Delta Airlines flight attendants, Cagle-Keystone poultry workers from Kentucky, home health-care workers from Illinois, strikers at Boeing, locked-out workers from AK Steel in Ohio, and others fighting in response to the employers' offensive brought their experiences to plenary sessions and workshops.

The large turnout at this conference registers the deepening resistance of working people to the employers' continuing grinding offensive on working conditions, wages, and safety on the job. One conference participant, 36-year-old electrical workers union member Kris Butler, works at Rockwell Collins in Coralville, Iowa. Through the course of a strike in 1998, she said, "we came out stronger in the contract, but the biggest thing we got out of the strike was solidarity. They can take a lot away, but they can never take away what happened on that strike line."

Some of the conference participants had recently attended the March 7 demonstration in Tallahassee, Florida, in defense of affirmative action, which is under attack by Gov. John Ellis Bush. Around a third of the conference participants were Black, reflecting the impact of the hard-won advances made through struggles beginning with the civil rights movement in the 1960s on the composition of the unions.

Many conference participants are part of women's committees and women's caucuses in their unions, particularly in the United Auto Workers and Amalgamated Transit Union. Statistics released by the conference organizers show two-thirds of all new union members in the United States are women.

A large number of the women participating were officials of their unions, from shop stewards to officers and business agents. A central theme was how women can work their way up in the union officialdom.

Many union officials spoke, including AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, and Gloria Johnson, vice president of the International Union of Electrical Workers. Most speeches railed against trade with China, called for support to Democratic Party candidates, and promoted nationalist and protectionist themes. Democratic presidential candidate Albert Gore was the featured speaker at the major conference rally on March 11.

Current labor struggles were a prominent part of the conference. Karen Hikel and Judy Campbell, members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) then on strike at Boeing, greeted conference participants with their picket signs as they walked to and from the plenary sessions. A collection was taken for their strike during the weekend. The two SPEEA members, celebrating one month on strike against the aerospace giant, received a standing ovation from conference participants. Campbell, who is also chair of the union's Women's Advisory Committee, noted women are playing a leadership role in the walkout. In 1995 SPEEA won on-site child care.

A number of speakers at the main plenary sessions spoke on some of the battles taking place today. Andrea Taylor, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, gave conference participants a flavor of Delta's campaign to keep out the union. The company has held mass employee meetings and promised personal computers to all workers, she said.

Lula Bronson, of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), spoke on the fight for a wage increase by home health-care workers and called on conference participants to join her in Springfield, Illinois, for a rally later this month.

Noemi Fulgencia of HERE, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, spoke in Spanish to a conference plenary sessions about the fight to win a unionization drive by restaurant workers at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Immigrant workers have been the backbone of that struggle, she said. Fulgencia is a cashier there.

Rhonda Aron, 23 years old and a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, asked for support to a unionization drive by poultry workers at Cagle-Keystone in Kentucky. Aron was fired when she developed carpal tunnel, a disabling repetitive-motion injury.

Locked-out workers at AK Steel, members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), organized a raffle and publicized a March 25 rally in Mansfield, Ohio, that the union is organizing. Victoria Womack, a longtime member of the United Auto Workers women's committee at the Ford Assembly plant in Chicago, said she was inspired by the activities of the Women of Steel from Mansfield. "We use steel where we work. We're all connected," she said.

Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers union spoke at the Saturday evening awards ceremony and reception on the continuing fight of farm workers to organize and defend their rights.

Conference participants gave a warm reception to several invited international guests and immigrant workers who spoke at the main plenary sessions. Dita Sari, of the National Front for Indonesian Workers, who spent three years in prison and was released seven months ago, spoke on the deepening struggles of workers and peasants in that country and the importance of solidarity with them. Myung Ja Koo, of the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA), based in California, spoke in Korean about the struggles of unorganized garment and electronic assembly workers there to win better safety conditions on the job. Koo was also part of the AIWA workers' panel that led two workplace safety and health workshops, which were well attended.

Speakers from Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, and South Africa spoke at the Working Women: An International Perspective workshop. Other workshops were organized on the effects of changes in U.S. immigration laws. The AFL-CIO recently changed its policy on immigration to one advocating amnesty for immigrants now living in the United States.

Other workshops included organizing drives, sexual harassment, welfare reform, and gays in the workplace. There was quite a bit of discussion and debate in these sessions. In the Workplace Health and Safety workshop a woman asked panelists from AIWA why they didn't learn to speak English. Several unionists responded in defense of their Asian sisters.

Many conference participants were concerned about health and safety on the job. A 42-year-old woman, who asked that her name not be used, is a General Motors assembly worker in St. Louis. She reported, "I have a torn tendon in my shoulder from using a heavy solder gun with a faulty tip. If you go to your own doctor the company says it's not a compensation case. You have to go to the company doctor. I put in a gender harassment complaint against the boss for harassing me and not the guys," she said. "The male coworkers support me and were upset about what has happened to me. They gave statements to support me. The injury happened in February and I'm still fighting to get it accepted as a compensation claim."

Lisa Potash is a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, in Chicago. Maggie Trowe is a member of the UFCW. Also contributing to this article are Pattie Thompson, member of the International Association of Machinists, and Lisa-Marie Rottach, member of UNITE, both in Chicago.  
 
 
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