Possibly the Best Union in the World?

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says: paid Workers PAY A NUPE:

NOW sults Wage insults PILL the low r London NUPE members demanding action from the leadership during the low pay struggle Jette, two members of the Danish Trotskyist Workers League about their work in the women's trade union at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen.

Why are you in a union for women only? I. There are only two unions in the breweries, one for men and the other for women. The women's union was started 75. years ago, when the company was recruiting women largely as part-time workers at appallingly low rates of pay.

Since they were being used to undercut The Working Women's Charter organisation is planning a conference in September to launch its "paper for the unions"_ Women in Action. In order to build support for the conference, they have produced a pilot issue of the paper with articles on equal pay, part time workers, abortion, nurseries and the low pay struggle.

Yet the political redundancy of this organisation shrieks out from every page-from the minor reforms called for by the Ten Aims of the Charter itself, which have already been strengthened and adopted by the TUC in its own Charter for Women at Work, to the adaptation to the policies of the Women's Liberation Movement by the members of groups such as the International Marxist Group.

The editorial group is made. up of "women active in women's campaigns in unions like the NUS, NUT, CPSA and ASTMS". The group correctly points out that the adoption of the TUC Charter for Women at Work is "useless if nothing is done about it" but then sidesteps completely the central issue of how to force the leadership of the trade union movement to implement the policies.

CAUCUSES

Instead the Working Women's Charter wants to build a multitude of Women's Campaigns and Women's Caucuses in the unions. The paper, they claim, will help to exchange information and experience between these caucuses because women "get a good feeling when they know other women have scored a victory". The paper will profide an excellent forum for debate, they claim, on questions such as "should women have the right to work in periods of unemployment"

The politics of broadest possible unity seep through every paragraph of the paper. "We want the paper to be as broad as possible... as long as they support the general struggle for women's equality and independence then we want their support-whatever their particular political standpoint". This is a very dangerous approach to KNI Jette on a picket line the men's pay and conditions, the men were afraid to let them in the union, so they organised themselves. They were among the first groups of women workers to be unionised-and they are one of the strongest. What does this strength mean to the workers?

I. It means that all grievances are taken up through the union and similarly if the management wants to implement anything they have to take it to the union, which calls meeting of all members. Management cannot just persuade or force the workers to accept their wishes by getting hold of them individually. The members elect a committee of shop stewards for every subsection (comprising about 170 members). The woman NUPE LOW £60 NUPE NEED says BeLow the question of fighting for the ending of women's oppression and its logical conclusion emerges in almost the next paragraph in the paper-entitled "Would you see men writing for the paper?" where the editorial board refers to Alan Fisher speaking at the NAC Trade Union Conference and go on to say, "It would be useful to have him contribute to the paper as well, and open up a discussion about what he says".

Any woman who belongs to Alan Fisher's union-National Union of Public Employees-can open up her copy of NUPE news and read Fisher's brand of left talk and contrast it with his actions in practice-last winter's low pay sell out, the cuts aquiesced to over the past three years, and his deafening silence at the present time when the whole school meals system is up for the chop and hospitals threatened with wholesale closure.

Not that Women in Action is against criticising the bureaucracy. In a full page spread Tessa van Golderen, reviewing Jack Dromey's book 'Grunwick-the Workers' Story', criticises Dromey and the rest of the (male) leadership of the Brent receiving the highest full-time convenor.

The unions have negotiated good working conditions: for example, 25% extra contingency manning; half-hour breaks after an hour's work; a limited inflation-proofing of wages. The company is now trying to set up a new brewery with a raw workforce, with speed-up, lower manning and phasing out of inflation-proof pay.

How did you fight this?

J. The full-time bureaucrats of both unions accepted these conditions. We forced them to hold work-time meetings and ballot the membership. In our factory, the largest, the proposals were thrown out—we had prepared the workers for a strike on the issue. But the deal was accepted overall because there was no local leadership in the other factories to challenge the bureaucrats.

How do the men's and women's unions work together?

I. They are federated at national level, but the leaders act bureaucratically and won't fight for workers' independent interests against the employers. For example, in 1973 there was a campaign for equal pay in the breweries, supported by both unions. But it was led not on the basis of equal rights for workers, but on a feminist basis against male workers.

How do you as Trotskyists work against this division?

