CLEVELAND — Harriet Applegate, the first woman to hold the position of executive secretary for the Cleveland AFL-CIO, is reflecting on women’s role in the local labor movement.

Applegate is one of those retirees who isn’t really retired.

What You Need To Know

  • Harriet Applegate is the first woman to hold the position of executive secretary for the Cleveland AFL-CIO

  • Applegate began the position in 2007 and said while the accomplishment was celebrated by some, others weren’t happy to be led by a woman

  • She said she would strongly encourage women to become leaders in their local unions

She spends some time with her plants in her home greenhouse, but she also spends a lot of time continuing to fight for what she believes in.

“I remember being told one time that it gets in your blood and you just, you’re sort of hooked,” she said. "And I laughed at the time, but it really was true for me and my life.”

Applegate, originally from New York, moved to Cincinnati after undergrad and almost immediately got involved with labor work.

“There’s only one way to redistribute wealth in this country under capitalism,” she said. “One is tax policy, and the other is unionization.”

She eventually started working for the national AFL-CIO, which moved her up to Cleveland, where she still lives.

She said when she first got involved, there were women doing work for the unions, but rarely in positions of leadership.

“There's some class issues, which make it harder in the labor movement for women to become leaders,” she said. “But if you look at, you know, women are 50% of the population, 50-plus. If you look at at all organizations, they're nowhere near 50% of the leadership.”

Applegate became the Cleveland AFL-CIO’s first executive secretary in 2007, and while the accomplishment was celebrated by some, she said others weren’t happy to be led by a woman.

“I don't want to disparage the entire gender, but I will say that there were lots of men who, the way they responded to having a female leader was to ignore me and pretend I wasn't there,” she said.

Even though her time as executive secretary wasn’t always easy, Applegate said it’s important for other women to seek out those positions as often as possible. 

“I would really strongly encourage women to become leaders in their local unions,” she said. “I think women bring a tremendous amount to the labor movement. And I think things are really finally changing in the labor movement.”

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, men still have a higher union membership rate than women, at 10.5% and 9.6%. But the gap between union membership rates for men and women has narrowed considerably since 1983, the earliest year for which comparable data are available, when rates for men and women were 24.7% and 14.6%.