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Henry, Alice, 1857-1943

"The Trade Union Woman"

And
before this can come about woman must be free from the economic
handicap that shackles her today.
The organization of labor is one of the most important means to
achieve this result. It is not only in facing the world outside, and
in relation to the employer and the consumer that woman organized is
stronger and in every way more effective than woman unorganized. The
relation in which she stands to her brother worker is very different,
when she has behind her the protection and with her the united
strength of her union, and the better a union man he is himself the
more readily and cheerfully will he appreciate this, even if he has
occasionally to make sacrifices to maintain unbroken a bargain in
which both are gainers.
But at first, in the same way as the average workingman is apt to have
an uncomfortable feeling about the woman entering his trade, even
apart from the most important reason of all, that she is wont to be
a wage-cutter, the average trade-union man retains a somewhat uneasy
apprehension when he finds women entering the union.


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