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Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America
Out in the Union tells the continuous story of queer American workers from the mid-1960s through 2013. Miriam Frank shrewdly chronicles the evolution of labor politics with queer activism and identity formation, showing how unions began affirming the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers in the 1970s and 1980s. She documents coming out on the job and in the union as well as issues of discrimination and harassment, and the creation of alliances between unions and LGBT communities.
Featuring in-depth interviews with LGBT and labor activists, Frank provides an inclusive history of the convergence of labor and LGBT interests. She carefully details how queer caucuses in local unions introduced domestic partner benefits and union-based AIDS education for health care workers-innovations that have been influential across the U.S. workforce. Out in the Union also examines organizing drives at queer workplaces, campaigns for marriage equality, and other gay civil rights issues to show the enduring power of LGBT workers.
Featuring in-depth interviews with LGBT and labor activists, Frank provides an inclusive history of the convergence of labor and LGBT interests. She carefully details how queer caucuses in local unions introduced domestic partner benefits and union-based AIDS education for health care workers-innovations that have been influential across the U.S. workforce. Out in the Union also examines organizing drives at queer workplaces, campaigns for marriage equality, and other gay civil rights issues to show the enduring power of LGBT workers.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
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July 17, 2015
OUT IN THE UNION, by Miriam Frank, traces the intersections between the gay rights movement and the labor movement in America. The history is drawn largely from interviews with queer labor activists, and Frank quotes them at length throughout the book, giving her work the feeling of an oral history, ethnography or series of case studies. She provides contextualizing information, but OUT IN THE UNION largely defers to the activists who pushed their movements forward. As such, the book is deeply personal and specific rather than comprehensive. This is not a book that provides a dry and complete overview of queer-labor activism, but instead is a love letter to the victories and efforts of the people who lived that activism.
The book opens with the story of a trans man in a steelworkers’ union at the turn of the twentieth century. From there, the book leaps forward to cover how the emergent gay rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s was embraced (or not) as the labor movement sought to reinvent itself as manufacturing jobs moved first out of pro-union states and then out of the United States altogether. The hidden histories of queer workers prior to the 1960s are sparse in the text, emerging as context or as discrete moments in the interviewees’ lives.
Prior to OUT IN THE UNION, I was familiar with Frank’s work through Pride at Work, a pamphlet my own union used to better understand how and why to organize the QUILTBAG folks in our own ranks. This was years ago, back when I saw myself as a straight ally (back before I was out to anyone, even myself). The ethos of Pride at Work continues here: this is a book about organizing. The economics of unionization are supplanted by a blow-by-blow description of how various workplaces were or were not organized into unions. Frank remains an organizer at heart, and much of the book is devoted to recounts of how labor was able to use the particularities of an emerging queer activist culture to gain new ground or make new allies. In the case studies she presents—which range from bus drivers to auto workers to AIDS crisis workers—she uses organizing terms freely. Her target audience, clearly, are queer organizers out on the front lines, which necessarily limits the accessibility and audience of the book, which I think is a shame. It may find its audience out there in the front line, but from my experience working as a labor organizer there is little time to read even relevant and potentially useful books.
Reading OUT IN THE UNION was, for me, a particularly reflective and personal experience. Like many of the interviewees, I struggled with my own sexuality as I worked as a labor organizer. Fraught memories of coming to terms with my queerness are inextricably tied to the rollercoaster highs and lows of the organizing campaigns I worked for. Two regions which feature prominently in the book are southeast Michigan and Colorado—respectively why I, myself, was a campaign organizer and where I live now. Reading this book made me miss working in unions. It made me remember how hard that work is, and how necessary. It made me reflect (in a prescient and timely way given certain conditions current in my workplace today) on my discomfort living as a queer and unorganized person in a right-to-work state. I feel vulnerable, and even more so as a gender nonconforming queer individual. I feel vulnerable, like the people Frank records, and I want to fight back like they did and still are.
Frank writes with candor, both about the successful queer-labor alliances and the unsuccessful ones. Some were unsuccessful because the old guard of union leadership—typically straight white men in the skilled labor trades—struggled with creating space for and valuing the efforts of their queer brothers and sisters. Some were unsuccessful because a common source of oppression bonds communities together; Frank cites the climate in AIDS clinics where queer management overworked and exploited queer workers, but the workers viewed straight union agents as suspicious interlopers.
Frank uses the crossover of queer activism and the labor movement as a way to begin talking about class within the queer community. She points out more than once that queer people have always existed among the working class and in unions. She points out that being queer does not prevent managers from exploiting their workers. I was glad she used this lens throughout, but I wish she had taken it further. The book reads—I believe unintentionally—as very white. A handful of the interviewed activists are people of color, but most are white queer people. Given the layers of vulnerability queer poor workers of color face, it would have been a better book if race and class had both been discussed in relation to queer workers. In the epilogue, Frank cites the need for the labor movement to utilize queer immigrant workers to help reform immigration laws, but this is posited mostly as an aside.
