Autonomy, diversity, and integration: Union women's separate organizing in North America and western Europe in the context of restructuring and globalization

For over two decades, union women's committees and educational programs and conferences organized by and for women have played a key role in politicizing women and producing them as a vocal constituency. The project of this article is to provide a conceptual framework to help assess the viability of separate organizing in the face of national and global economic and political restructuring. This article opens with a discussion of analytic tools for exploring separate organizing, outlining distinctions, for example, between separate and autonomous organizing, and between separate organizing and separatism. The second section presents a brief overview of some of the changes wrought by restructuring and globalization. The final sections consider the conditions under which such organizing avoids marginalization, addresses diversity promotes both autonomy and integration, and facilitates coalition building-all of which will be critical to the continued relevance of separate organizing. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.