For many years the trade union movement ignored the way in which the working class is differentiated, by gender, race, sexuality and age. Official positions are still dominated by white men, particularly at the higher levels of leadership. This is a major problem, particularly given the changes in recent years in the composition of the workforce. However, it is also necessary to recognise the opportunities which this recomposition has opened up for the unions. It is less than thirty years, after all, since the Smithfield meat porters marched in support of Enoch Powell's racist speech on immigration, with no effective opposition from within the unions. Attitudes on issues of racism and sexism, and to a lesser extent homophobia, have altered considerably. To a large extent this is due to the combination of changes in the labour force with the political struggles of the women's movement, gay and lesbian movement and anti-racist movements over the last two decades.
What is striking, however, is that this change in attitudes coincides with the continuing, even intensifying, use of divisions in the workforce by employers to drive down pay and conditions. The trade unions have not managed to produce an effective response to such attacks. A number of activists in the social movements have responded to this by arguing that unions are irrelevant and that the working class as a cohesive group is dead. This tendency has been strengthened by the political weakness of the social movements in recent years, which has drastically lessened the amount of political pressure they have been able to place on the unions. On the one hand we have the fragmentation of the the women's movement into widely disparate areas, and on the other a certain retreat of the gay movement, at least as far as gay men are concerned, into consumerism. Activism in these movements is seen to have less and less to do with trade unionism. We believe that the role of the specially oppressed within the unions is central both to the revitalisation of the union movement, and of the social movements. The two processes are linked and depend on recognising both the differences within, and the unity of, the working class.
Women and the Unions Any recovery in the strength of the unions must be based on the participation of women workers. Women are now a full half of the workforce and recorded unemployment levels are much lower for women than for men. There is also a tendency for the proportion of women workers to increase. In 1985-95 there was a 9% rise in the number of women aged between 16 and 59 who were economically active and a 147c rise in the number in employment. For men between 16 and 64 the corresponding figures were a fall of 17 and a rise of 17e, while between 1990 and 1995 the number of men employed actually fell 67. At the same time, unionisation levels among women have held up better than among men. While the percentage of union membership for men fell from 43.9% in 1989 to 34.67: in 1995, for women the fall was smaller, from 32.8% to 29.5%. However, many women are working part-time and levels of pay remain significantly below those for men, as women are segregated into lowpaying jobs. While the gap is closing it is only closing slowly and overall rises in women's pay relative to men's cover an increase in incquality amongst women. Unions have failed effectively to recruit and represent part-time workers, as shown by the table below.
Table 4: Percentage of workers in trade union membership in 1995. Part-time Full-time All Permanent Temporary Source: Labour Market Trends September 1996.
The ability of the unions to campaign on behalf of such workers will be a necessary part of building a strong trade union movement in those sectors currently unorganised or weakly organised. There are three main areas where the role of women within the unions has to be developed. First, there are issues which, while they are central for all workers, have particular significance for women. In the last twenty years the question of abortion and reproductive rights has been the only issue of this kind which the trade union movement in general has taken up fully, with the TUC-backed demonstration against the Corrie Bill in 1979. While this was an important development, the fact that, seventeen years later, it remains the only example of this kind of initiative show's the scale of the problem faced. Trade unions have, for example, undertaken no central campaign on the question of child care, which has up until now been the most important factor leading to job segregation for women. Perhaps even more
significant in the future will be the question of care for elderly people. Government policies on 'community care' are increasing the already massive burden on voluntary carers in this area, the majority of whom are women, either excluded from the job market or forced into low-paid, part-time jobs. These points reinforce the general conclusion that the attack on the welfare state and the employers' offensive have had serious consequences for women in two interlocking ways. Many of the areas directly under attack are sectors employing large numbers of women workers, already often very poorly paid. These women now face further attacks on pay levels, job security and working conditions which in turn make the burden of caring responsibilities greater and reduce opportunities for union involvement. At the same time, women are the major users of welfare services and cuts here, for instance in child care facilities, affect them both as carers and as workers.
