website ahead of time. A dinner Saturday evening at 6:00 pm will provide a chance for a summation of “Women And Unions: Delineating a Common Vision.”
The conference website provides more details. You may also contact Ileen DeVault at iad1@cornell.edu (607 255-3055) or Rhonda Clouse at rlc29@cornell.edu (607 255-6693) for further information.
If you wish to attend any part or all of the conference, please fill out the registration forms on the website.
Alice Hanson Cook (1903-1998) was one of the first scholars to study the plight of working women. Her research has influenced a wide range of feminist scholars, unionists, and leaders to increasingly recognize the need to focus on transforming working women’s issues into societal priorities through collective action, such as unionization. Ileen DeVault, Associate Professor, Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History, and Francine Moccio, Director, Institute for Women and Work, have organized a conference, entitled, “Women and Unions: Still the Most Difficult Revolution?,” which will take place Nov. 21 and 22, 2003, on the Cornell University campus to honor the anniversary of Alice Hanson Cook’s 100th birthday. This international conference will expand on some of the most significant themes of Cook’s book, entitled, The Most Difficult Revolution: Women and Trade Unions (with Val R. Lorwin and Arlene Kaplan Daniels, 1992). The book examined how working women’s experiences in Western European countries could influence and inform the progress of union women in the United States. We will use the experiences of women’s unionizing in both developed and developing nations to broaden the scope of Cook’s book and to assess and improve women’s positions in unions in the twenty-first century. Conference participants will include some 50 women and men who are influential scholars, union activists, and policymakers from a wide range of countries, including Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Australia, India, Korea, Philippines, South Africa, Brazil, and others, reflecting today’s globalization of both corporate structures and the correspondingly necessary union structures.
The conference is being co-sponsored by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations; the Pierce Memorial Fund of the ILR School; the Cornell University Provost’s Office; the Alice Hanson Cook Professorship of Women and Work; Cornell’s Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Cornell’s Program on Gender and Global Change; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Ford Foundation; the New York State Legislature; and other campus programs and departments.