I. We think that to be unionised along sex lines is totally wrong. In my subsection we got a paper going to take up matters concerning the membership. Then we succeeded in producing it jointly with our fellow men's subsection. We forced agreement that members' letters to this paper must be printed and answered by the committee straight away.

In our "brother' subsection a man got drunk and clocked off early. The company sacked him. We held a joint meeting with the men and struck together, whereupon the whole brewery came out on strike. Then the Tuborg brewery struck in sympathy, for this worker's reinstatement.

We fought to maintain this all-out strike, but the convenors changed it to a selective strike by arguing that if the women workers clocked on, they would continue being paid, which would strengthen the strike.

It did nothing of the sort; it only divided END ENU Pa should comprise equal numbers of men and Trades Council Tor insisting nat asieyauums women" without explaining why this was necessary, and for failing to take any steps to discuss with the Asian women on strike at Grunwicks the reasons for their 'lack of confidence'. No doubt there were many examples of sexism displayed throughout the strike, but to highlight that without going on to link Dromey's sexism with his bureaucratic manipulation of the whole strike committee and his role in the TUC's refusal to carry out total blacking and to support the postal workers who were suspended for blacking post deliveries and therefore his historic responsibility in the defeat of the Grunwick strike is to totally mislead and divert men and women workers seeking to grasp the lessons from Grunwick.

Unity-either with left-talking bureaucrats or with the confused feminists of the Women's Liberation movement, most of whom see all leadership as oppression, and all men as inhibiting women's confidence in themselves-is a false consuccessfully, though they stopped us getting a common committee with the men-we only achieved a joint sub-committee to take up members' problems. We continue to fight to get joint meetings.

How do workers with children manage in the brewery?

I. There is a nursery run by the company and paid for by the state, though it only has about 40 places and we have won a small number of job reservations on permanent day shitt for women with children, though we need more of these reserved jobs and more nursery places.

We have also won the right for couples who live together to work on the same shift. What are maternity rights in Denmark? J. All women workers have the right to 14 weeks' paid maternity leave and to return to their job. The 14 weeks can be divided before and after the birth as the woman wishes. Naturally the woman wants to have as long as possible with the baby after the birth, so she continues to work until too advanced a stage of pregnancy, having to heave around crates to a total of 8 tonnes a day. So we are trying to get the total maternity leave extended.

For women who are unemployed because they have children conditions are worsening: a few months ago, a law was passed disqualifying women who were unable to work because of lack of nursery places from receiving any dole and nationally there is a waiting list of 100,000 for nursery places. Do you have any unemployed women in your union?

J. Yes, like several other unions we have unemployed members, but the bureaucrats leave them to organise themselves.

They said they did not have figures for the numbers of unemployed workers, of workers blacklisted or those unemployed through lack of nursery facilities. So a magazine was started by the unemployed union members to fight for their interests. We forced the bureaucrats, embarrassed by this publicity, to publish these figures and to get jobs for blacklisted women workers. We also fought for them to unite employed and unemployed workers by calling strike action when women workers forced to leave work because of lack of nursery places were refused dole. This was our only unsuccessful fight.

It is very demoralising to be unemployed but we succeeded in pulling large numbers of unemployed members to section meetingsthe only union to achieve this. This is because of the fight for the members that we took into the union. ception. Women of course must seek unity to throw off the shackles of their oppression. But this unity must be unity with all other oppressed layers and classes under capitalism-predominantly the class which is in the economically strategic position to overthrow the social system which is the root of the oppression of women, gays, blacks, nationalities and workers internationally. That system is of course international capitalism.

Nowhere does Women in Action attempt to root women's oppression in the capitalist system and therefore there is no attempt to pose a revolutionary programme which will equip women workers with policies which will begin to take them on the road towards the socialist revolution. Women in Action is a purely reformist paper-just like the papers of the Labour Party and trade unions.

CONTRAST

In startling contrast to the main, reformist, line of the paper, an article by a WS member, Gill Blackwell, on the history of the South Oxford Nursery Occupation centres on the key questions learnt in that campaign. She describes the actions of the local leaders of the public sector trade unions in shifting and diverting the groundswell of support for the nursery occupation from their rank and file members, and says, "we are convinced that these Trade Union leaders are responsible for the fact that so many of the cuts and closures have gone ahead. We and other campaigns have begun to challenge these leaders to take up real fighting policies to stop the cuts.

