Marking the 100th annual International Women’s Day on Tuesday, CWA members and union supporters around the world offered encouraging words to more than 10,000 women who work at T-Mobile USA, which is fighting its workers every step of the way as they fight to organize a union.

“Women at T-Mobile are subject to daily fear, stress, and insecurity about their jobs,” CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill said. “Their performance targets are constantly changing, they can be fired at any time, their pay increases are minimal and any organizing efforts are quickly put down by management.”

The e-mail campaign asked people to send online messages to T-Mobile women. Posts at Lowering the Bar for Us, the T-Mobile organizing website, included:

• “It is hard to form a union but it will be the best thing you ever did for yourselves. Hang tough,” from Oregon.
• “I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for almost ten years. If T-Mobile does not bring a union to its workplace, I will change my carrier. I had no idea of T-Mobile’s anti-union stance in their workplace,” from New York.
• “Don’t allow their fear tactics to break your spirit and resolve,” from Ohio.

UNI Global Union is a big part of the international campaign to end the double standard at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile, and support for T-Mobile USA women came from around the world. A T-Mobile USA worker posted this on the TU forum: “Who supports us in our fight to win what’s right? The world does!”

The one-day campaign brought in several hundred new likes for the “lowering the bar” Facebook page.

One post read, “As a T-Mobile customer, I am disappointed. To not allow the women, many who have established the reputation T-Mobile has for great customer service, to provide a better future for themselves and their families is disturbing. I can’t continue to support a company that participates in union-busting. I hope T-Mobile comes to their senses soon!”

AFA-CWA also celebrated International Women’s Day, honoring its flight attendants and the strides made by all women in the last century.

“The Association of Flight Attendants has been on the forefront of advancing women’s issues since our inception over 65 years ago,” President Veda Shook said. “By challenging discriminatory policies based on gender, race, age, weight, pregnancy and marital status, AFA raised the bar for all flight attendants across the country. AFA was also the leader behind the repeals of the marriage and pregnancy bans, giving female flight attendants the opportunity for a career instead of losing their job when they started a family.”

Women’s History Month

Countless women have steered the course of our history, and their stories are ones of steadfast determination. From reaching for the ballot box to breaking barriers on athletic fields and battlefields, American women have stood resolute in the face of adversity and overcome obstacles to realize their full measure of success. Women’s History Month is an opportunity for us to recognize the contributions women have made to our Nation, and to honor those who blazed trails for women’s empowerment and equality.

Women from all walks of life have improved their communities and our Nation. Sylvia Mendez and her family stood up for her right to an education and catalyzed the desegregation of our schools. Starting as a caseworker in city government, Dr. Dorothy Height has dedicated her life to building a more just society. One of our young heroes, Caroline Moore, contributed to advances in astronomy by discovering a supernova at age 14.

Read the full Presidential Proclamation

• March 1, 1978 – Women’s History Week is first observed in Sonoma County , California
• March 1, 1987 – A Congressional resolution designating March as Women’s History Month is passed
• March 4, 1917 – Jeannette Rankin (R-MT) took her seat as the first female member of Congress
• March 8 – International Women’s Day; its origins trace back to protests in US and Europe to honor and fight for the political rights for working women
• March 11, 1993 – Janet Reno is confirmed as the first woman U.S. Attorney General
• March 12, 1912 – Juliette Gordon Low assembled 18 girls together in Savannah , Georgia for the first-ever Girl Scout meeting
• March 13, 1986 – Susan Butcher won the first of 3 straight and 4 total Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Races in Alaska
• March 17, 1910 – Camp Fire Girls is established as the first American interracial, non-sectarian organization for girls
• March 20, 1852 – Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is published and becomes the best-selling book of the 19 th century
• March 21, 1986 – Debi Thomas becomes first African American woman to win the World Figure Skating Championship
• March 23, 1917 – Virginia Woolf establishes the Hogarth Press with her husband, Leonard Woolf
• March 31, 1888 – The National Council of Women of the U.S. is organized by Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and Sojourner Truth, among others; it is the oldest non-sectarian women’s organization in U.S.
• March 31, 1776 – Abigail Adams writes to her husband John who is helping to frame the Declaration of Independence: “Remember the ladies…”

March Birthdays

Jeannette Rankin

• March 3, 1962 – Jackie Joyner-Kersee, considered the world’s greatest female athlete; holds the record in the long jump (1988) and the heptathlon (1986); winner of 3 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze medals in 4 Olympic games
• March 5, 1931 – Geraldyn (Jerrie) Cobb, record-setting aviator; first woman to pass qualifying exams for astronaut training, in 1959, but not allowed to train because of her gender
• March 7, 1938 – Janet Guthrie, pioneering woman auto racer; first woman to compete in Indianapolis 500 (1977) and Daytona 500 (1977)
• March 9, 1928 (1987) – Graciela Olivarez, Chicana activist; first woman and Latina law graduate from Notre Dame Law School; one of first two women on the board of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)
• March 15, 1933 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, second female U.S. Supreme Court justice (1993)
• March 18, 1964 – Bonnie Blair, speed skater; one of the most successful Winter Olympian in U.S. history and 5 time gold medalist
• March 23, 1857 (1915) – Fannie Farmer, authored famous cookbook, “The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook”, and included specific ingredient measurements for the first time which would become standardized cooking measurements
• March 23, 1924 (1980) – Bette Nesmith Graham, invented Liquid Paper correction fluid which became an office staple; created 2 foundations to support women’s business and art
• March 24, 1826 (1898) – Matilda Joslyn Gage, suffragist, women’s rights and Native American rights activist, historian, founding member of the National Woman Suffrage Association
• March 24, 1912 (2010) – Dorothy Height, served over 40 years as President of the National Council of Negro Women
• March 25, 1934 – Gloria Steinem, women’s rights activist and journalist; founding editor of Ms. Magazine; helped found National Women’s Political Caucus, the Women’s Action Alliance, and the Coalition of Labor Union Women
• March 26, 1930 – Sandra Day O’Connor, first woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1981)
• March 27, 1924 (1990) – Sarah Vaughan, world renown jazz singer and pianist known as the “Divine One”
• March 31, 1889 (1975) – Muriel Wright, Choctaw Indian, teacher, historian, author, and editor