9to5

Karen co-founded and was the first director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women and was the founding president of 9to5’s sister organization, the union District 925, SEIU. The two organizations were a leading force in the emerging working women’s movement and the growth of women’s organizing in unions.

Photo by Steve Cagan

9to5: The Story of a Movement.

This acclaimed documentary, 9to5: The Story of a Movement, by Academy Award winning filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar reveals the vibrant but largely forgotten working women’s movement of the 1970s with lessons for today.

9to5 / Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin

Karen became friends with Jane Fonda when they  worked together in the Indochina Peace Campaign to end the war in Vietnam in the early 1970s. Jane’s response to Karen’s stories about organizing working women was to make a major motion picture. She decided to make it a farce after talking with 40 members of 9to5 in Cleveland, Ohio. Because the film was tied to a movement it created a sea-change in fight for working women’s rights. Jane later joined Karen on the board of Working America Education Fund.

Union Organizing

Karen was the president of District 925, SEIU for two decades, organizing clerical and office workers, and was on the SEIU Executive Board. She went on to the AFL-CIO in the mid-90s, where she started the Working Women's Department and then served as assistant to the president until 2018.

U.S. Department of Labor

Karen was the director of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor in the first Clinton Administration, the highest seat in the federal government devoted to women. Her team reached out to women in every part of the workforce and conducted the biggest popular survey short of the U.S. Census, Working Women Count.

Working America

In 2003, Karen started Working America at the AFL-CIO, reaching out to unorganized working people in working class communities across the country. Today, Working America has 3.5 million members, people who otherwise are not part of the progressive movement.