These policies must include occupations and supporting strike action, and trade union investigation into real need and the actual spending of the health, education and social service authorities."

We urge Working Women's Charter supporters to contrast Women in Action with the policies and perspective offered by Woman Worker and to join our struggle to build the international party of revolutionary Marxism which will lead the working class and all oppressed layers, including women, to the overthrow of capitalism.

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Page The family as we know it is a unit which is of fundamental importance to capitalism. It is also the root cause of the oppression of women When there is a crisis of capitalism the ruling classes see as a priority the need to force women out of employment and back into the single role of housewife.

This is happening internationally but we focus here on how and why the Tories make this a central plank of their policies attacking the working class in Britain.

WHY THE FAMILY IS VITAL FOR CAPITALISM.

The actual basis for womens' oppression stems from capitalism's inability to socialise domestic labour or guarantee full employment. It cannot provide the necessary childcare good housing, communal laundries and kitchens which alone can free women from the exhaustion, boredom, isolation and despair of housework.

It also demands that the family is reponsible for restoring the worker for work the next day clean, fed, clothed, housed for the night and comforted; and that the family produces and takes care of children, rearing the future workers. Full womens' liberation' can never be achieved under capitalism, either through changing attitudes or reforms. Under conditions of unemployment, cuts, and campaigns designed to persuade women that their place is in the home, reforms such as the Sex Discrimination Act and Equal Pay Act are rendered meaningless.

UNEMPLOYMENT SECTOR.

Over one third of all the women who work are in welfare services, local and central government and the public corporations-over three million women.

There , is a massive turnover of staff (termed "natural wastage') due to the pressures of the work and the appalling low wages. The job freeze and no employment of new staff will therefore mean jobs disappearing, and a cut in manning levels. On top of this whole hospitals, childrens?

homes, schools, nurseries and offices are to be closed, and there is the possibility of an end to school meals.

One job in ten is to be cut in the civil service, and it is clear that unemployment amongst women who were in the public sector will easily run into tens of thousands.

And the Tories have declared that the cost of implementing the 'comparability' wage awards in the public sector will have to be raised through a further £200 million in cuts.

EFFECTS OF EDUCATION CUTS.

The cuts will undoubtedly put pressure on all women to give up their jobs as they are forced to take on the welfare duties.

Featuring centrally in this will be the nearly wholesale destruction of state preschool facilities, where it is proposed that all nursery education be paid for and that for example a staggering 52 nurseries are to be closed in one county alone in Clwyd. It is also proposed that the school entrance age is raised to six! The proposed ending of school meals means children coming home for dinner and this will have a shattering impact on full-time work or on those part-time shifts that do not correspond.

This work will prove virtually impossible for those with children if the proposal that the schoolday ends at 2.30 is accepted, with after school activities, playleaders and recreation facilities already caucls slashed. School holidays, already a nightmare for working mothers, will be extended especially in winter to save fuel bills.

HEALTH CUTS.

These will mean massively longer waiting lists, admissions to hospital for only the most acute conditions. Hospitals for the elderly, the mentally ill, for children and terminal patients will close. The entire burden of care for these patients thus falls back 1898... nursing those on endless waiting lists for admission, convalescents will also require long term i care as the tew beds lett in the NHS will be immediately demanded for emergency cases and stays in hospitals will be cut to the bare minimum.

Local small hospitals are closing and it is women who will have to travel well over forty miles as in Norfolk to visit sick relatives and bring children in for check-ups.

On top of the restrictions of the Corrie Bill, abortion, contraception and sterilisation facilities are being starved of funds-it is women who are forced to have families and to suffer the consequences of unwanted pregnancies.

ATTACKS ON THE ELDERLY.

The cuts on facilities on the elderly means countless daughters driven through guilt, love and moral obligation to give up work to look after geriatric relatives as old School meals worker ISTS peoples' homes, geriatric hospitals, day centres, home helps, and special housing projects are not funded.

This will mean incalculable misery. The cutting of holiday admissions will oppress both the old person who feels a constant unwanted burden, and women in the home who face the task of caring, in many cases, for incontinent, senile and despairing invalid relatives.

EFFECTS ON SINGLE PARENTS.

