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9to5, National Association of Working Women is an organization established in 1973 that is dedicated to improving working conditions and ensuring the rights of women and families in the United States.
The group has its origins in the December 1972 publication of “9to5: Newsletter for Boston Area Office Workers." The goal of the newsletter was to reach all clerical workers, not just women. About a year later, the newsletter's publishers announced the formation of Boston 9to5, a grassroots collective for women office workers that addressed issues such as low pay, lack of opportunities for advancement, sexual harassment in the workplace, and overall respect for them.[1]
Before the development of the movement, there had already been some laws passed to eliminate sex-based discrimination in the workplace. These laws being the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[2] For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which prohibited discrimination in the workplace based on sex or sexual orientation. Additionally, it allowed for women to develop complaints and eventually attempt to sue their employers if they were to feel as though they were being discriminated against.[3] Despite this, women in the workplace still felt underrepresented and under appreciated.
Women who joined the 9to5 movement started as women who were first hand witnesses of the misogyny and mistreatment of women in the workplace. Secretaries like Fran Cicchetti, a Boston insurance secretary, were made false promises by their bosses leading them to expect training for new tasks in their jobs and possible promotions. When Cicchetti asked her boss about the promise he had made, her boss promoted a male to the new title. This brought new ideas that women should not get treated like this in the workplace and Cicchetti became an activist. As one of the earliest 9to5 activists, she helped join forces with other women fighting the same issues and created the “organization for women office workers.” Eventually this turned into the 9to5 movement where Fran became the head of the finance committee and lobbied with the insurance commissioner to create new standards on job postings and promotions.[1]
The national organization has buildings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Atlanta, Georgia, as well as appearing in states including Colorado and California. The organization had as many as 12,000 members.[4]
The terms "office wife" and "office maid" were also very common within the work place. Both of these terms made women feel disrespected and blurred the line between professional and inappropriate relationships of boss and secretary.[5]
Hearing on Working Conditions of Women Office Workers
Women that were members of the 9to5 movement gathered together in meetings to discuss their goals as part of the organization and movement. Between two meetings, the group had several women leave because they did not believe their needs were going to get met through this bill they were writing to get passed. During these meetings, women worked together to write the Bill of Rights for Women office workers. African American women wanted a priority set to provide childcare for their children during the workday. Founders of the 9to5 movement chose not to include this in their list of conditions for women in the workplace because they did not believe they could win childcare. In April 1974, hundreds of women witnessed the group stand and testify at the "Hearing on the Working Conditions of Women Office Workers" in Boston. This Bill was then signed and brought women and workers rights for descriptive, written job descriptions, salary reviews, and respect in the office. This also required the equal benefits between men and women. Eventually this win would bring more fight for higher and equal pay and wages.[1]
One of the organization's earliest victories included a class-action suit filed against several Boston publishing companies that awarded the female plaintiffs $1.5 million in back pay. In 1975, the founders of 9to5 joined with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and formed Local 925 of the SEIU in Boston in order to help office workers gain access to collective bargaining rights.[1]
National Secretaries Day
The 9to5 movement was instrumental in addressing the grievances of women and their relationships with their male counterparts in the workplace. National Secretaries Day was a topic brought up in their movement because it was a day for male bosses to take their female secretaries out for the day. The women would be given roses by their bosses as well as a meal. The male interpretation of this day was that bosses were adequately recognizing their secretaries. On the contrary, female secretaries felt as though they were treated adequately for one day, but the rest of their working hours consisted of unfair and inappropriate boss and secretary relationships. The members of 9to5 eventually coined phrases such as "raises not roses" in order to combat National Secretaries Day and create a call to action.[5]
In 1977, 9to5 Boston merged with Cleveland Women Working (est. 1975 primarily by Helen Williams) to create the Cleveland-based Working Women Organizing Project. Based in Cleveland from 1977-1993, the national organization was a coalition of like-minded associations and was headed by Karen Nussbaum, one of Boston 9to5's founders.[6][7] Nussbaum was the executive director of 9to5 while also being the president of Local 925 until 1993.[8] Nussbaum's involvement in the organization began with her friend Ellen Cassedy, whom she met at Harvard University, while they were working as secretaries. Together, they founded the Boston 9to5 after several years of recruitment and the formation of smaller like-minded groups.[9]
Cassedy held the role of recruiting, organizing, and contacting potential members, as well as handling relations with bosses and CEOs of other organizations. She trained at The Midwest Academy serving as a scout to learn the basics of union organization.[9]
Debbie Schneider worked for the women's organization of office workers in New York City and eventually joined 9to5 in Cincinnati, Ohio. While a part of the organization, she was in charge of organizing university clericals.[9]
