OF WOMEN IN THE TRADE UNION FROM WORKPLACE LEVEL.
In this thesis we examine how the women workers in one company
(BSR) fared in relation to the collective bargaining structures established
as a result of unionisation. The recognition agreement signed by
representatives of the firm and the GMWU contained both procedural and
substantive terms; both of which patterned B S R 's workplace organisation.
On the face of it there was little in the procedural arrangements to
suggest that the men would be favoured since, if anything, workplace
organisation was bound to reflect the women's numerical dominance.
Yet a closer look reveals significant inequalities within these repre
sentational and bargaining structures. Most of the key positions in
the local organisation were held by men and male workers were over
represented in the domestic system; the grievance procedure at higher
levels was dominated by their problems and formal agreements consistently
reflected their interests over and above the women's. How is this
pattern to be explained?
The usual explanations of women's 'lesser bargaining strength' at
the workplace are confined to exploring problematic aspects of the
subjects themselves (e.g. their "docility" and family commitments).
Similar arguments, in fact, as are advanced to explain why women are
not members of, or more active in, trade union organisations in the
first place. But will this do? Can we unquestioningly assume that
the non-appearance of their problems in the grievance procedure and
the down-grading of their interests in agreements, is entirely explained
by w o men's ’apathy"in the workplace and children in the home? How much
hinge on the fact that they cannot attend meetings outside it? And,
if women are consistently under-represented on the job because they
h a v e fewer shopstewards, need we really look no further than their own
lack of confidence, to explain this? We hope to show that when the
position of men and women workers in relation to their union organisation
on the shopfloor is examined more closely, such arguments in terms
of the latter's attitudes and family commitments, are being made to
bear far too great an explanatory weight. However relevant they are,
the immediate significant of these factors must vary with the problem
and the level of analysis, and their significance has to be assessed.
First, for both men and women, rather than as at present, ignored in
relation to the former and assumed for the latter. And secondly,
in relation to other aspects of the employment/bargaining relationship
which may be in an immediate respect, operative to greater effect
and which are at present being missed from the reckoning altogether.
We begin by trying to identify what kinds of approach, theoretical
perspectives and concepts can most usefully be employed to examine the
impact of the sexual division of labour on trade union organisation
and collective bargaining which begins at the level of the workplace.
GENERAL APPROACH
We have already argued against a view of women as a separate and
'deviant' category of employee, preferring an approach which sees them
like men, selling their labour power on the market and remaining party
to its utilisation within the capitalist labour process. Thus the
workforce is seen as gendered with a major line of differentiation
lying in the way family/household relationships ~ impinging on both men
and women workers - do so to radically different effect. One conse
quence of the sexual division of labour both inside and outside the
interests between men and women in employment. We are concerned
with examining how these are mediated by trade union organisation.
A second feature of our overall approach is that we have found
it necessary to reformulate the traditional Industrial Relations problematic
and pose (the working class in general and) women workers in particular,
as being the subject rather than object of inquiry. Thus our question
becomes: why and how are trade unions a problem for women?
This perspective has already proved useful to those who, in examining
women's low level of participation in trade unions, have wanted to
escape from the fruitless circularity of explanations (and recommendations)
posed solely in terms of the women themselves.
Writers such as Anna Coote (1980), Bea Campbell (1982) and Ann
Phillips (1983) addressing trade unions as problematic have begun to
examine the failure of these organisations in representing women's
interests, particularly those aspects arising as a result of their
family responsibilities differing from those of men. The utility of
this approach can be seen in the wide field of enquiry it opens up
(which need not be confined to the question of women or sex-based
differentiation in the working class). There is the immediate question,
for instance, as to what these interests are, and thus the need to
enquire into what problems women workers ( in this case) have. What
is the particular nature of their employment experience and or the
issues they raise? At present we have little literature or research
on this subject to help us and the heavy emphasis on domestic circum
stances differentiating women's position to employment has largely
hidden those distinctive aspects which also arise within it. These do
not simply derive from the women's 'dual role' (the employment relation
ship is fundamentally shaped by the forces of capital accumulation and
-33-
and occupational structure is sexually segregated to a very high degree
and we would argue that women workers are employed in the most highly
exploitative spheres. We need a view also, therefore, of how this
structures their needs and demands as waged workers, and in what
respects trade union organisation and collective bargaining might be
problematic.