Cuts in the civil service will mean social security offices closing, the cutting of staff distributing benefits, (while increasing those investigating fraud) and this will directly affect single parent families as payments are delayed.

As the attacks on single parents deepen, Woman Worker is the women's paper of the Workers Socialist League, a Tro tskyist organisation which is seeking to build a Marxist ler dership in this country and internationally which, sta rting from today's problems and today's consciousness within the working class, will lead to grasp the need for socialist workers in struggle revolution.

Women play a major role in the struggle of the working class to overthrow the shackles of international capitalism. Women-in workplaces and in the home-are doubly oppressed by capitalism and the present crisis affecting the whole working class attacks women disproportionately.

Woman Worker seeks to give policies and programme-a way forward-to women who are oppressed by this capitalist system. We believe that the leaderships of the traditional organisations of the working class-the Labour Party and the trade unions-are not at this time-and never will be-acting in the interests of the members they were elected to serve. The Labour Party leadership for example has just presided over a five year period in government—a period when the working class experienced the biggest cuts in its wages, and the worse unemploymen, since the 1930s. A period when women were given the paper rights of Equal Pay and the Sex Discrimination Act with one hand-and their jobs, hospitals, nurseries and abortion facilities threatened with the other.

Women are now 28% of the trade union movement-3 million trade unionists and the numbers are growing.

But what have Len Murray and the TUC done for women? In conference after conference, trade union bureaucrats like the

Worker, August

so more women will be trapped in unhappy marriages knowing the insecurities outside the family; of not finding a iob, getting social security, of not getting childcare as nursery facilities for single parents disppear, and also knowing that they will be unable to find anywhere to live - as council housing grinds to a halt and Tory landlords cash in with soaring rents.

HOUSING CUTS.

Council housing cuts mean not only an end to building programmes as in the Greater London Council while demand soars, it also means an end to house repairs.

It is women who have to increase their work in deteriorating conditions and it is women again who have to expend their energies trying to make damp and condemned houses habitable.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

The Tories are also intent on a programme of massive unemployment in order to rationalise British industry and drive wages down.

It is of course womens jobs that are lost first, as they are often in part-time, non-unionised jobs. There is also massive pressure on women not to take the jobs of men. Many trade union leaders who, instead of fighting unemployment, help management to decide on who to make redundant, pick on women first as in their eyes they work only for pin money.

On leaving school, girls find jobs, apprenticeships and training schemes going to boys who are considered the future family wage-earners, while their career is seen as wife and mother.

If they are lucky, they'll get job exerence in prop or as a nursery nurse which will train them for this and through no other options many girls are getting pregnant and married earlier.

The political significance of ensuring that women are made unemployed and forced back into the family, is not only that they will cushion the effects of cuts, but they will also not sign on and be registered as unemployed. Two million women have lost their jobs in the past three years-in fact unemployment is well over three millionbut this is not recognised as these unemployed women become statistically invisible. As 'housewives' dependent on their husbands, they are also not eligible for most social security benefits.

PRICES.

The Tory policy of allowing prices to rip, and themselves stoking up inflation through VAT increases and price rises on every basic item - milk, gas, electricity, petrol, bread, prescription charges, postage, etc - will lift inflation to at least 20%.

If the school meal system is continued the Tories' plan to withdraw subsidies will add 60p per child per day to the weekly budget.

Labour Party leadership manoet the real questions of workers' li the specific questions affecting appalling with sexist attacks or questions of abortion facilities.

Yet Woman Worker insists the trade unions and the Labour Housewives isolated in the r the day-to-day questions of the ideal targets for reactionary f potential strength of the organise Woman Worker calls upon that lie ahead. We belive that tr prepared to fight to improve defend their jobs and social servi The block that stands in bureaucratic leadership in every Woman Worker calls upon places and union branches, to policies such as demanding a 'sl rate increases, whereby wage: inflation every month. This in ti establishing a cost-of-living co increases.

Other policies will include strike action to defend facta closure.

Woman Worker would lik women-and men-workers in shop stewards, branch officers a extending this fight for progr against their union leadership.

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Worker, August Page

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ANGER Woman Worker speaks to Inge and

SKE DOMSTOLE NU TAF

LOW says: 5%

WE WANT WORK SYMPATHY