Carolyn Jacobson: Champion of union rights who empowered American women

She was co-founder of the Coalition of Labour Union Women and fought for contraception to fall under preventative healthcare provisions

Jacobson ‘connected and lifted’ women to network and progress together throughout her 40-year career in the labour movement (Courtesy of Claudia Comins)

Carolyn Jacobson was an American labour activist credited with advancing women’s healthcare coverage during a 40-year career in the union movement.

Jacobson, who has died aged 67, spent much of her career at the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union, where she became communications director.

She was also a founding member, in 1974, of the Coalition of Labour Union Women, a national organisation representing women across unions; in retirement, she was a consultant and special assistant to the group’s president.

In 2001 she created the Contraceptive Equity Project at the coalition to educate union members about demanding contraceptive coverage.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had ruled a year earlier that employers were obliged to cover contraceptives, counting them as preventive care for medical conditions which many of the country’s health plans include.

Coalition president Elise Bryant said Jacobson was “kind of a one-woman show” who originated and directed the contraceptive project. “It was her vision, and she executed it.”

For the contraceptive project, Jacobson developed model language for contracts, paved the way for other women to become advocates within their organisations and was a “powerful voice in driving that as an agenda item,” said Liz Shuler, the secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), the largest unions body in the US.

At a time when contraceptive coverage was seen as a side issue, Jacobson pushed it forward, Shuler said. “Now, it’s core.”

Through her work, Jacobson also advocated for cervical cancer awareness and prevention.

Carolyn Judith Jacobson was born in Mineola, New York. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother taught at a Jewish religious school.

She graduated in 1972 from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labour Relations, now known as the ILR School. She moved to Washington DC that year for an internship with the AFL-CIO and received a master’s degree in public information and administration from American University in 1979.

Jacobson worked at the bakers union from 1973 until she retired in 2001. In 1996, she helped establish a scholarship fund to support female labour leaders. That fund became the Berger-Marks Foundation the following year and closed in 2017.

Jacobson also aided the publication of a mentoring manual, written by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

“She connected us and lifted us up,” Linda Foley, former president of the Berger-Marks Foundation, wrote in a tribute, referring to Jacobson’s work creating networks of women. Jacobson encouraged the foundation to sponsor young women to attend an annual summer school hosted by the United Association for Labour Education.

Foley continued: “Year after year for almost a decade, Berger-Marks, at Carolyn’s insistence, would provide opportunities for young women union members to learn about organising, collective bargaining and worker representation, as well as develop personal leadership skills at these schools.”

Carolyn Jacobson, American champion of women’s union rights, born 2 June 1950, died 23 March 2018

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