The group was later known as the National Association of Working Women. Members of this group met with Jane Fonda and served as an inspiration for the smash-hit comedy, 9 to 5,[10] featuring Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Dabney Coleman, among others. The film focuses on clerical working women, their experiences at work, and the overall activism of the 9 to 5 women during the 1970s, and the unionizing of the 1980s.[11]
Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar filmed a documentary about the 9to5 movement that was released in 2021.[12][13]
Tactics
The members of the 9to5 Movement often used unorthodox tactics to carry out their efforts. Along with lawsuits and petitions, public relations efforts were some of the most influential aspects of the entire movement. There were demands for an office "Bill of Rights" when attention was heavily focused on the National Secretaries Day debate. Additionally, members of the 9to5 Movement also conducted "worst boss contests." The contests told stories of secretaries who were mistreated by their bosses in an unprofessional manner. Karen Nussbaum used these "worst boss contests" to spread stories of secretaries who were fired due to boss outbursts rather than work ethic complications.[5]
Between Nussbaum and Cassedy developing the idea of creating a labor organization group was not the goal. Originally, they set out to help stand with women in social struggles and antiwar movements. When they ran low on money while helping fight these struggles, they got jobs as secretaries and saw first hand the mistreatment of women, bringing this new idea of a labor organization to Harvard, forming the Women Office Workers at Harvard.[1]
In 1981, the National Association of Working Women formed a national-level partnership with SEIU and formed SEIU District 925, a nationwide labor union for office workers. After several name changes, the organization adopted its current name in 1983, and "9to5, National Association of Working Women" evolved into the largest membership organization of working women in the United States. During the 1980s and 1990s, 9to5 focused on issues such as the effects of automation, pay inequities, medical leave, and racial and sexual harassment and discrimination.
The organization effectively used the media and lobbied legislators as part of a campaign to warn the public of the health dangers of video display terminals (also known as VDTs). Additionally, they have also used the media to draw attention to several sexual harassment cases in the 1990s.[7]
As part of its educational efforts, 9to5 established the Job Retention Project in 1987 to assist office workers in developing time management, goal-setting, and problem-solving skills. In addition, the organization publishes fact sheets, newsletters, and books, such as The Job/Family Challenge: A 9to5 Guide (1995), by Ellen Bravo, that keep workers abreast of current issues.
Among other issues, 9to5 actively promotes workplace policies such as paid sick leave, equal pay, and an end to discrimination for hiring or firing based on gender or sexual orientation. 9to5 additionally staffs a Job Survival Helpline to give support to women facing difficulties or challenges in the workplace. The gender wage gap was never completely closed by the end of the century but the tolerance of working in the office for women became bearable. Their jobs were no longer demeaning and women experienced far less sexism.[1]
Local 925
The 9to5 Movement eventually joined its sister movement, Local 925 in order to create a way for women to obtain insurance and banking, Specifically, they joined with clerical workers because District 65 would often target them. Together, they worked to eliminate discriminatory pay and promote unionization.[5]
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment was first coined by a radical feminist activist Lin Farley after she encountered and learned about the Carmita Woods case. Woods was a female administrative assistant at Cornell’s Laboratory of Nuclear Studies where she was constantly sexually harassed by her superior. One example included her supervisor putting his hands on Woods's bottom at an office party. With this, Farley was able to come to a conclusion that sexual harassment was present within her workplace.[14]
The 9to5 movement was able to go one step further and focused on the harassment aspect rather than the sexual aspect of sexual harassment. They understood that it was about having power over another person rather than sexual pleasure.[15] There are two types of sexual harassment that will better help understand this relationship, hostile work environments and quid pro quo. A hostile work environment is when an individual is harassed by either a co-worker, a non-worker, or a boss over a period of time.[16] Quid pro quo (this for that) is where an individual of a higher power relationship asks for sexual favors in exchange for a better job position or threats of termination.[17]
In the early history of America, women only had legal and social power through their family and if married through their husbands, meaning that as individuals they had no legal say in their social relationship to others.[18] It was during the Civil Rights Movement in 1964 the amendment to prohibit sex discrimination in the workplace was added to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. It was a ploy at first by the Republic senators who thought that adding the sex discrimination amendment would cause the Title VII to lose votes and not be passed.[19] In 1978, the first marital rape case was presented in court, the Oregon v. Rideout trial. Before then, marital rape was not considered a legal case because the previous legal understanding was that after marriage, the woman had forfeited herself to her husband that she was not able to take it back.[20]
The 9to5 movement realized that sexual harassment revolved around the unlimited power posed by satisfaction. [15][21] Ellan Bravo, one of the authors of The 9to5 Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment, led a sexual harassment experiment with different corporations. One of the exercises she employed was doing role reversal, the men would play the role of female workers and Bravo would play the role of the male boss.[22] Through this exercise, Bravo would show that the men knew they were making their female coworkers uncomfortable and were simply exercising their power.[17]
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