Gender Equality and Unions: A Global Perspective
By ELSA RAMOS

What is the context in which trade unions operate today, and what role are they playing in achieving gender equality across the globe? The workforce, economic policies, the nature of work, and labor relations are all changing, and unions are responding with a mix of new and traditional approaches. Women need unions, unions need women, and their combination is the key to ensuring greater gender equity and advances for all workers.

	Trade union women demonstrating for equality in Mauritania. Photo courtesy of ICFTU.

Women and Work
The worldwide growth in women's labor-force participation is one of the most fundamental economic trends of the contemporary era. Today, women account for more than 40 percent of the labor force, with the highest levels in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and the lowest levels in North Africa and the Middle East. Their numbers are increasing every day, and their needs and concerns have to be addressed. (Many other women work long hours outside the labor force, which means their considerable efforts on behalf of families and communities are left out of economic calculations.)

In the current era, women are increasingly motivated to take up and remain in economic activity even during their reproductive years. This upsurge in women's labor-market involvement reflects both financial need and economic empowerment. But, while economic empowerment can be a powerful tool for social and political emancipation, it must be noted that the pressure on women to take up economic activity is linked in many cases to increased pauperization, especially in developing countries.

While economic globalization has opened opportunities for women, it has had a detrimental impact on the lives of a great number of women and their families the world over. The neo-liberal agenda of flexible labor markets, privatization of public services, and promotion of "export processing zones" (EPZs),1 has operated in tandem with rising pressures upon women to become migrant laborers or informal economy workers. The result has often been a weakening of women's rights and even greater inequality.

In industrialized countries and in the formal sectors of developing countries, gender-based pay disparities and occupational or workplace gender segregation persist. Women's employment in the global economy tends to be concentrated in particular sectors such as services and textiles, and, especially in developing countries, the agricultural sector. Women are less likely to be in regular, paid employment, and they are more likely to earn less than men for the same type of work. Because women are traditionally viewed as the subsidiary breadwinner, they are often shunted into jobs that are temporary, insecure, pay low wages, and require low skill levels. Compared with jobs dominated by men, there are usually poor working conditions and few protections offered by labor standards, particularly with regard to women's occupational health and safety.

Precarious, low-paid, unprotected work in the informal economy is the growing lot of working women across the globe. Migrant women face particularly formidable challenges. They are often exploited in domestic work and the entertainment sector, subjected to gender-based violence at the workplace, and are increasingly bought and sold like commodities. Women from ethnic minorities face both gender and racial discrimination, while young women are especially disadvantaged in relation to men when it comes to finding decent work.

Indeed, the rules of economic and trade liberalization are stacked against women workers. A case in point was the dismantling of the international Agreement on Textiles and Clothing on January 1, 2005, with its guaranteed quotas for textile imports to Europe and the United States from countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia and Mauritius. Millions of textile workers in those countries, the majority of whom are women, are likely to lose their jobs, as textile exports face competition from lower-cost locations such as India and China.

Of course, more is changing than the profile of workers and economic policies. Both the nature of work and labor relations are also being transformed. Participants at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) Eighth World Women's Conference described the work changes as follows: "A-typical work is becoming typical work; informal work is becoming formal work." Employers, meanwhile, have become global giants-stateless, multinational companies far removed from the workplace.

Unions for Women
Unions are doing a lot to improve the situation of women workers and to promote gender equality in the workplace, labor market, society, and within their own ranks. Yet much more needs to be done. This was the view of the 300 women union leaders who met in February 2003 for the Eighth World Women's Conference. They represented the nearly 58 million women who make up 40 percent of the ICFTU's membership.2

	Participants at the 8th ICFTU World Women's Conference (Melbourne, Australia, 2003). Photo courtesy of ICFTU.

Unions are up to the challenge, the Conference asserted, but only if unions change. There is no doubt that unions must remain faithful to their basic principles and strengthen their (sometimes teetering) foundation-their membership. However, if they are to reclaim their historical role as the vanguard of the working class, unions need to thoroughly examine their strategies, adapting them to the changes that have occurred in the workplace and throughout the global economy. Far too many unions cling to outmoded and rigid structures, a narrow outlook, and traditional ways of working.

Still, there is good news, which women from all over the world shared with great satisfaction and much hope at the Women's Conference. Many unions are meeting the challenges squarely with growing confidence, and they are scoring successes. Using both tried and tested and innovative strategies, unions in many parts of the world are engaged in a host of activities: lobbying and campaigning on equity issues, building alliances with non-governmental organizations, improving internal and external communications, adapting their statutes and opening up their structures for equity-seeking groups, implementing positive measures to fully integrate women into labor organizations (especially at decision-making levels), and yes, slowly transforming their culture and their image.

