Working Men: Keep Our Sisters Safe!

Amber Czech, a 20-year-old welder, was murdered with a sledgehammer while working at a Minnesota factory on November 11. Her killer, a 40-year-old coworker, told police that he “didn’t like her” and had been planning to murder her for some time. As far as I know, Amber was not a union member and didn’t have the minimum safety protections of a union. This atrocity sparked discussions among union sisters about how under attack they feel at overwhelmingly male worksites. Amber’s murder recalls the 2017 murder of Outi Hicks, a black woman union carpenter apprentice who was bludgeoned to death by a male coworker on the job.

Working men: We are counting on you to keep us safe. Women workers: The bosses are to blame for your unsafe conditions, and the government always protects the bosses. You must look to trustworthy class brothers and sisters for your protection. Let’s organize to stand up for women! The most important thing is to organize all non-union workplaces and apprentices into fighting unions that defend all their members, including women, black people and other oppressed minorities.

Building trades union leaders have issued statements decrying Amber’s murder and all attacks against women. But what solutions do they offer? NABTU promotes its “RESPECT program” for “labor-management cooperation” to “address head-on toxic cultures.” The SMART union’s Women’s Committee says, “We call on employers, contractors, supervisors and every person on a job site to confront the culture that allowed this to happen.” Instead of unionization drives and a union-centered fight for women, they offer man-shaming feminist schemes for women to seek protection by talking to the bosses.

These responses are typical of union bureaucrats who tell women workers to go to Human Resources (i.e., management) or joint management-union offices to report harassment. If women refuse to rat out a coworker, they are usually expected to just suffer in silence. Consistent with their pro-capitalist strategy, the bureaucrats look to the bosses, government and cops to protect women and, at the same time, claim it’s divisive to talk about women’s oppression. Both are wrong.

Fighting for women according to the bosses’ rules is a losing game for all workers. We need to organize to protect women on the job from dangerous lunatics, stalkers and anti-woman bigots. If more women workers experienced men uniting to say, “Leave her alone” or “She’s not into you, brother” or “If you have a problem with her, you will have a problem with us,” women would stop believing that their only option is to report abusive workers to the abusive bosses or a government agency. At the same time, this would protect innocent men from employer provocations and false accusations.

Paradoxically, “Zero Tolerance” rules against workplace violence keep women less safe. They discourage good men from stepping up against abusive men and putting the fear of god in them to leave a woman alone. The “Zero Tolerance” company policies target pro-union militants and are racist against black men, who can be punished for merely displaying anger, let alone intimidating an anti-woman coward. The unions, not the bosses, should have full control over whether and how to discipline workers.

With unemployment rising and fewer jobs available, there will be more divide-and-conquer hostility to women in a “man’s job.” Trump has warned employers who receive government contracts to purge women and black people or else, under the bigoted presumption they were hired without “merit” (see Executive Order 14173). The purpose of the “anti-DEI” purge is to weaken the entire working class.

We need to fight for jobs for all and a shorter workweek with no loss in pay. As long as unemployment is accepted and there is a scramble for a shrinking piece of the pie, many workingmen will see women coworkers as competitors. Mobilizing workers to fight for more for everyone will undermine craft prejudices that cause skilled tradesmen to see themselves as the “chosen few” and to be hostile to outsiders. While fighting against the bosses’ macho speed-up schemes and demanding more job opportunities, the building trades unions should launch aggressive campaigns to recruit women and minority workers.

The way out of this dog-eat-dog world is for all workers in the building trades to put the interests of our class first. Organizing all the unorganized and defending women workers as equals on the job would strengthen the fighting capacity of the unions as a whole. That’s the best way to honor Amber and Outi.