Women of Wisconsin Steel

In the early 1900s, American working women demonstrated for trade union 
rights and the right to vote. Their fight inspired the International 
Socialist Women's Conference in 1910 to declare March 8 International 
Women's Day. Today, the women of Chicago's Wisconsin Steel are continuing 
this fight for workers' rights.

On March 28, 1980, the Wisconsin Steel community faced the greatest tragedy 
of its 105-year history. The plant closed suddenly without paying over 3000 
workers their benefits. Pay cheques bounced and the one-company union 
folded. The workers were suddenly jobless, without medical insurance or 
earned benefits and without an organisation.

The story has been told before of how Frank Lumpkin came forward to 
organise a Save Our Jobs Committee. In the end, they did not save their 
jobs but did succeed in forcing the employers to pay the workers US$19 
million. This is the story of some of the women who made that victory 
possible.

The women who came forward to join Save Our Jobs were mostly spouses of the 
steelworkers, and community activists. By the hundreds, women joined the 
marches, attended rallies and rode buses to Springfield, Illinois and 
Washington DC. Here is the story of four of their leaders.

Juanita Andrade

Juanita Andrade was raised with stories of the Mexican Revolution, proud of 
her aunt who was a guerrillera.

She waited for hours, her ear pressed against the railroad rails. Then her 
sensitive ear picked up a slight vibration from distant troop trains. She 
alerted Pancho Villa, who was able to surprise the government troops.

Andrade's mother proudly told the "People's Weekly World" that la 
Valentina, the famous guerrillera, often visited their Mapimi home and 
slept in her bed. To anyone who knew Andrade's revolutionary background, it 
was no surprise that she became a leader of the Women's Committee of Save 
Our Jobs.

Her cooking skills helped keep Save Our Jobs going for 17 years of 
fundraising dinners and rallies. But after the dinners were cooked and 
served, Juanita took off her apron and made sure she had her chance to 
speak.

When the mill closed in 1980, the Andrades had two children still in grade 
school and one in college. What would they do? Few of the Mexican-American 
workers' wives had worked outside of the home.

Steel's rotating shifts and weekend work put the whole burden on the woman 
to prepare family meals and take care of the children. When the mill 
closed, it was the steelworker who was home, day and night, and the wife 
who had to go out and work.

Juanita Andrade tried everything. She cooked tamales by the hundreds to 
sell. She baked huge pans of flan for parties. And she cared for small 
children in her home while their parents worked.

Then she went outside the home to work in factories, whenever they were 
hiring. But that work was usually seasonal, such as at Jay's Potato Chips 
and Solo Cup. The work was hard and the pay was minimum wage.

Meanwhile, Andrade never missed a meeting, demonstration or picket line in 
17 years. She joined the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and became a 
part of the national fight for women's rights.

Her militant determination inspired her children. Despite the hardships, 
all three children finished college, earned advanced degrees and did 
community service in a child care centre. In recognition of the family 
achievement, the Andrades were named Midwest Hispanic Family of the Year.

Rhoda Thompson

Rhoda Thompson, like most African-American women in Chicago, was working 
when Wisconsin Steel suddenly closed. Her husband, Robert, had been one of 
the first six African Americans hired there, breaking down the company 
policy of refusing to hire African Americans. When the mill closed, he had 
over 37 years in the plant.

The Thompsons' son was grown and was also working at Wisconsin Steel at the 
time of the unexpected shutdown. The practice of hiring relatives made the 
workforce more tightly knit but left whole families devastated by the plant 
closing.

Thompson liked her job at Northwestern Hospital. She helped the nurses and 
learned many skills. After her husband became unemployed, she continued to 
work for 10 more years.

Robert had Rhoda's full support when he volunteered as the unpaid office 
manager of Save Our Jobs, a position he held for 21 years. Rhoda was among 
the first women to welcome the Save Our Jobs organisation. Many women were 
saying, "The Save Our Jobs fight kept my husband from going crazy. It gave 
him something to do to help himself and the other workers."

Thompson took her support one step further by becoming an active member of 
the women's committee. At first, she helped the committee raise money by 
baking her famous pound cakes. Then she began to attend the meetings with 
Robert.

When Save Our Jobs decided to march in front of the closed mill to demand 
their benefits, Rhoda was ready.

Her hospital job gave her a choice of shifts. So she marched with the 
steelworkers during the day and worked at the hospital at night. In 1990, 
she retired from her hospital job. That gave her more time to take part in 
the Wisconsin Steelworkers' long fight for justice.

