Democracy Special Fighting for representation for women Fightback Get organised

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Socialist Organiser Alliance Time and again women trade unionists have come forw: to fight the Tory onslaught on their rights and living st dards. And each time they have run up against the limi tions or outright treachery of the existing bureaucra And they have found a movement which has for deca ignored the issues and problems faced by women.

The March 27 Trade Union conference called Women's Fightback is designed as a focus for a movem to change the unions and challenge their present leadersh The conference is open to women either as individi or as delegates from any group, workplace organisati branch or women's group at local, regional or natio SOCIALIST Organiser fights to act as a real There will be an all-day creche. Workshops on vari campaigning paper which. can organise topics under main groups: Pay; public sector and the ci workers in the struggle for new leadership. jobs; fighting sexism; racism and the Third World.

To do so we need consistent support and The conference fee is £3.50 (£2 for low-waged money. Socialist Organiser Alliance groups unwaged non-delegates). Credentials from 41 Elling Why not join with us? Supporters are asked to. undertake to sell a minimum of 6 papers per week and contribute at least £1.50 MARCH 2: ONE OF the most striking failures of real democracy in the unions is the paltry number of women who are active at any level, from shop-floor right up to the national executives:

In many workplaces, even though the majority of the workers are women, there will be a male shop steward.

Many men say that women bring it all on themselves - if they won't vote for women as shop stewards, what can the union do? If women won't come to the meetings and participate in the union's activities, don't show any interest in the union at all, then it's because of their domestic responsibilities, or that women aren't interested in politics, or women are more conservative than men.

There are many • timeworn excuses and 'explanations' - going back to the last century, when John Workers union organiser, a Scottish Mill said:

'Women broadly speaking, from a Trade Unionist standpoint, are bad subjects. This is due not a little to the dependent and subordinate position the woman has been so long taught to look upon as her proper place. She is difficult to get and being have been established in most big towns.

per month (20p for unwaged). If there is no group in your help us to build one?

To "Get Organised', , write at 28 Middle Lane, London N8. got is difficult to keep".

In truth working-class women, being more oppressed than working-class men, are often more militant once they get into action. And that's closer to the real reason why women are oppressed the Sluggishness There have been very militant struggles led by women, like Lee Jeans, Royal Pride, Glencroft, and the Liverpool typists recently, and further back Trico, Grunwick, and Chix.

These struggles decisively squash any accusations of women's reluctance to fight. Indeed they highlight the sluggishness of the trade unions in backing those women.

It took the National Union of Tailor and Garment Workers (NUTGW) six weeks to decide to give official support to the Lee Jeans women. 92 per cent of the membership of the NUTGW are women, yet there are only five women on an Executive of 15, and out of 47 full-time officials only nine are women. Men run a union that consists almost entirely of women.

Positive discrimination is often criticised as being patronising to women. It area why not once to us at is said women can get onto committees on their own merits and capabilities.

But surely there's a cast iron case for insisting that there should be a greater proportion of women in the leading bodies of the NUTGW. Out of 92 per cent of the union, there cannot be only five women capable of sitting on the Executive!

The consistent trend of trade-union routinism is always to give predominance to the most conservative sections - from the full-timers down through the older, better-off, more skilled, male, white workers. -These . workers have more time, more confidence, more experience. They come to identify themselves with the union, and then, often, with the union machine. They resent - or at best are patronising towards - militant women who challenge their routines.

So often the trade union movement reproduces the same male domination as exists in the family and in capitalist society - stifling and repressing the energy and vigour of the more oppressed half of the working class, and strengthening the hand of the bureaucracy.

When you think of a JO THWAITES argues that democracy mus include women rights 'typical trade unionist' or a trade union leader, the image which springs to mind is of a white, middleaged, greying or balding, man (more or less corpulent according to how high he's got in the union hierarchy).

That might appear as a caricature, but the general image fits. You only have to go to a TUC conference for proof.

And most union officials are reluctant to change long established procedures, to adopt the kind of changes that are necessary to make sure that women have a chance to get involved in the union. The stereotypes are self-perpetuating.

Represented

Despite all this. women are joining unions at a much faster rate than men.

But there has not been an equivalent increase in the number of women trade union activists, shop stewards, full-time officials, or executive members.

What efforts have unions made to encourage women?

NUPE, with 67 per cent of women members, now has five places reserved for women on its executive.

That brings the percentage of women on its executive up to 31 per cent - still less than half of what it should be if women were represented properly.

Various white collar unions - TASS, NALGO, APEX, ASTMS - have set up Equal Opportunities Committees. Some unions have special training schools for women shop stewards.

The Yorkshire region of the GMWU has negotiated provisions with . a few employers for workplace women's groups to meet during the working day.

But more is needed - all the way through the unions, from top to bottom.

Women trade unionists have to see that they are needed in the union; they have to be encouraged to come forward and take an active part in the union.

Work-time

Providing creche faciities at branch meetings is a start, but not enough.

Must women don't want to take their kids out with them to meetings at night.

The most convenient time for women who have

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responsibilities at home attend branch meetings during work time.

That is what unions should be fighting for nationally. That would be real encouragement Unions should encourage women to get together from different parts of the country and build up networks of contacts. All too often the problems women activists face - sexist attitudes from male trade unionists, lack .. of self-confidence and demoralisation - end up with the woman thinking there is something wrong with her, until she starts discussing the problems with other women and discovers tha they are general.

The Women's Fightback conference on the unions should help.

Unions need to be won whole-heartedly to support and fight for a woman's right to work. As long • as any male trade unionist believes that saving his job is more important than saving a woman's job, the bosses will be able to peddle reactionary rubbish about a woman's place being in the home looking after the kids, and sabotage any real fight against unemployment.

Women's lack of representation in the unions is usually lumped into the women's rights section in conference agendas. Since Coventry Council strikers 99 times out of 100 it will be women who raise this But a fundamental part of democracy in any labour leaders. movement body is that the elected representatives represent the membership. When the vast majority of the representatives of the trade unions are men, with the Executives of some unions have no women on level.

them at all, and s. per cent ot all trade unionists are women, there is something very wrong. A big chunk of the working class - an oppressed Street, London N7.

and potentially radical and militant chunk - is being disenfranchised.

This is not simply a 'women's issue' ', but an issue that must concern all those who are fighting for democracy in the labour movement.

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Socialist Organiser no. 69 21,

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representation, it is seen as simply a 'women's issue'