OUT IN THE UNION ends with an epilogue tracing how the support of unions has helped marriage equality legislation get passed in multiple states. Frank uses this as a call to arms and a call to action to increase queer-labor joint activism. And while I appreciate that, I wish she had gone further. Marriage is not the only economic issue facing queer workers. Trans* workers are extremely vulnerable, often fired and rarely hired. I am, admittedly, less impressed or enthralled by the marriage equality movement, especially given that the fight has played out in legislative venues rather than in the workplace or on the streets. But, then again, most labor fights these days play out that way.
The book opens with the story of a trans man in a steelworkers’ union at the turn of the twentieth century. From there, the book leaps forward to cover how the emergent gay rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s was embraced (or not) as the labor movement sought to reinvent itself as manufacturing jobs moved first out of pro-union states and then out of the United States altogether. The hidden histories of queer workers prior to the 1960s are sparse in the text, emerging as context or as discrete moments in the interviewees’ lives.
Prior to OUT IN THE UNION, I was familiar with Frank’s work through Pride at Work, a pamphlet my own union used to better understand how and why to organize the QUILTBAG folks in our own ranks. This was years ago, back when I saw myself as a straight ally (back before I was out to anyone, even myself). The ethos of Pride at Work continues here: this is a book about organizing. The economics of unionization are supplanted by a blow-by-blow description of how various workplaces were or were not organized into unions. Frank remains an organizer at heart, and much of the book is devoted to recounts of how labor was able to use the particularities of an emerging queer activist culture to gain new ground or make new allies. In the case studies she presents—which range from bus drivers to auto workers to AIDS crisis workers—she uses organizing terms freely. Her target audience, clearly, are queer organizers out on the front lines, which necessarily limits the accessibility and audience of the book, which I think is a shame. It may find its audience out there in the front line, but from my experience working as a labor organizer there is little time to read even relevant and potentially useful books.
Reading OUT IN THE UNION was, for me, a particularly reflective and personal experience. Like many of the interviewees, I struggled with my own sexuality as I worked as a labor organizer. Fraught memories of coming to terms with my queerness are inextricably tied to the rollercoaster highs and lows of the organizing campaigns I worked for. Two regions which feature prominently in the book are southeast Michigan and Colorado—respectively why I, myself, was a campaign organizer and where I live now. Reading this book made me miss working in unions. It made me remember how hard that work is, and how necessary. It made me reflect (in a prescient and timely way given certain conditions current in my workplace today) on my discomfort living as a queer and unorganized person in a right-to-work state. I feel vulnerable, and even more so as a gender nonconforming queer individual. I feel vulnerable, like the people Frank records, and I want to fight back like they did and still are.
Frank writes with candor, both about the successful queer-labor alliances and the unsuccessful ones. Some were unsuccessful because the old guard of union leadership—typically straight white men in the skilled labor trades—struggled with creating space for and valuing the efforts of their queer brothers and sisters. Some were unsuccessful because a common source of oppression bonds communities together; Frank cites the climate in AIDS clinics where queer management overworked and exploited queer workers, but the workers viewed straight union agents as suspicious interlopers.
Frank uses the crossover of queer activism and the labor movement as a way to begin talking about class within the queer community. She points out more than once that queer people have always existed among the working class and in unions. She points out that being queer does not prevent managers from exploiting their workers. I was glad she used this lens throughout, but I wish she had taken it further. The book reads—I believe unintentionally—as very white. A handful of the interviewed activists are people of color, but most are white queer people. Given the layers of vulnerability queer poor workers of color face, it would have been a better book if race and class had both been discussed in relation to queer workers. In the epilogue, Frank cites the need for the labor movement to utilize queer immigrant workers to help reform immigration laws, but this is posited mostly as an aside.
OUT IN THE UNION ends with an epilogue tracing how the support of unions has helped marriage equality legislation get passed in multiple states. Frank uses this as a call to arms and a call to action to increase queer-labor joint activism. And while I appreciate that, I wish she had gone further. Marriage is not the only economic issue facing queer workers. Trans* workers are extremely vulnerable, often fired and rarely hired. I am, admittedly, less impressed or enthralled by the marriage equality movement, especially given that the fight has played out in legislative venues rather than in the workplace or on the streets. But, then again, most labor fights these days play out that way.
July 11, 2015
Definitely more love, drama, and sex than your typical labor history text! The author collected more than 100 interviews with LGBTQ Union activists, and their stories drive the narrative of this book.
