HARD WORK IS NOT ENOUGH: GENDER AND RACIAL INEQUALITY IN AN URBAN WORKSPACE

Hard Work Is Not Enough: Gender and Racial Inequality in an Urban Workspace

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

KATRINELL DAVIS
Associate Professor of Sociology, Florida State University

with CATHERINE FISK
Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong Professor of Law, UC Berkeley, asrespondent

Sponsored by Center for Research on Social Change, UC Berkeley

Co-sponsored by Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Center
for the Study of Law & Society, Division of Equity and Inclusion, and
Sociology Department, UC Berkeley

ABSTRACT

In this talk, I discuss African American women’s experiences as bus
operators in a San Francisco Bay Area transit firm from 1974-1989,
during the height of affirmative action hiring. Through a series of
interviews with these transit operators alongside correspondence between
management and union leaders, grievance and arbitration data, as well as
litigation against the firm, I trace the gradual demise of job security
within this SF Bay Area transit company that once led the nation in
offering its transit operators good wages and benefits. The findings
suggest that transit operating became increasingly stressful throughout
the period of study due to declining work conditions and the arbitrary
implementation of institutional strategies designed to discipline and
eliminate workers deemed undesirable.