Women in leadership making their own opportunities

Bridgette Williams, Heavy Constructors Association

Kansas City Star - Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The chance she took: Campaigning to lead a union when conventional wisdom was running against her.

Bridgette Williams was 21 and fresh out of college when she answered an ad in the newspaper to be a part-time receptionist at the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO. After just six years of working her way up through the ranks, she was running for union president.

Williams won that election by a 3-to-1 margin, despite being young (only 27 then), female, African-American and not from the rank-and-file of the union - undeniably, not a typical union president.

But Williams quickly became known for getting the union involved in discussions with companies and policymakers, where it had never had a voice.

"I just felt that part of our responsibility as leaders was to be able to sit at those tables and have the hard conversations and discussions with the goal of coming out with an outcome that was better for the company and, subsequently, for the workers," said Williams, 42.

Just as Williams had surprised some people when she ran for AFL-CIO president 15 years earlier, she surprised them again late last year when she announced she was leaving the union to take a job on the other side of the table.

Earlier this year, she became deputy director of the Heavy Constructors Association of the Greater Kansas City Area, which represents companies, not workers.

Williams said she took the opportunity because it looked like an interesting challenge, and she was ready for a change. But she is adamant that her goal of helping workers hasn't changed.

"It is in our best interest to have a strong union movement with a great work force," she said.

As a daughter of a Teamster, she knows her family benefited from the advocacy of a union. Her mother, who had six other children, stayed home to take care of the kids when they were young.

"We were aware that she had the ability to do that because my father made a good wage as a result of the union," Williams said.

Williams, herself a mother of four, also is keenly aware of what she wants the workplace to look like for her own children, three of them girls.

"I think it's important for girls to know that you can do it all," she said. "Yes, it is a balance and it is hard work, but you can have family and a career and be successful. It's not either-or."