Pride at Work
Out & organizing
By
Martha Grevatt
In
June of 1994, on the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, a group of
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender unionists came together at the
headquarters of the Service Employees union to found Pride At Work. For the past
two- and-a-half years, PAW has been an official Constituency Group of the
AFL-CIO.
At
the time of PAW's founding convention, nearly all the delegates were from the
East and West Coasts. Now there are active chapters all over the
country.
For
example, the Bloomington, Ind., chapter launched a picket/boycott campaign when
a Sunoco station fired workers for being gay. They won a written commitment from
Sunoco not to discriminate on the basis of sexual
orientation.
In
Atlantic City, N.J., last month, a brand new PAW chapter held a reception at a
local bar that drew several dozen interested workers. Most of them were casino
workers, members of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees union. The event drew
straight supporters too, including the local's
secretary-treasurer.
The
Miami chapter is up and running. And a second Florida chapter is in formation.
In Ohio, the Cincinnati/Dayton chapter held its first meeting and the Cleveland
chapter is planning a kickoff meeting soon.
There
are more chapters getting started than ever before in California, New England
and the Pacific
Northwest.
This
is good news for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, more and more
of whom are finding that the only way to guarantee equal rights and benefits is
through a union
contract.
When
Exxon arbitrarily decided to eliminate domestic-partner benefits, the only
exception was for unionized workers who had won them at the bargaining table.
Even DaimlerChrysler, which for years refused to protect gay workers, has agreed
to consider granting same-sex domestic-partner
benefits.
The
growth of Pride At Work is good news for the labor movement as a whole, also.
The more bigotry is challenged and broken down, the better the possibilities for
working-class unity and solidarity.
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