UNIONS vital fol working women

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bulk of working women remain outside the trade union movement.

This is certainly not because they need the protection of a trade union any less than men. In fact they need a union even more, since they are doubly exploited-both as women through the family and as workers in production.

So why are they less organised?

The reasons are not hard to find. Women have, with some notable exceptions, been excluded from industry and from those areas where trade union organisation is most developed.

When they have come out of the home, lack of basic childcare facilities, experience and training along with discrimination by the employers have driven them into jobs which are frequently an extension of their servicing role in the home-such as cleaning, catering and caring for the sick and old.

Mostly such jobs offer appalling wages working conditions.

MALE DOMINATION

Many working class women are also reluctant to attend trade union branch meetings because they lack experience and are intimidated by the male domination and the prejudice they encounter from trade union leaders who lack the slightest knowledge of or interest in problems of working women.

of the Fire Brigades UnionWhen, as chairman of the recent Trades Councils Conference, he was asked about child care facilities he fumbled around, not even knowing the meaning of the word "creche"!

Indeed the lack of child care facilities at most union meetings is a major barrier preventing many women from attending. Many others see it as their sole responsibility to look after children and cook the dinner for their husbands-when in fact husbands have a responsibility to encourage their wives to become involved in union struggles.

-LEADERS SELL-OUT On top of these problems many working class women drawn towards unions in the past few years have found themselves immediately sold out by top leaders who supported the government policies of wage restraint; who refused to fight vicious private employers; and who have turned a blind eye to the massive cuts in the social services.

This led to the resentment and frustration which exists strongly in the public sector unions today.

Such frustration must not lead to a weakening of trade union organisation.

The experience of the strikes of last winter must be built on and unionisation extended. Those leaders who betrayed the strikes must be fought and exposed.

The trade unions are not the property of the full-time bureaucrats-but of the working class.

STATE OPPRESSION From the early days of capitalism workers found that they could not stand up to the employers as individuals. In the early 19th Century unions were built illegally with great sacrifice.

Workers began to recognise that their collective strength could challenge the autocratic and dicta torial power of the employers.

The employers responded by making it illegal (Under the Combination Acts) for working men and women to combine together collectively to defend their interests. They used police and army violence, jail sentences and even deportation AFFI Scab crosses a picket line against trade unionists.

The employers have not changed. They still use the police and the state machine and the legal system as the guard-dogs of their interests.

George Ward at Grunwick used the notorious thugs of the police Special Patrol Group to break the unionisation strike. He is no different to the employers resisting unions at Garners Steak Houses, Sandersons and in the Hotel industry as a whole. TORIES ATTACK Now the Tories want to smash the strength of the working class through attacks on basic trade union rights.

They plan attacks on the closed shop, to outlaw "secondary" picketing and to stop social security payments to strikers' families.

They forget that in the 19th Century the first unions were built despite the weight of legal repression.

And this century has seen a huge spread of unionisation, putting great potential power in the hands of the working class. No power station, tube train, state school, local or national government department, TV station or hospital can function without the consent of the unions.

CORRUPTION

But what was the response of the employers to their failure to stamp out the unions at birth? They strengthen their illusions that capitalism can be "reformed".

It was crude but effective. Today trade union leaders are remote from the shop floor. They consume sumptuous meals with the employers and government ministers whilst supporting wage controls for their members. They have huge salaries and value their close links with the ruling class.

Jack "Year of the Beaver" Jones is a Companion of Honour and Hugh "Keep Working at all Costs" Scanlon is in the House of Lords.

Once trade union leaders reject a revolutionary perspective-the ending of capitalism through the mobilisation of the working class and establishing socialism-they quickly accept capitalist thinking.

They start from the problem of the employers, such as keeping their plants profitable, rather than the interests of the members they are supposed to represent.

Thus the problems of the working class is the problem of leadership. The workers have the strength to challenge capitalism but are held back by their leaders.

CHALLENGE CAPITALISM

This power can only be harnessed and used to improve and defend the living standards of the whole working class if a leadership can be built that is dedicated to ending capitalism and establishing socialism.

Women workers must be brought fully into employment alongside men and play their full part in the unions in the struggle for this leadership.

We must press that those women tied' and isolated within the home have the right to join the trade union of their choice.

At the moment women can join the TGWU branch for the unemployed (which they should).

Pressure must be put on other unions to take up the question of women's oppression, unemWoman Worker examines the problems facing women joining the trade unions which are caused mainly by their corrupt leadership, which must be replaced in order that the massive strength of these unions can be used to end the exploitation of workers. equality in the factory can bring out many reactions from both men, management and the older women.

The main driving force behind the woman worker demanding equal jobs comes from the economic situation prevailing today.

As the two wage family becomes a necessity the woman becomes more conscious of the importance of her job and wages.

Therefore her need for better wages has a dual effect. It encourages her to fight for the rights of a woman factory worker on an equal footing with the male, and turns her towards the trade unions for help and backing.

----- pull-quotes -----

Despite important advances over recent years, particularly in the public sector, the

One classic example of this is TUC General Council member Terry Carr-Generat Secretary

set out to corrupt the leaders of the unions, to suck them into the apparatus of management, to

Equality The struggle on the question of