A-Infos (en) Uk, ACG, Jackdaw #23 - Women organising (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

WOMEN'S WORK ---- Women are 51% of the population but 70% of the poor 
and 83% of single parents, doing 66% of the work; producing 50% of the 
food but earn just 11% of the pay and own only 1% of the land... In case 
you wondered why we still need  feminism.  ---- Facebook meme - so I 
can't vouch for accuracy, But it makes the point. ---- The Patriarchy is 
alive and well ---- The 2024 median pay gap between men and women still 
runs at 13.1% - 87pence for every pound.(TUC figures on UnionLearn 
website). Work available to women is still largely low paid and lower 
graded whether because of their need for part-time work or specific 
hours to fit in with childcare and domestic duties, or because 'women's 
work' has always been undervalued, or because women are not often 
encouraged to train to do 'non-traditional' jobs. Whilst there have been 
enormous improvements in Health and Safety at work since the HSAW Act 
in1974, there are still great inequalities in the treatment of hazards. 
We know a great deal about the lifting of materials in the construction 
industry - but far less about lifting in the care industry. Safe levels 
of toxicity and tolerance of chemicals and hazardous substances are 
calculated according to the physical attributes of 'Reference Man' - 
caucasian men aged twenty-five to thirty who weigh 70kg. Women have very 
different physical attributes and tolerances which are not taken into 
account, and have largely not been properly researched (size, weight, 
fatty tissue, bone size and density, hormones etc).

It is not long since our TV screens were full of harrowing scenes of 
nurses, care-workers, domestics suffering from exhaustion, stress and 
illness; with inadequate and ill-fitting PPE, during the Covid pandemic 
- our method of solidarity to stand in the street and clap! How quickly 
their commitment and courage has been forgotten.
Join the Union
As the women's movement grew in the '70s, so women began to make more 
demands on the unions that they had joined to defend their rights and 
conditions at work. It was commonplace that men in more supervisory 
roles would represent women workers (e.g. cleaners and caretakers in 
schools) and women stewards and branch officials were few and far 
between in many workplaces. At my first national NUPE conference in 1976 
I was one of only two women who spoke - this in a union with 75% women 
membership. NUPE had reserved women's seats on regional and national 
executive bodies, but otherwise not much organisation devoted to the 
bulk of the membership and it was easy to shout down the few lone voices 
of women. There were many disputes during the 70s and early 80s among 
women workers. My experience was in the public sector, where I was a 
local government manual worker. As we got to know each other, we began 
to demand women's committees, so that we could discuss and formulate our 
own demands. These we won and then began to campaign and make demands 
around so-called 'women's issues': Low pay, insecure contracts, women's 
health, childcare and creches for meetings, women's educational 
sessions, sexual harassment, violence against women, menstruation and 
menopause, and so on. Most importantly, we established that women could 
and should be represented by other women who would understand the issues 
and be able to properly put forward the case. At that time there were 
also many hospital occupations, where local women sat in the buildings 
and supported the health workers. Women were bridging the gap between 
community and workplace by supporting other struggles - housing, nursery 
provision and organising coaches to support Greenham Common women, 
miners' strike and other disputes.

Where now?
Although attitudes have changed enormously and most unions now do 
encourage women's self-organisation, there is still plenty of misogyny 
about and the struggle for women's autonomy is still live. The sectors 
where women work are still often the lowest paid with the worst 
conditions also where many migrant and immigrant women work. Cuts and 
on-going privatisation in the National Health Service and in the care 
and education  sectors continue to affect women heavily. The racism and 
sexism that drive women into insecure and poorly paid work continue 
without too much challenge. Non-hierarchical unions such as UVW (United 
Voices of the World) and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) provide 
opportunities for the least organised workers to come together and 
fight. Unite Community, UNISON and GMB, with self-organised groups, 
along with some other unions can be a platform for women to get 
together, formulate demands and organise. The greatest successes will be 
where women find common ground across community and workplace to 
organise and build solidarity.

https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/jackdaw23c.pdf
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