The second aspect of the role of women within the unions is that of the organisation of sectors of the workforce or kinds of work in which women predominate and which are currently little touched by union activity. Part-time work has already been mentioned. Also important is the growing area of homeworking, which is dominated by women workers. The Labour Force Survey for 1995 showed that among those defined as "working mainly in own home' union membership was just 6% (this was made up of 7% membership among full-time home workers and 5% membership among part-timers). Women play a large role in growing sectors of the economy like catering, tourism, and other parts of the service sector, where unionisation has previously been weak.
Finally there is the question of the participation of women within the unions themselves. Here we need to take up not just the proportion of women among lay officers and full-time officials but also the possibilities for women to organise within unions collectively. With regard to the former issue, while some progress has recently been made, women remain signiticantly under represented, especially in the area of full-time positions, as shown by the table below. Table 5: Proportion of women in top positions in the largest 5 unions, 1995-6. UNISON TGWU AEEU GMB MSF To of members To of NEC 7o of TUC delegation To of national officers % of regional officers Source: Labour Research March 1996.
Among unions with a very high percentage of women members the position is, if anything, more stark. USDAW, with 587: women members in 1995-6, had no national female full-time officers and only 197 of regional full-timers were women. The NUT, with a female membership of 75%, had only 227c of women members on the NEC, with 97c of national full-timers, and 177c of regional fulltimers being women.
In addition to these questions, however, the issue of the ability of women, and other oppressed groups, to meet within unions, express their views and influence union priorities is a crucial one. This has to involve not just the formal ability to meet, but also real power to influence the decision-making machinery of the union, to put motions forward to conferences at all levels, lo suggest, play a role in implementing and monitor policy, and so on.
The decline in recent years of the organised women's liberation morement presents a further problem in taking up these various issues within the unions. Experience has shown that autonomous organisation by women has been a crucial factor in raising demands and exerting pressure on union leaders. The demands raised by a wider women's movement are also essential in changing the position of women at work. More than twenty years after the passing of the Equal Pay Act, women's pay is still on average only two-thirds that of men because of the sexual segregation of the workforce. Such segregation is a result of women's position in the family and therefore needs to be challenged by demands directed at changing the way reproduction is organised by society, not simply by trade union activity in the workplace. The struggle to extend the participation of women in the unions and to improve women's position in the workplace, cannot be separated from the general question of challenging the way in which feminism has been channelled into issues of individual selfadvancement for a minonty:
Black Workers and the Unions In addition to campaigning over issues of racism and immigration controls, it is crucial that unions address themselves more energetically to defending the rights of black workers. Black workers are more highly unionised than white workers, at 41% in 1995, with women slightly more unionised than men. This is both because they are concentrated in areas of relatively high unionisation, particularly within the public sector, and because they are more likely (at least according to 1970s research) to join unions. However, among black workers union membership rates differ, with Indian workers having a membership rate of 28% and Pakistani/Bangladeshi workers one of just 187.
The task for the unions with regard to black workers is twofold. First, there is the question of the defence of workers who are to a large extent facing the worst
working conditions, lowest pay and most intransigent employers. Struggles such as the Burnsall strike in the private sector and the Hillingdon Hospital dispute in the public sector have shown the willingness and ability of such workers to fight back. However, they have also shown the difficulty of winning the disputes while they remain isolated from effective solidarity action, either boycotts or pickeling. The defence of the rights of black workers, then, is crucially linked with other issues, such as the struggle against the anti-union laws, against the fragmentation of national bargaining in areas like the NHS, against contracting out services and competitive tendering, and for the defence of the welfare state. The second task for the unions with regard to black workers is increasing the opportunity for such workers to participate in the unions themselves. This involves building on the experience already existing of black self-organisation within the unions, for example in the old NALGO structures. However, the issues go further than this. The Burnsall strike, which was called off by the GMB without a vote by the strikers, and during which the strikers were unable to hold a functioning branch meeting, with policy essentially decided by regional officials, shows the importance that basic issues of union democracy assume for many black workers, especially those in previously poorly organised sectors, as soon as they take action. In turn, the militancy of many black workers can be a force for opening up and democratising the union movement.
