Women in the With the Women in the Unions Conference called on November 23rd by Women for Socialism and the Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee. women now have an opportunity to re-build a movement for equal pay and conditions. Here CAROLYN SIKORSKI takes a look back at women's struggles in the past and at how we can use these lessons to move forward after the conference. through action. Throughout the period already referred to, Wonen are veneray casor ganised initially. They then join se ues o sron sacer in large numbers. But then after the action recedes they largely disappear from union activity or even from the union itself.
Ihe matchgiris strike is d good example. They had a which did not get them anywhere. Annie Besant, a fabian journalist, wrote a series of articles revealing how appalling their cond were. The result was that the women who had given her the Most of the 3,000 matchgiris were young trish women and many were homeworkers -making it difficult to organise them. They struck around the took up the question of their orns COnOTOTs Receiving much support, the women were reinstated and their conditions improved. They did set up their own union. But after the strike women drifted away and the union only lasted for 15 years.
League survey of trade organisers in 1900 showed the majority of men who answered were extremely negative in their attitudes to women in the unions. They said that women were apathetic and irrational(f).
Women were also not taking part in the 'management' of the unions. This was true even in the better unions.
While women organisers also responded negatively, they' did point out that once involver in the union, women actually made better organisers and They often had more invested the attitude that women should WE BELIEVE IN THE DIGNITY OF WORK... Fighting their way to the forefront: women make up over 70 per cent of health unions be subservient to men Throughout the 1800s the naand state ture of church propaganda on the role of homemaker, SY UBIECEE mother and wire - intensincd This was accepted by the majority of women and men, particularly in the higher strata of the working class. It under mined the struggle for equal rights and equai pay. became a pool of cheap labour, Without equal lading to the depression of men's wages and also providing a poos of scab labour, It exacer bated the view that women were taking 'men's jobs'. When men were thrown out of work, vonn oneta coe euover because they much cheaper.
The ideological offensive has to be understood in terms of creating this pool of cheap labour, in dividing working people, rather than in terms of women back into the home It serves as a valuable les son today.
The key issues that socialists have to adress, and will undoubtedly be discussed at the conference, are: 1. How to involve women in the unions in such a way that they will stay involved; 2. How best to build and harness the militancy women workers; 3. How to take proach of the Socialist Movement Trade Union Committer amongst women activists -maybe a women's sub-committee of the SMTUC needs to be formed.
Information for this article has been laken from Barbara Draké's book, in the Trade originally publiched by Labour Research in 19...