Reproductive Rights at the Bargaining Table

Abstract

Reproductive Rights at the Bargaining Table Maggie Carter (bio), Dee Dunn (bio), Rebecca Kolins Givan (bio), Rebekah Nelson (bio), Sara Nelson (bio), and Martha Valadez (bio) The following conversation on labor's response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization took place on October 19, 2022. The panel was organized by the Labor Campaign for Single Payer. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Click for larger view View full resolution Rebecca Kolins Givan: Abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a workers' issue. What do you do when your employer controls healthcare access? Conversations about the despicable state of access to abortion and other reproductive care have to lead us to bigger conversations about the inherent flaws in our healthcare system, and what we must do as workers and as a labor movement about that. Sara Nelson: The rollback of abortion rights is not just a healthcare issue. It's not just a choice issue. It's fundamentally an issue of freedom, humanity, and dignity. What can we do to help maintain reproductive rights at the bargaining table? We have to understand that taking away a woman's right to access healthcare, a woman's right to make her own decisions in her life, is taking half of the population off the table. And it allows the boss to divide people along lines that weaken the working class and make it harder for people to organize. In my union, the flight attendants I represent may take off in one state with one set of rights and land in another state with another set of rights. [End Page 39] They're in danger every single day that someone could deny them the right to basic healthcare, to save their lives, to make their own decisions. When I first started doing union work, I had the honor of interviewing the number-one flight attendant at United Airlines. She flew for almost sixty years. She flew all over the world in the 1950s and talked with aircraft manufacturers, governments, and civil aviation bodies, to get evacuation standards and safety equipment onto planes. She had an amazing life, but what she really wanted to talk to me about was something that I had never experienced because I was born in 1973. She wanted to tell me about what it was like when women had to have illegal abortions in order to keep their jobs as flight attendants or to get out of abusive relationships. She would have to help them do that. Though she did not believe in abortion herself, she understood her duty to represent these women and get them to safety. So we can't just talk about this as another issue on the ballot. We have to understand that this is an attack on our very right to organize, an attack on our ability to build power for the working class, an attack on our ability to put a check on the unchecked capitalism that is controlling our politics and sending us on the road to fascism. It is fundamental that we fight with everything that we have for the rights of women to make their own decisions in their own lives. Click for larger view View full resolution Dee Dunn: I'm a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, the women and men who build and maintain America's railroads. The United Passenger Rail Federation Women's Caucus has gone on record as being 100 percent pro-choice. Even though some of us have beliefs in our personal lives that will prevent us from getting an abortion under most circumstances, we believe that reproductive healthcare decisions, like all healthcare decisions, should be made between patients and their doctors without interference from the government or any other outside force. The fight for the right to abortion is part of a greater fight for reproductive and healthcare justice, which also includes the fight for singlepayer healthcare, universal child care, a living wage, and affordable housing. All of these factors influence the ability of a working woman to raise a child [End Page 40] or to decide not to go ahead with a pregnancy because the child...