Women of Steel Members Join the AFL-CIO in Attending the 2016 UN Commission on the Status of Women in NYC

Ten USW Women of Steel (WOS) members in March joined a group of fifty union women from throughout the country in New York City for the AFL-CIO’s inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Program.

The four-day event brought together union sisters from both the private and public sectors to learn about the global labor movement while advocating for gender equality and inclusive international development at the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Workshops and panel discussions focused on issues such as poverty, discrimination, racism, and wage and gender inequality. The program was designed to give women leaders the opportunity to advocate for women and trade union rights in a global setting.

Cathy Drummond, District 11 WOS coordinator, left the event inspired to lead her fellow Steelworkers into even more social crusading to achieve equal rights for all.

“This was an amazing opportunity,” Drummond said, “and I look forward to moving the women’s agenda towards social justice through our union, networking with other unions and affiliates, and through social activism in my own community.”

The event also featured women from around the world sharing their personal stories of the often dire conditions in which they live and work. To Jody Elekes, Local 4-729 in District 4, this was a revealing, though distressing, part of the program.

“It was eye opening to me,” Elekes said. “We listened to woman after woman speak about all the atrocities and indignities that they face at their places of work. It was infuriating to hear of this in this day and age.”

The Women of Steel delegates plan to take all that they learned while attending the program and apply it to their work and advocacy back home. Elekes, as well as the nine other attendees, intends to live out the often expressed motto, “Think global, act local.”

“In the past, I put together fundraisers that reached our own community,” Elekes said. “Now I see that I can take that same drive and put it in a larger arena.”