I once knew an aboriginal woman who told me that one of the biggest problems of the women’s movement was that women who climbed the ladder of success pulled it up after themselves. Judy Darcy was not one of them. For the past 12 years, she has been the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canada’s largest trade union, and she has never stopped working to advance the cause of women’s equality. Like Grace Hartman, the pioneering first woman president of CUPE from 1975 to 1983, Darcy has always seen her work as a feminist and her role as a leader as inextricably linked. On the eve of her retirement, Darcy talked about trade unions and women’s rights. I was a feminist before I was a trade unionist, she says. In the early 1970s I belonged to the Toronto Women’s Liberation Movement. We were always interested in the struggles of working-class women and often did strike support work in plants where women workers were organizing.

Darcy fell into a job at the Toronto Public Library. She ran the photocopier. I was a steward before I was off probation, then a chief steward and local president the year after that, she remembers. In those days, the fight was for better wages in the public sector. In 1975, I led 400 library workers out on strike to get a better deal for the predominantly female workforce there.

I’ve always thought that the Canadian labour movement was the most feminist one of its kind. For example, the Ontario Federation of Labour adopted affirmative action for women in its leadership in 1982, long before any other mainstream organization. The Canadian labour movement has fought for increased pay rates for women employees, improved recognition of the value of their work, child care and parental leave. It has given material and moral support to the womens movement in the pro-choice struggle and the fight against male violence.

The challenge for the rank and file, explains Darcy, was to make feminism real at every level. We fought for anti-harassment policies at conventions and for child care at union functions so mothers, could attend. The toughest fight was to establish women’s committees. Since CUPE had a woman president, the union brothers argued, Why do we need them? It took five years to get them, but we did.

Women like Darcy throughout the labour movement have made the difference. Feminism was part of our living and breathing, says Darcy. We had to be part of the women’s movement. As women labour activists moved increasingly into middle-level leadership and staff positions, we fought to make sure that our unions were representing us as women as well as workers.

She believes there is a critical mass of women in the labour leadership today who can move forward to the next step. Until five years ago, I was the only female head of a union in the Canadian Labour Congress, Darcy notes. Nancy Riche, the famed feminist fighter from Newfoundland, was a CLC officer and women held affirmative action positions, but no other union heads were women. Now there are four. And, according to Darcy, all of them are feminists.

As in other areas where power resides, such as politics and the corporate world, male culture remains the toughest nut to crack in the labour movement. Sexism and the treatment of women, including women leaders, are an abomination and an outrage, says Darcy. There are male union leaders who will yell and scream and treat you with total disrespect. There are times when consultations on a major issue are concluded and not a single woman has been consulted, not even the head of the largest affiliate. We still have that infuriating behaviour where a woman says something in a meeting, but it’s not until a man says the same thing that everyone will agree. The difference now is that we don ‘t slink off after such treatment.

Women trade union leaders are working together to change this culture. Darcy gives the example of the last CLC convention when the sisterhood with the support of pro-feminist men organized to bring in an activist slate of officers including two women. The women of the union movement are now turning their attention to transforming the culture of a patriarchal institution. If they succeed, we will all benefit.

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....