Gay and Lesbian Workers Many of the issues which must be taken up in the unions concerning lesbian and gay workers parallel those affecting women and black workers, but there are important differences. Three key areas of struggle are, defending the position of lesbian and gay workers at work; taking up broader issues of lesbian and gay rights; and fighting for the space, and the right, for lesbian and gay workers to organise autonomously and effectively in the unions.
The critical distinction between lesbian and gay and other doubly oppressed workers is their actual or potential invisibility. There are lesbian and gay worker in every part of the workforce, and they do not form a distinct group facing discrimination over wages and hours. The discrimination they face is rooted in prejudice, or the fear of it, which prevents the great majority from being open about their sexuality. Such prejudice comes from both managers and fellow workers and takes every form, from jokes and name-calling to violent attacks and discriminatory treatment. There is no recourse to law, industrial tribunals having found that discriminatory treatment of lesbian or gay workers can be 'fair'. In consequence, there are whole areas of work where it is impossible for lesbians or gay men to be 'out', and therefore not possible for them to organise. In addition, there are a range of jobs, such as those involving children, where despite relative
liberalism in the sector, and sound union policies, many lesbian and gay workers (such as teachers, social workers and even lecturers) are too frightened to be open.
Additionally, there are a range of rights gained by heterosexual workers which are denied by many employment contracts, such as partnership leave, parental leave and pension inheritance. Clearly the role of the unions is to lead the fight against prejudice in the workplace simultaneously with campaigning for equal employment rights. Through adopting such a stance, and through positively advancing the right to self-organisation, it becomes easier for individual lesbian and gay men, who may otherwise see their situation solely at the level of an individual problem, to come out to their fellow workers, to join with others in self-organised groups, and to start to be active within the union. Substantial progress has been made on all these fronts in the last two decades, but it remains extremely uneven, and largely restricted to the white collar sectors. The greatest gain of self-organisation, and the winning of equal employment rights, have come through unions like NALGO, now carried through into UNISON. MSF also gives recognition to a lesbian and gay group. In the large general unions the progress has been much slower. While the TGWU has had a policy for a long time, and its leadership has a good record of supporting progressive policy, this remains top-down. There is no meaningful self-organised group and as a result nothing really has been done to oppose rankand-file prejudice which is manifest in the opinion (common in many non-white collar sectors) that such issues are not the business of a trade union: which of course, they have not been. Even less has been done in some unions like the GMB. In other, like the NUT, good conference policies have been left to wither by the leadership's being too hostile or themselves too frightened of prejudice to carry them out.
Where self-organised groups exist, it is an essential task to promote them. "Coming out' is a continual process, and it is always a mistake to make assumptions about anyone's sexuality. Such groups are sometimes apolitical and this significantly weakens their potential impact.
Winning unions to engagement in the wider struggle for lesbian and gay rights, apart from being a necessary and principled stance in its own right, also helps to break down ignorance of lesbian and gay oppression, encourages lesbian and gay workers to come out, and develops important links between the labour movement and the lesbian and gay movement. Recent debates such as that on the age of consent provided a brief opportunity for such a campaign. In the present period, arguing for support for organisations like the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights and its manifesto entitled Lesbian and Gay Equality may provide an important link between the workplace and, the broader campaigns.
The issue of HIV/AIDS clearly does not only relate to lesbians and gay men, but it has always been closely linked with prejudice against, in particular, gay men. Recent attempts to tackle the issue by separating it off entirely from gay men, who remain in this country the largest group of sufferers, has lead to a regaying' of AIDS by the community. Campaigning for the rights of workers with HIV or AIDS continues to be an important trade union issue, which also involves a careful process of education. It is also linked with the question of defending health services and housing provision, and therefore with the struggle to defend the welfare state.
With the few exceptions mentioned there remains a great deal of work to be done before lesbian and gay trade unionists can organise effectively to influence the policy of their union. A possible cutting edge for this is the coming struggle to give the Lesbian and Gay TUC, which has now met three times, policy making powers similar to the Women's TUC and Black Workers' TUC. In itself this may not represent much real power, but its achievement would be powerfully symbolic of a new commitment by the trade union movement.