Audio · Visual
Photo credit: Pacifica Network
Women's Labor Rights
Words by Pacific Radio Archives
Pacifica Radio Archives (PRA) is considered by historians and scholars to be one of the oldest and most important audio collections in the world.
Chronicling the political, cultural, and artistic movements of the second half of the 20th century, Pacifica radio programs include documentaries, performances, discussions, debates, drama, poetry readings, commentaries, and radio arts. The archives are located at KPFK Los Angeles, in North Hollywood.
This clip from the documentary, Life in the Female Job Ghetto: Service and Office Work, produced by Peggy Irene Bray, Maggie Geddes, and Karla Tonella, takes a look at women's place in the paid labor force. It features audio of members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union Local 2 protesting the mental and physical brutality of their work in San Francisco, July 1980, and includes interviews with San Francisco hotel maids describing their strenuous work conditions. Issues of racism and sexism in labor unions are also discussed. The piece also examines women office workers who criticize their workplace as a female job ghetto. Featured in the program are Joyce Maupin, Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality (Union WAGE); Rita Boyle, Women Organized for Employment (WOE); Margaret Butz and Agnes Ramirez, Coalition for Labor Union Women (CLUW); Mary Ann Massenburg, former office worker and clerical organizer for District 65 of the United Auto Workers (UAW).
This recording was digitized as part of the "American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982" project, funded in part by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. See more at: womenmakinghistoryblog.wordpress.com and pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/az0808.
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