Civil Rights Consciousness In The Workplace

The rights consciousness that emerged out of the American civil rights movement arose mainly out of the public sector workforce, as workers felt they were not receiving the type of benefits the government should have been offering them, which led to an abandonment of the original trade unions and instead created new collective organization. “From the early 1960s onward, the most legitimate… defense of America job rights would be found not through collective initiative… but through an individual 's claim to his or her civil rights.” This quote, taken from State of the Union, represents the transformation the American labor movement had when laborists decided not to fight through unions, but instead use a rights consciousness which provided the base for them to fight the government through strikes in order to keep up with the improving private sector employment conditions. Public employees felt they were not being treated …show more content…
Title VII was passed in 1964 and opened the door for many civil rights laws to come into effect, such as the 1968 Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the 1969 Mine Safety Act, and the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act. People now believed they could fight for civil rights and would most likely achieve something from them. Not all the problems of the workplace would be fixed, though, for example feminists were fighting for women’s rights but were distraught over how women should be treated during pregnancy. Women wanted to be treated equally and be just as strong as a man, yet when it came to pregnancy, believed they should take leave, creating a divide between women workers and what rights they believed they needed. The rights consciousness that joined many workers together to fight for working conditions also divided workers in some instances that led to disagreements and disbandment in the