The first story looks at two trans union activists -- one the president of a Midwest building trades local in the early 1900s, and one in the early 2000s. One had to hide his identity. The other lead a successful fight for crucial new health benefits for trans workers. Frank's point -- LGBTQ people have always been members and leaders of the workers movement. This is the story of how they came out.
One of the strongest themes of the book is the connection between LGBTQ organizing and rank-and-file dissident caucuses. Frank says that activists who were "out in the union" were more likely to be dissidents and to link up with other troublemakers. In the last chapter, she talks about how queer and dissident organizing in the OPEIU helped elect new leadership in the Bay Area local -- and then unleash organizing among LGBTQ unorganized office workers.
A narrative of inevitable triumph is starting to develop about the LGBTQ movement. This book shows that the movement's successes were not automatic or inevitable -- but the result of long and very difficult struggle, struggles that are far from over.
The first story looks at two trans union activists -- one the president of a Midwest building trades local in the early 1900s, and one in the early 2000s. One had to hide his identity. The other lead a successful fight for crucial new health benefits for trans workers. Frank's point -- LGBTQ people have always been members and leaders of the workers movement. This is the story of how they came out.
One of the strongest themes of the book is the connection between LGBTQ organizing and rank-and-file dissident caucuses. Frank says that activists who were "out in the union" were more likely to be dissidents and to link up with other troublemakers. In the last chapter, she talks about how queer and dissident organizing in the OPEIU helped elect new leadership in the Bay Area local -- and then unleash organizing among LGBTQ unorganized office workers.
A narrative of inevitable triumph is starting to develop about the LGBTQ movement. This book shows that the movement's successes were not automatic or inevitable -- but the result of long and very difficult struggle, struggles that are far from over.
January 25, 2020
The beginning chapters of this felt a little slow/not that great at making me think about the special needs of queer people in terms of working outside of the bargaining table, which might be interesting for folks looking to examine incorporative organizing. The book took off for me, though, when Frank switches to look at organizing in queer-owned businesses and queer-directed non-profits; the comparisons of trying to organize across AIDS organizations was really insightful (and therefore ABSOLUTELY enraging) as Frank hits on the affective register that queer bosses try to manipulate to prevent their queer workers from organizing (or straight bosses using their community ties.) It is also I think a great jumping off point for seeing more work; the bibliography spans labor and queer histories and many of the places where they overlap, and I think it's definitely teachable (I'm definitely already planning where I can use that chapter--chapter five--in a syllabus.)
August 16, 2021
Out in the Union by Miriam Frank gives a rounded history of queer struggles in work places and unions in the US. Miriam Frank originally authored the handbook Pride at Work, which became an invaluable tool for queer workers and non-queer union activists alike in fighting for queer liberation at work.
The book itself is teaming with stories. Stories about workers coming out in workplaces, fighting discrimination, economic fights over partner health cover, queer activists involved in and leading reform caucuses, queer baiting by union leaders and opposition, development of queer-labour alliances in political fights (e.g. around state legistlation to protect sexual minorities from discrimination), and issues with attempts to organise in AIDS clinics (anti-union campaigns as well as issues with local unions not taking queer issues seriously enough), as well as many many other stories.
Both in the timeline at the start of the book and most of the chapters, Frank tells the stories of many brave and radical queer union activists. Bill Olwell in 1969 was both president of the Retail Clerks Local 1001 and president of the King County Labor Council, despite queer baiting by the opposition he was reelected to the council. Gary Kapanowski was a member and shopsteward of UAW Local 212 in the early 1970s. During his time as a steward, he ran against the incumbent leadership of his plant when it became clear the leadership was striking a bad deal over pensions. The incumbent leadership reacted by flyering a photo of him around the workplace saying "faggot". Despite these attacks, he and the slate he ran with won the election. Maddyn Elder was an out lesbian and switchboard operator in Michigan and Seattle. She successfully ran a wildcat strike in workplace that brought together divided sets of workers (operators and splicers). In the 1990s Donna Cartwritight was a member and union dissident of the Newspapers Guild. She was an out trans woman and was unfortunately harrassed and assaulted on the job. Despite potential transphobic backlash from her employer she and others continued to organise protests against the ratification and bad newly negotiated union contract.
What I liked about this book is not only the inspirational stories but so many of the lessons that you can take away from it. It shows the importance of labour taking queer liberation seriously both because it is the right thing to do but also that in doing so unions recruit and develop militant and progressive union activists which are important things. In the discussions about the failed attempts at organising AIDS clinics, the fights demonstrate how identity with oppressed within oppressed groups cannot overcome class conflict (even if your boss is gay like you, they will still put up a fight against you unionising and demanding better pay and conditions).
