The East Side Freedom Library invites you to our monthly Labor History Film

This event will premiere on ESFL’s Facebook page and YouTube channel

This month, we invite you to join us for a deep dive into women workers’ organizing in the 1970s. At our monthly Labor History Reading Group on Tuesday evening, January 19, at 7pm, join Georgetown University labor historian Lane Windham for a discussion of her chapter about the “9to5” movement in her book Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s (email us for a pdf of the chapter). Lane will be joined by Cherrene Horazuk, President of AFSCME Local 3800 (U of MN clerical & technical workers), who will discuss the impact of this movement on the organization of her local. Join us on January 8 for a screening and discussion of the documentary, “The Willmar 8.”

In the fall of 1976, eight women workers at the Citizens National Bank of Willmar filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging that they experienced discrimination in pay and promotions. In May 1977, they formed the first bank workers union in the history of the state, and on December 16, 1977, they launched a strike which would change their lives and have an impact on women workers’ organizing efforts across the country. Risking jobs, friends, family and the opposition of church and community, they began the longest bank strike in American history in a dramatic attempt to assert their own equality and self-worth.

In 1981, Academy-award winning director Lee Grant made this documentary, which became a vehicle not only for telling their story but also for inspiring other women workers. We want to encourage you to also watch, on your own, this documentary “The Willmar 8 Revisited” made in 2002 by the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service on the occasion of the strike’s 25th anniversary. You can find it here.

Please join us for all these opportunities to learn about the organizing experiences of women workers in the 1970s.

Free and open to all

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