This article analyzes the conditions that facilitate or hinder office-worker activism. Participant observations in Baltimore Working Women, a local affiliate of 9 to 5, and interviews with 72 members and nonmembers revealed the dilemmas of organizing women office workers. Early joiners recruited themselves and then brought in friends for whom the costs of activism were greater. Job security, supportive bosses, and experience in protesting inequities eased the difficulties associated with activism, and commitment to working women's issues sustained activism. Those who feared reprisals from unsupportive bosses and coworkers but joined for friendship tended not to be active. Nonmembers' loyalty to employer and family demands limited their potential as recruits.

No abstract