Beatrice Lumpkin

One of the first to join Save Our Jobs Women's Committee, Beatrice Lumpkin 
was an experienced labour activist and Communist. At 19, she took time off 
from college to become a full-time volunteer union organiser for the CIO 
laundry workers in New York.

She had joined the Young Communist League in high school during the 
Depression of the '30s. Her family was on welfare and she saw that it was 
the Communists who were leading the fight for unemployment insurance.

When unemployment insurance, Social Security, a minimum wage and the 40-
hour week were won, Lumpkin knew that her comrades helped make that victory 
possible. That made it more than worthwhile, the hours of walking picket 
lines, speaking at street corner meetings and staying up all night to print 
leaflets.

When the mill closed in 1980, Lumpkin was teaching at Malcolm X College. In 
the years between working in a laundry and teaching, she had worked many 
jobs: waiting tables, machine shop operator, electronics technician and 
technical writer.

In addition, there were four children to raise and she had to keep track of 
her husband Frank's wildly rotating shifts at Wisconsin Steel.

Her writing experience proved helpful to Save Our Jobs. The committee 
needed press releases, letters to the editor, leaflets and a newspaper of 
their own.

As thousands of workers joined the Save Our Jobs fight for justice, many 
realised that they were making history. Lumpkin began to record interviews 
with Wisconsin Steel family members and carried her camera to all the 
marches.

In 1997, after the court settlements were won, she put the interviews 
together with the stories of the Lumpkin family and wrote a book, Always 
Bring A Crowd — the Story of Frank Lumpkin, Steelworker.

In the book, a steelworker's wife talks about the power of women:

"If women would get involved, women and the kids, maybe things would 
change. If it was 3,000 men and 3,000 women, plus I don't know how many 
children, it could have been different. But the newspapers always made it 
sound like it wasn't hurting families. Another thing I can't understand. 
The government owns the plant. Why don't they put the workers back to work 
instead of pushing people on public aid?"

Katie Jordan
Coalition of Labor Union Women(CLUW)

Unity was Frank Lumpkin's strategy for the Save Our Jobs Committee in its 
fight for justice. That meant unity of women and men as well as multiracial 
unity. Unity also meant reaching out to the community and to all workers.

After Wisconsin Steel closed in 1980, the Lumpkins began to reach out to 
community organisations, to other unions, to the churches and to CLUW. Over 
the years, the presidents of the Chicago CLUW chapter adopted the Save Our 
Jobs cause as their own and brought the support of the women's movement.

In the '80s, Johnnie Mae Jackson led the effort, succeeded by Katie Jordan 
as CLUW's chapter president.

Jordan was born in a town so small it was not even on the map. Her 
achievements for labour and women's rights should be enough reason to put 
Mineral Springs, Arkansas, on the map now. She moved to Hot Springs at 15, 
worked, went to school, married and had three children.

While there, she learned about unions because the aluminum plant was 
organised by the United Steelworkers of America (USWA).

Jordan laughed as she said, "Had I stayed in Arkansas, I would probably 
have become a steelworker. I would have demanded women's right to earn good 
wages."

In 1960, Jordan moved to Chicago with three small children to support. Soon 
she had a job as a tailor at Lytton's Department Store. Male tailors were 
in the union; women tailors were not covered. Three years later, the union 
organised Jordan's department and women gained union protection.

When Jordan became the union shop steward, she learned that a rider had 
been added to the union contract. The rider classified women fitters as 
"assistants", at a lower pay scale than men doing the same work. In 1977, 
women fitters won equal pay.

"That was three years after CLUW was organised", Jordan said significantly. 
Equal pay remains a major issue for CLUW.

"The first time I saw the Wisconsin Steelworkers in action, they were 
picketing in the Loop", Jordan recalled. "As a union person, I joined their 
line. It was one of the greatest struggles I've been in, to keep going all 
those years.

It took a lot of bravery going up against a big corporation. When they won 
US$15 million after eight years, I was elated. Then they had the courage to 
fight for more money and to stick with it another eight years. I gained a 
lot of strength from being in their struggle."

In turn, Save Our Jobs gained a lot of strength from the support of Jordan 
and Jackson and the Chicago chapter of CLUW. Wisconsin Steel Women joined 
CLUW women in the national Equal Rights Amendment March in Chicago in June 
1980. Hundreds of women signed postcards demanding that the federal 
government reopen Wisconsin Steel.

When Save Our Jobs won court settlements, the whole CLUW chapter felt they 
had won. "If you stick to your guns, workers can win. No matter how big the 
giants, workers can win," Jordan said. It takes a fight."

* * *

(abridged) People's Weekly World paper of Communist Party, 
USA