being used as cheap labour was not to exclude them but to organise them and fight for equal pay Women become integrated into the workforce en masse for the first time during the Second World War, working in munitions factories and doing many of the jobs left by men. But after the war women were pushed out of industry as demobilised soldiers returned to claim 'their' jobs.
Women were again drawn into the workforce in large numbers with the huge expansion of the welfare state after the war.
Many women from the former colonies came to Britain for service sector jobs to escape the poverty and lack of opportunitv caused br Britain's underdevelopment oi ire:: on: countries.
Many black families were separated as women and men travelled thousands of miles Page 8 25 Oct, 1992 No. 30 was the main topic at that year's TUC.
In the autumn, Barbara Castle introduced her Equal Pay Bill, which became law in 1970. For all its loopholes it wasmarked a milestone - the first major legislation on women' srights since the 1920s.
Sex discrimination In the following decade the equal pay legislation was updated and expanded and the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced. In 1986 Jo Richardson's proposal for a Ministrv for Women's Rights was backed by Labour's NEC.
Richardson proposed new equality legislation, a minimum wage, i free childcare for all three and four year olds, an end to discrimination in social securit benefits, abolition of the married man's tax allowance, reduction of the male retirement age to 60 and a more flexible working week with F YOU thought Labour's campaign on the NHS was crap during the general election, just look at what they are up to At a time when the Tory government's credibility had plummeted to new depths with their pit closure announcement, it took the special talents of Labour's David Blunkett to give their wretched NHS policies an unexpected boost.
His announcement that Labour would accept the closure of London teaching hospitals - in exchange for vague promises of more GP services - will have cheered the government and dis mayed health workers and patients in the capital.
Health Secretary Virginia Bottomley had been grilting her teeth In preparation for a storm of profest when she unvells the postponed report of the Taminson inquiry, now due for October 28.
Closures
According to leaks in the Daily Telegraph the report will propose closing Charing Cross, the Mid. diesex and Bart's Hospitals, the merger of Guy's and St Thomas's, and forcing London's Special Health Authorities - such as Great Ormond Street and Moortields Eye Hospital - into the NHS internal market by withdrawing central government funding.
Blunkett however decided to itnore the angry response of many London MPs and health unions -notably COHSE - who had lobbied strongly during Labour Party conference for him to take a strong line against these closures, which represent a massive cul in health care in the capital.
Instead he Insisted upon holding a press conference on October 15 in which he revealed himself to be one of a tiny handful of people In Brilain who believe that the Tomlinson inquiry was an independent exercise rather than a government fig-leal for closures.
His statement naively insisted that *the Tomlinson Inquiry must not be used as a way of dealing with the disastrous effects of the inter-