Union Membership Card, owned by Ann Clark, South Portland, 1943. Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum.
Union Membership Card, owned by Ann Clark, South Portland, 1943. Courtesy of the Maine Maritime Museum.
As women moved into shipbuilding jobs, they also moved into shipbuilding unions. The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America was a union associated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Union's Local 50 operated in the South Portland shipyards.
One of the union officials' primary demands was that women should receive the same pay as their male counterparts. Union organizers wanted the pay rate to remain consistent regardless of who was in the position, so the soldiers could return to high paying jobs.
Ann Clark worked in the Todd-Bath Shipyard in South Portland.