Quick links+
Three decades after founding, IAM Union women return to city where their department was born
CHICAGO – Today, the IAM Union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of its historic Women’s Department in the city where it was originally founded, Chicago.
“Three decades ago, IAM Union leaders became one of the first North American trade unions to found an International Union department centered fully on the advancement of justice and opportunity for its female membership,” said Dee Colbert, Director of IAM Union’s Women’s and Young Workers Department. “This week, as our union convenes for a Women’s and Young Workers conference in Chicago, the birthplace of our union’s Women’s Department, we celebrate the professional excellence, advocacy, and leadership of tens of thousands of IAM women whose contributions have shaped our union, and the hundreds of industries we represent.”
“I stood in Chicago as a delegate 30 years ago and voted for the addition of a Women’s Department then,” said Dora Cervantes, IAM Union General Secretary-Treasurer and the first woman to ever hold the No. 2 position in the International Union. “To see it come to fruition, and to go on to become the highest-ranking female leader ever in our union, speaks volumes about who our union is and what we believe in. When I think back to the 1996 Convention and this resolution, I am overcome with emotion. I was a young worker before we were acknowledged, and a woman fighting for recognition before we had it. My own trajectory, and the rising leadership of so many other IAM women, is direct proof of how amazing the IAM is. We have come a long way, and we are not stopping.
“The reality is that women build this union every day,” continued Cervantes. “IAM Union women break glass ceilings every day in our workplaces, smashing the narrative about what women can achieve in traditionally male-dominated industries like aerospace, airlines, defense and manufacturing. We are proud to advance inclusivity and gender equity in every workplace we represent, and 30 years after the founding of our Women’s Department, our message to women everywhere remains the same: Your place is in your union.”
Collective bargaining agreements are one of the most effective tools available to eliminate the gender pay gap in the workplace and safeguard against gender based discrimination.
Over the past 30 years, one of the most consequential initiatives led by IAM Union’s Women’s Department has been the founding of its groundbreaking Leadership Excellence Assembly of Dedicated Sisters mentorship program, or LEADS. The LEADS project intentionally recruits and trains women members for leadership positions within the union and has served as a transformative pipeline into greater activism and elected union office for generations of IAM Union women. The marquee program pairs established female leaders with new and emerging activists, providing gender-specific mentorship within a formal education and development curriculum that has paid dividends in changing the face of leadership within the union.
Speakers in Chicago this week celebrating the 30th anniversary of the IAM Union Women’s Department in addition to Secretary-Treasurer Cervantes and Director Colbert include Allison Beck, IAM Union’s first woman General Counsel; Diane Babineaux, IAM Union’s first woman General Vice President; Lorie Wilson, IAM Union’s first woman Chief of Staff in the Eastern Territory; and other trailblazing visionaries whose leadership has forever changed IAM.
