Working Women (1981)

Working Women: A Handbook of Resources, Rights & Remedies brings you the inspiring energy, spirit, leadership and creativity of Southern women fighting for personal dignity and collective justice: women behind typewriters in Atlanta office buildings, underground in Appalachian coal mines, on the sugar-cane plantations of Louisiana, beside sewing machines in Tennessee garment plants, on the ship docks of Virginia, in hospitals and schools, fast-food restaurants and furniture factories.

Through interviews and profiles, Working Women shares the persistence and strength of Southern women as they demand — and win — fair and equitable treatment in their workplaces. Other articles on nontraditional job training centers, summer schools, advocacy projects, legal and support services, and displaced homemaker programs demonstrate the variety of collective efforts through which women empower each other. Throughout these pages, we celebrate the energetic building of networks, associations, organizations and unions across the region. But the stories here represent only a slice of the larger battle Southern women are waging for justice or their jobs. There are uncounted numbers of our sisters in offices and factories, in professional and service jobs, whose stories we could hardly begin to tell. These sisters may well include you — or your co-workers, your neighbors, your relatives, women whom you meet everyday, women who are underpaid, overworked or stuck in dead-end jobs, women who work eight or nine hours and go home to put in another shift as an unpaid homemaker and mother.

This special handbook was designed to support and encourage working women everywhere, but especially the thousands of women sewing, typing and waitressing in Southern communities.