The Willmar 8 made equal pay impossible to ignore (except at Walmart)

[Omaha Steve]

Most of you already know the class action suit against Walmart for pay discrimination is going to the US Supreme Court.

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4711

By Michael Kuchta
13 December 2010

WILLMAR - In December 1977, eight women went on strike against Citizens’ National Bank in Willmar. Their goals were straightforward. They wanted equal pay for equal work. They wanted equal treatment.
They never got what they wanted.

More than 30 years later, however, people still remember The Willmar 8. Their goals and the impact they made still resonate. They still hear examples of how – by taking a stand in a small, Minnesota town – they changed working conditions for women they never knew in places they had never heard of.

Bigger than all of us’
During Minnesota’s sesquicentennial celebration in 2008, the Minnesota Historical Society placed The Willmar 8 on its “MN 150” list, naming their strike one of the most-influential events in state history. “It’s still pretty unbelievable how far it went,” says striker Teren Novotny. “There were a lot of people standing up for their rights. But it obviously got pretty big – bigger than we probably will ever realize.”


Sandi Treml, now a member of AFSCME Local 4001, and Teren Novotny, now a member of MAPE Local 1801, have gone from walking a picket line together to being co-workers at Ridgewater College in Willmar.

During Minnesota’s sesquicentennial celebration in 2008, the Minnesota Historical Society placed The Willmar 8 on its “MN 150” list, naming their strike one of the most-influential events in state history. “It’s still pretty unbelievable how far it went,” says striker Teren Novotny. “There were a lot of people standing up for their rights. But it obviously got pretty big – bigger than we probably will ever realize.” The strikers, who all were bank tellers or bookkeepers, didn’t consider themselves feminists. They weren’t taking a stand for women’s liberation. “It was just us against the bank, period,” says striker Sandi Treml. “As time went on, it became bigger than all of us.”
That hasn’t changed.

Young women discover an eye-opening reality. Every year, high school and college classes invite members of The Willmar 8 to speak. “We don’t go out looking for opportunities,” Treml says. “They come to us.” In the classroom, students can’t believe what they hear.
“They have absolutely no concept of what women were up against,” Treml says. “They have expectations that they have every right on the job that everyone else has. So when they see the documentary, it’s kind of like, ‘How can that be? How could they treat women differently than men?’”
“We feel we can educate these girls so they don’t get out of high school thinking they’re going to be on an equal level – because they’re not,” says striker Irene Wallin. “The door is not open all the way.
“Yes, they’re making more per dollar than we did. Now, it’s like 80 cents on the dollar. But, sad to say, we’re still second-class citizens.”

FULL story at link.

[myrna minx]

1. K&R n/t

[Omaha Steve]

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