In the last chapter in particular, the story demonstrates how union resources and activity can effectively win wider social and political demands. Union activity and resources were pivotal in many marriage equality campaigns in the US, and they can be viewed as a culmination of successful labor-queer alliances.
While the book was extremely inspiring, I have one or two criticisms. Firstly, the stories at times were a bit disparate and I think could have been tied together more coherently. Secondly, I think more could have been included about role capitalism in constructing gender and sexuality - which I think could have made the contexts for a lot of the stories tie better together and tell a more complete story. Finally, when talking about the decline of union power in the US, Frank unfortunately accounts only partially for the decline. She mentions new technology, global trade, and plant closings challenged stability of union power”. This only tells some of the story and to some degree repeats excuses made by bosses. In talking about this she does not mention anything about the lack of movement by labour bureaucracies, the opposition of many labour bureaucracies to take up or challenge new working conditions and closures, increase in lean production methods, economic crises in certain industries at the end of the 70s, and increase of union busting and employer offensive within the US.
Overall an extremely useful and important book. Essential reading for those involved in queer activism and labour activism alike.
The book itself is teaming with stories. Stories about workers coming out in workplaces, fighting discrimination, economic fights over partner health cover, queer activists involved in and leading reform caucuses, queer baiting by union leaders and opposition, development of queer-labour alliances in political fights (e.g. around state legistlation to protect sexual minorities from discrimination), and issues with attempts to organise in AIDS clinics (anti-union campaigns as well as issues with local unions not taking queer issues seriously enough), as well as many many other stories.
Both in the timeline at the start of the book and most of the chapters, Frank tells the stories of many brave and radical queer union activists. Bill Olwell in 1969 was both president of the Retail Clerks Local 1001 and president of the King County Labor Council, despite queer baiting by the opposition he was reelected to the council. Gary Kapanowski was a member and shopsteward of UAW Local 212 in the early 1970s. During his time as a steward, he ran against the incumbent leadership of his plant when it became clear the leadership was striking a bad deal over pensions. The incumbent leadership reacted by flyering a photo of him around the workplace saying "faggot". Despite these attacks, he and the slate he ran with won the election. Maddyn Elder was an out lesbian and switchboard operator in Michigan and Seattle. She successfully ran a wildcat strike in workplace that brought together divided sets of workers (operators and splicers). In the 1990s Donna Cartwritight was a member and union dissident of the Newspapers Guild. She was an out trans woman and was unfortunately harrassed and assaulted on the job. Despite potential transphobic backlash from her employer she and others continued to organise protests against the ratification and bad newly negotiated union contract.
What I liked about this book is not only the inspirational stories but so many of the lessons that you can take away from it. It shows the importance of labour taking queer liberation seriously both because it is the right thing to do but also that in doing so unions recruit and develop militant and progressive union activists which are important things. In the discussions about the failed attempts at organising AIDS clinics, the fights demonstrate how identity with oppressed within oppressed groups cannot overcome class conflict (even if your boss is gay like you, they will still put up a fight against you unionising and demanding better pay and conditions).
In the last chapter in particular, the story demonstrates how union resources and activity can effectively win wider social and political demands. Union activity and resources were pivotal in many marriage equality campaigns in the US, and they can be viewed as a culmination of successful labor-queer alliances.
While the book was extremely inspiring, I have one or two criticisms. Firstly, the stories at times were a bit disparate and I think could have been tied together more coherently. Secondly, I think more could have been included about role capitalism in constructing gender and sexuality - which I think could have made the contexts for a lot of the stories tie better together and tell a more complete story. Finally, when talking about the decline of union power in the US, Frank unfortunately accounts only partially for the decline. She mentions new technology, global trade, and plant closings challenged stability of union power”. This only tells some of the story and to some degree repeats excuses made by bosses. In talking about this she does not mention anything about the lack of movement by labour bureaucracies, the opposition of many labour bureaucracies to take up or challenge new working conditions and closures, increase in lean production methods, economic crises in certain industries at the end of the 70s, and increase of union busting and employer offensive within the US.
Overall an extremely useful and important book. Essential reading for those involved in queer activism and labour activism alike.
December 13, 2024
This was incredibly informative and very interesting! I'm glad that this resource exists. Sometimes it was a little hard to follow, but I think that's more of a me thing. There was also the use of the r slur two, maybe three times, and that made me a little uncomfortable. It did read more as "of the time" than purposefully derogatory, but I wanted to point it out.
February 12, 2024
my brain is swiss cheese and this book just pours through the holes like milk
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April 24, 2015331.53097 F8286 2014
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