Women are transforming the labor movement, but as the New York State AFL-CIO Women’s Committee learned at its annual meeting, that’s always been the case.
Women’s committee members met at NYSUT’s Latham headquarters in September before taking a pilgrimage to Troy to tour the Kate Mullany National Historic Site. The three-story brick house was once home to Mullany, a young Irish immigrant laundry worker who organized the first all-female labor union in 1864.
“This is a story of inspiration, and it’s a story that should be told,” said Melinda Person, NYSUT president and co-chair of the new AFL-CIO committee dedicated to women’s issues. “I am walking in a space where a powerful 19-year-old Irish immigrant came, and she conquered. She started a union of women. She created change, and she did it in the 1800s.”
Today, the state’s labor federation represents 2.5 million working New Yorkers, nearly half of whom are women. The AFL-CIO Women’s Committee was established last year to amplify women's voices in labor and ensure that women’s issues stay front and center.
The group, which includes members of District Council 37, SAG-AFTRA, SEIU and NYSUT, tackled an ambitious agenda which included Medicaid cuts, immigration policy and artificial intelligence. The group also hosted a panel discussion, “Legislative Champions for Women,” which featured New York lawmakers, Senator Shelley Mayer, Senator Lea Webb, Assembly Member Chantel Jackson and Assembly Member Gabriella Romero, as panelists.
The Mullany house was made a national historic site as the result of a concerted effort by NYSUT and the AFL-CIO, championed by Paul Cole, executive director of the American Labor Studies Center.
Cole, one of NYSUT’s founding activists and secretary-treasurer emeritus of the state AFL-CIO, has shepherded this project from its infancy, first assembling a proposal for the site to become a National Historic Landmark in 1988 and then lobbying to transform the landmark into an official National Historic Site. The site was fully restored and officially opened to the public in 2023.
The site commemorates Mullany’s struggle to organize and fight for better wages. In the mid-1800s, when Troy was home to the first commercial laundry for collars, Mullany and her fellow laundry workers washed, starched, and ironed the collars 12 to 14 hours a day for a scant 3 to 4 dollars a week. When their request for higher wages was turned down, they launched a strike that lasted for five freezing days in February. Ultimately, Mullany’s employers capitulated and granted her and her members a significant wage increase.
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