Kim Cook

Kim Cook a former clerical worker, feminist activist, and labor organizer in the 9to5 organization.

Early life

Kim Cook's mother was divorced when she was young and raised three children on her own. Cook knew that her mom was a good role model because she learned how to figure things out on her own and became independent. Her mother worked in an electronics factory in Nebraska and was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), but Kim remembered that the labor union was only responsive to men working at the plant. When Kim's mother went to union meetings, Kim would go with her because there would mostly be men at the meetings.

Fresh out of college, Cook had an interest in doing political work and became a clerical worker in the 9to5 association. In the late 1970s, when Kim was in college in Illinois, she was involved in groups such as consciousness raising and CRs. When Kim was in college, she did an internship "with Illinois ERA-Now". Kim's first job was working for a company that involved doing a lot of social services called Midwest Women's Center located in Chicago, Illinois. During Kim's time as a feminist activist, she learned about leaders of 9to5 wanting to unionize clerical facilities. Kim got hired as a temporary organizer at the University of Washington when she no longer worked as an activist. When Kim became an organizer, she was in a women's organization and did not have to feel the harassment that men showed towards women.

Labor organizing

Cook would eventually move to Seattle in order to take on an organizer position for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 925, and would eventually be elected president for it in 2001. Since then, Kim Cook would go on to work in positions for a number of organizations, including Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and Working America of the AFL-CIO. However, she would finally retire when working as an Associate at the Cornell Worker Institute in New York City.

Much of Cook's inspiration came from organizer John Sweeney. When working at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Sweeney had been the union president and was described by Cook as "a leader even this young radical woman organizer in the 1980s could admire."Cook says that Sweeney was able to open the door to new organizers, and he was able to help 9to5 flourish by helping 20,000 office workers organize under the union, even when others doubted. In Cook's statement after the passing of Sweeney, she wished she had "hugged and thanked him for being a visionary and helping me to believe in myself and in the power of working people."

The movie 9to5, which featured Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, captured most of what women went through before they were treated with respect. In 9to5, women were being sexually harassed and treated poorly at their jobs. The movie teaches people how others feel when they have poor pay and unfair hours when working. In 1970, the Organization for Women Office Workers would use a combination of different strategies to end gender norms in the work force and to challenge the terms of the association. Women went through so much when working in the 9to5 association.

Bibliography

• Cassidy, Ellen (2022). Working 9 to 5 (1st ed.). Boston: Chicago review press. p. 272.
• Nussbaum, Karen (3/14/2022). "Why 9 to 5 Still Resonates Today". https://jacobin.com/2022/03/9-to-5-film-documentary-jane-fonda-dolly-parton
• Resnick, Patricia (February 1981). "9 to 5: changing the office". https://www.jstor.org/25793596
• Kim Cook 2005 - 9 to 5 interview, Seattle Washington Wayne State University.
• “Statement from Worker Institute Extension Faculty Kim Cook on Recent Passing of AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney.” The ILR School, 2 Feb. 2021, https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/worker-institute/blog/news/statement-worker-institute-extension-faculty-kim-cook-recent-passing-afl-cio-president-emeritus-john.
• “Kim Cook.” Kim Cook | The ILR School, https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/persona/380.
• "OPEIU". www.opeiu.org. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
• "Mission". AAUP. 2006-08-19. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
• 9 to 5 (1980) - IMDb, retrieved 2023-04-28.
• Windham, Lane (2015-09-01). ""A Sense of Possibility and a Belief in Collective Power": A Labor Strategy Talk with Karen Nussbaum". Labor. 12 (3): 35–51.
• Windham, Lane (2017). Knockin' on Labor's Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of the New Economic Divide. University of North Carolina Press.
• Cassedy, Ellen (2022). Working 9 to 5 A Women's Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie. Chicago review press.

References

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