Women on Strike at Head Ski

Abstract

The Head Ski Division of the multi-national AMF conglomerate is located just a few miles northeast of Boulder. AMF-Head Ski manufactures all its famous skis and tennis racquets at the Boulder plant, products which have garnered endorsements from such sports luminaries as Jean-Claude Killy and Arthur Ashe. Like many of Colorado's small industrial concerns, AMF-Head is relatively new to the area and employs mostly unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Though the unemployment rate in Colorado is not so high as in other areas, Walter Lawrence of the Center for Labor Education and Research in Boulder said that much new industry has been drawn by the area's almost endless supply of unskilled, and perhaps more important, unorganized labor. Lawrence estimates there are three people available for every job vacancy, and with no real union tradition from which to draw, they are extremely hard to organize. Employers know this and take advantage of it, he said. Workers at AMF-Head Ski went on strike in early May, 1975; strikebreakers brought production levels back to normal by August. Nonetheless, the workers, under the auspices of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), remain on strike, and a national boycott of AMF-Head Ski products continues. Although the AMF-Head Ski strike and boycott have not had the racial minority issue with which to gain support as did the successful Farah pants boycott and the ongoing United Farmworkers of America boycotts, several women's organizations have taken an interest in the ACWA's efforts because women's issues have played a large role in this labor dispute. Women are about fifty percent of AMF-Head Ski's workforce; however, the company employs no female supervisors and women are usually placed in the lowest-paying positions on the production line, regardless of seniority, while men dominate the higher-paying jobs.