Above all, unions are going "back to basics" with a vengeance: they are organizing, organizing, organizing! This should seem an obvious strategy, but, surprisingly (and to our woe), many unions had relegated organizing to the bottom of their list of "things to do." And because they were not organizing, many unions were agonizing. The recent Eighteenth World Congress of the ICFTU (held in December 2004) called for intensifying the global organizing campaign, "Unions for Women, Women for Unions," which aims not only at recruiting more women into unions but also at ensuring the full integration of women and gender perspectives within unions.

Here are examples of what unions are doing in different parts of the world to organize women and address their concerns:

• The Congress of South African Trade Unions highlights women's poor working conditions and the employer disregard for health and safety that persists despite the progressive laws in place.
• Unions in Malaysia, the Philippines, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic are active in organizing EPZ workers.
• Family-friendly issues are musts on the bargaining agenda of many unions, including those in Singapore, Belgium, Australia, and the Nordic countries.
  The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions organizes a series of union activities and public events around the theme "Dignity for Working Women."
• The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has launched a major "Gender and Pay Project" to reduce the gender pay gap, strengthen equality in policy development and service delivery within trade unions, and develop guidelines for skills training of women.
• In the Asia-Pacific region, many unions are campaigning for ratification and enforcement of the International Labor Organization's Convention 183 on maternity protection; others focus on fighting sexual harassment at the workplace and in society.
• In Ecuador, Canada, Estonia, Japan, Senegal and Ghana, young women are joining unions thanks to well-organized recruitment drives. The Canadian Labor Congress's "1+1 Campaign," for example, is based on the principle of one union woman recruiting an additional woman worker (and reaching out to other women to get them involved in trade unions).
• In a wide range of countries in Europe, and in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil and New Zealand, unions are running special programs for migrant and ethnic minority women, and are addressing the issues of gay and lesbian workers.
• Every November, unions in Latin America organize various actions on the issue of violence against women. These include assemblies, demonstrations, workshops, radio shows, exhibitions, and street theatre. In Brazil and Ecuador, union women recently worked with their sisters from black and indigenous peoples' organizations to address racial- and gender-based violence.
• In India, the Indian National Trade Union Congress and Hind Mazdoor Sabha have been running information campaigns and workshops against the evil social practice of dowry burning and the abortion of female fetuses.
• Union women in Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, and Senegal were active in the campaign to criminalize female genital mutilation; they continue to discuss the issue in trade union courses and assemblies.
• In Jordan, Yemen, and Palestine, the role of union women in achieving gender equality at work and in society is emphasised in union training programs for both women and men.
• In Eastern and Central Europe, leadership training seeks to "change the male face of trade unions" in the region.
  

Women for Unions
Unions need women as much as women need unions. Unfortunately, the majority of the world's women workers remain unorganized. Why? In too many cases, workers have never considered or even heard of unions, often because no one has approached them about the benefits of labor organizations. Other reasons include prohibitions against forming unions and employer hostility against organizing. A quick look at the ICFTU's Annual Survey of Violations of Workers' Rights is enough to demonstrate this.3

In the EPZs in Central America and Asia, company-hired goons often subject women to violence for speaking out to defend workers, and it is common to fire union organizers. In Colombia, for example, women unionists have lost their lives simply for defending workers' and human rights.

A vast number of women have yet to be convinced that joining a union would be a good thing. They have to be made aware of the benefits of joining unions-including the opportunity to be protected from discrimination and sexual harassment and to get justice for unfair treatment (through advocacy, lobbying and collective bargaining). There are also economic benefits. In Australia, for example, unionized part-time workers earn 43 percent more each week than their non-union colleagues, and young union members also gain significantly, earning A$40 more per week than non-members. According to a survey of women workers in three major industrial belts in India, the average wage in the unorganized sector is almost three times that of the unorganized sector. In Canada, meanwhile, about 80 percent of union women have pension plans, but only about 30 percent of non-union workers have such plans.

Unions provide women with the tools to fight for their rights at the workplace. By forming or joining unions, women can effectively voice their demands for equality and justice. The collective strength of workers' solidarity will make the world a better place for all, and sisterhood will play an essential role in this struggle.

NOTES
1. Many governments set up export processing zones (EPZs) to encourage multinational companies to invest in their countries. There are now 3,000 EPZs in 116 countries. They are probably the most well known negative aspect of globalization. In these zones, workers' rights are often violated, as governments ban unions and scrap protective employment legislation to encourage foreign investors. On average, 80 percent of workers in EPZs are women.
2. Established in 1949, ICFTU has 233 affiliates, mostly national trade union federations, with a total membership of 145 million workers.
3. The ICFTU Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights is published around June to coincide with the International Labor Conference; the 2004 report is available on the Internet at www.icftu.org.

ELSA RAMOS is director for Equality and Youth and secretary of the Women's Committee of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which represents free labor organizations on five continents. She is responsible for gender and equality issues in the workplace and in trade unions.

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