Women in UNISON

Here is the text of a speech I gave to the cambridgeshire county branch of UNISON's AGM last Thursday.

As a young woman UNISON activist I have been asked to talk to you about women and the trade unions. I am going to concentrate upon our Union , UNISON, and say something about inequality in the workplace as well as a little about UNISON’s policy on wider issues of concern to our women members before looking at the implications for women workers of the current economic crisis.

The most obvious example of inequality in the workplace is the fact that men generally earn more than women. The Equal Pay Act came into force before I was born, but women workers still do not receive equal pay with men.
The gender pay gap currently stands at just over 17% around £4,000 a year.
That's equivalent to men getting paid all year and women working for free from 30 October!

Part of the reason for this inequality is the glass ceiling which holds women back. In local government research reveals few women make it to the top, either as chief executives or council leaders. Researchers last year found only one authority – South Northamptonshire – in which the leader, deputy leader and chief executive are all women.
In contrast there are 175 authorities in which all these posts are held by men.
As well as this straight forward discrimination there are numerous other contributors to the GPG.

In the workplace the factors have been loosely bound into 2 types of segregation vertical and horizontal.
The glass ceiling effect and differences in educational levels and work experience are classed as Vertical segregation.
We are more likely than men to have breaks from paid work to care for children and other dependants.
Women are then more likely than men to work part time
For part time workers the GPG is almost 40% - with almost 1/2 of UNISON members working part time closing the GPG is a big issue for us.

Women also spend less time travelling than men because of these time constraints – so we have a smaller geographical pool of jobs to choose from.

In other words because men are more likely to be free to work full time because of fewer caring and domestic responsibilities they are better able to get the better paid jobs.


Horizontal segregation then is so called "womens Work" Women make up 51% of the workforce but more than 60% of women work in only 10 out of the 77 recognised occupations – and these are the lowest paid occupations.
For example workers in care homes are mainly low paid women – as a result of privatisation of many care homes workers are now facing cuts in pay and terms and conditions in what is already a low paid job.


We do need to negotiate for equal pay, on the basis of winning increases for women and where single status negotiations have failed we need to litigate against employers – but litigation alone won’t solve single status – we need to put pressure on central government to provide additional funding for S Sin LG.
We have tolerated unequal pay for far too long. Women workers deserve equal pay and fair compensation –and we need our national leadership to fight for fair funding and to fight pay cuts
We are still waiting for a settlement from last years pay campaign and are due this year pay claim in a matter of weeks - Winning fair pay should be a priority for UNISON , last year we took action again and were then forced to take a pay cut – we cannot keep striking to gain nothing
We are failing all our members but mainly our women members id we fail to achieve a pay RISE in the current negotiations, we cannot afford in the current climate another pay cut in real terms. -Unless we learn lessons from last few years’ tactics we will not win 2009’s claim.
UNISON’s policy is opposition to multi year pay deals –We need to ensure that our national negotiators enforce this policy and provide a strong fighting leadership to stop this government forcing public sector workers to take real term pay cuts.
The best way to take on this government is through united action – including coordinated industrial action fighting for decent pay rises -defending bargaining rights with our sisters and brothers in the NHS and other public services.
Imagine the impact if UNISON had joined the teachers on strike in July last year – that would have made the government sit up and listen and that should be our aim for this years negotiations.

Achieving equality for women workers depends not only upon what we do in the workplace but also upon our campaigns in the wider society - As a trade union we need to tackle every aspect of women’s inequality. That’s why in addition to fighting to close the GPG it is important that UNISON also tackles other issues of concern to working class women.

We need to continue to campaign for adequate affordable childcare and improved maternity provision to help women and carers into work.
I’ll just mention three other issues on which our Union campaigns; domestic violence, rape crisis centres and abortion rights.

UNISON was one of the first unions to recognise that violence in the home is a trade union issue. Domestic violence can be from partners, ex partners or family members. Overwhelmingly the abuser is a man and the abused a woman, though this is not always the case, and more recently we have seen a drastic rise in young men suffering from DV.

This will only get worse as research shows the incidences of DV will rise in a recession.
Many Local authorities are cutting their DV funding at just the time when the provision needs to be increased.
UNISON has been involved in many campaigns to save DV and Women’s centres.

Sexual violence is a major problem in the UK. In 2005 there were over 14,000 reported rapes in England and Wales and an estimated 80,000 unreported rapes. UNISON supports Rape Crisis, and its calls for proper funding for Rape Crisis centres as a funding crisis has seen the number of centres in England and Wales plummet - from 84 in 1985 to 32 today.

UNISON also calls on the Government to improve women’s access to abortion services. UNISON supports a woman’s right to choose, and our position is supported by the public, the vast majority of people in Britain consistently poll in support of a woman’s right to choose. I was privileged to be part of the reinvigorated campaigns to defend our abortion rights last year however the government used all sorts of underhand tactics and deals to prevent us from having a debate on whether or not our sisters in Northern Ireland should have the same rights as we do. It is disgraceful that women in NI are denied the rights that women have fought for over. The fight doesn’t end however there are constant attempts to erode the rights women have won and we need to keep vigilant in defending them.

All of these campaigning issues relating to women’s rights are trade union issues, relevant to the inequality which we as women experience at work, in the home and generally in society.


Now women have to face the brunt of an economic crisis which is bearing particularly heavily on women workers.

In the current recession communities secretary Hazel Blears has said that the early signs suggest that women are experiencing greater economic hardship than men.

Last month a study by the TUC showed the redundancy rate among women had risen by 2.3%, almost double the rate for men.

For UNISON – with a million women members – this makes our response to the economic crisis a vital issue for women’s equality as much as for workers’ rights.
Our General secretary Dave Prentis has called for "a major demonstration, with our people in the streets in London on 28 March" to call for jobs, people, public services and climate change to be at the heart of plans to deal with the crisis.

UNISON’s progressive social agenda to respond to the economic crisis is of particular importance to our women members, and we need to mobilise for 28 March now.

Finally I mentioned earlier that most local authorities are dominated by men at the very top. In UNISON we have strict rules about proportionality which make sure that almost two thirds of our NEC are women, but of course, our General Secretary is a man, so is our Deputy General Secretary and our Assistant General Secretary.

The future leadership of a trade union with a million women members is not likely to remain so exclusively male. Already five of our twelve Regional Secretaries are women as are the National Heads of Health, Local Government and Education.

Women in UNISON have made progress, but we have further to go – and the next place we have to go is the demonstration in London on 28 March.
I hope to see you there.