Far from spiralling into circularity therefore, our approach raises
further questions about trade union structure and how bargaining policies
are formed. For, if women's interests are not represented, whose and
what interests are? While such an enquiry can be carried out at any
level, this study concentrates on the workplace because here men and
women workers can be seen in direct relationship with each other at
the initial stage of collective organisation.
The questions suggested by this general approach and also raised
by our research findings are centrally concerned with the impact of
the sexual division of labour on trade union organisation and bargaining
power. And in order to examine this, we need first to clarify a few
terms which are essential for the analysis. These concern the aspects
which together form the core of the concept 'trade unionism'» and in the
course of defining them it should also be possible to present the main
pillars of our argument. Thus it is considered necessary to specify:
first the social relationships encompassed by trade union organisation
institutionally at workplace level and above; secondly, the nature of
job control as a non-institutional source of bargaining power; and
thirdly the nature of the institution's primary practice - collective
Social relations of trade unionism
Since we are centrally concerned with exploring the implications
of the sexual division of labour for trade union organisation and practice,
a key question for analysis is the impact of gender differentiation in
and on institutional relationships. This requires us to specify more
closely what the main dimensions of these relationships are.
THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF TRADE UNION ORGANISATION
We begin by identifying the main sets of social relationships
which together shape trade union organisation and practice as a whole.
We see three as being primary. But we might note that there is a
common tendency to single out and consider in isolation only one
of these. This is found again, for example, in the Industrial
Relations literature which defines trade unionism almost exclusively
in terms of the regulation of relations between workers and their
employers■
However, it is also relevant to consider how relations between
employers are mediated by trade union organisation and practice. To
the extent, for example, that this leads to an equalisation of employment
conditions (or, perhaps, the opposite) between competing units of
capital, there is some regulation of their relationship? of the kind
indeed, employers have often consciously sought through trade union
organisation for themselves.(1)
The third social dimension of trade unionism is particularly
crucial from ou1- point of view, and this concerns the regulation of
relationships between workers. This is a key aspect of trade union
organisation and practice which has again been largely ignored in the
academic field of Industrial Relations (tending itself to match the
historical progress of its subject area into higher realms of insti
It is interesting to note that the Webbs paid far more attention
to the impact of trade union organisation on relations between workers
than their successors have done. (Fox (1975)) Today, however, in
the light of recent work by feminists, it is apparent that the study
of women in the workplace and in trade unions, once again serves to
reinstate forcefully a focus on relationships between workers. And
it is not difficult to see why.
Under capitalism the nature of the relationship between workers in
general, first in the labour market and then in employment, is funda
mentally competitive. But of all identifiable divisions and groups
within the working class,competitive relations between men and women
have a particular (and peculiar) prominence. So do the historically
developed modes of regulation, since these have been, so frequently,
institutionalised in formal trade union practices of sex-based differ
entiation and exclusion (Cockburn (1983)). It is telling to note, for
instance, that a history of women workers in trade unions (such as that
produced by Sheila Lewenhak (1977)) may be almost entirely constituted
by an account of their relationships with male workers; with correspond
ingly diminished attention to, for example, the impact of employers on
patterns of unionisation.
However, we would argue that neither this nor the Industrial
Relations problematic described above is adequate to the task of analysing
trade union organisation and practice. Rather, it is necessary to assess
the inter-relationship of all three dimensions of this social formation
giving proper attribution to the changing weight and significance of each.
Since we are here mainly concerned to examine the implications
of the sexual division of labour for trade union organisation and
workers and employers on the one hand and regulation of relations between
workers on the other: and the links between them (2).
A further aspect of this study is that we are concentrating on
trade union organisation at the workplace. Thus, it also becomes
necessary to specify more closely the main dimensions of social relation
ships at this level: in short, to define the concept of "workplace
organisation".
THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF WORKPLACE ORGANISATION
It is considered here that workers are organised or "collectivised"
along two major dimensions and these need to be differentiated. In
the initial instance, workers are brought together under the sway of
individual units of capital, and within these (re)distributed in each
labour process into smaller collectivities or work groups. In the
second instance the same workers may be distributed through the mediation
of trade union organisation into bargaining units. These two forms of
collective are, by no means, necessarily synonomous. On the one hand,
bargaining units pattern (and are patterned by) an institutional system
of representation which remains the product of negotiation. It is
thus subject to different organising principles and pressures to those
which shape the labour process, although the representational system
is bound to be structured by this to some extent. We would therefore
maintain that, exploring both the parameters of and the links between
each of these two dimensions, is crucial to any discussion of workplace
-37-
But, more often than not, in the Industrial Relations literature
this analysis is entirely missing and both aspects are collapsed into
the one generic term. Thus the "workplace organisation" referred to
is, in fact, that of the shopstewards; i.e. the institutional form,
but how this system of representation relates to the pattern of
organisation of the labour process is not revealed (e.g. Batstone (1977)).
Without this information, we would argue that it is almost impossible
to make sense of either the patterns of representation or office-holding
that are evolved and how they may change, or the content of collective
bargaining in terms of the issues taken up and the priority they are
accorded in the domestic organisation. (Thus in Batstone explanations
are entirely at a 'normative' level i.e. in terms of attitudes and
character of the shopstewards - and the theory provided is a mystical
typology which begs for some kind of material anchorage.)
What are the links between the sexually differentiated occupational
structure on the one hand and sex-related differences in union organi
sation and bargaining power on the other? The analysis required to
address this central question is extremely complex. But we would
argue from the outset that it is impossible unless both dimensions of
workplace organisation - the institutional system of representation on
the one hand and the utilisation/distribution of workers in the labour
process on the other - are properly differentiated and the relationship
between them problematised.
This is a tricky business. Because now we have not only to assess
how the two sections of the workforce (male and female) are organised in
terms of these two dimensions: that is, to see how men and women are
distributed in the labour process and also how they are grouped in union
constituencies. We have also to enquire how the men and women relate
these structures; and also how the structures themselves are related.
What impact does the differential power of workgroups have on the
institutional structures of the union? If we are discussing the
implications of occupational segregation then this is a relevant
question.
It brings us to consider the two major axes of our thesis - collective
bargaining and job control - and how they are related. We examine them
separately to b e g i n with.
Job control
If we are proposing that sex-related differences in the institution
(patterns of organisation, representation and bargaining power) are
related to the sexually differentiated employment relationship, part
icularly as it is manifested in the sex-segregated occupational structure,
then analysis requires that we examine this latter side more closely.
Thus, the second term of our argument requires that we specify the
nature of job control as a non-institutional source of bargaining power
and consider the implications of this for the institutional structures.
The aims of job control in general have to be viewed in relation
to the nature of the contract between wage labourers and their employers.
This may specify the price or amount of compensation for labour and also
the terms (for example, the structure and length of the working day) ,
although it does not secure either these or the continuity of employment
and, therefore, income. Moreover, there is no limit specified as to
the amount of labour fie employer can exact - he Is "free" to use the
commodity he purchases as his own. Hence it is the regulation of work
effort which remains at the centre of workers' job control, and this
extends to cover the maintenance/improvement of employment terms and
conditions, together with the establishment of longer term security and
- 3 9 -
Where workers' job controls or 'regulatory practices' are sufficiently
strong they manifestly constitute a powerful bargaining resource. They
are clearly the basis of 'unitary regulation* of employment relations
(security terms and conditions) and even underpin 'collective bargaining'
(or joint regulation which as the Webbs observed also "prevails in a
more or less elaborate form...long before a trade union comes into
existence." (Webb (1901) p . 220)
Since we are concerned to explain the bases of the differential
bargaining strength of men and women workers and to examine what further
implications this might have in the workplace and in the trade union,
it is clear that we need to analyse the elements of job control.
THE TWO DIMENSIONS OF JOB CONTROL
We are proposing that there are two essential dimensions to job
control - technical and social - which spring from the two sets of
relations engaging the worker in the labour process - their relation
ship to the job or task and the relationship to other workers. Job
control necessarily requires their regulation of both of these sets of
relationships.
But, studies of workers' control in the labour process have a tendency
to focus on the individual labourer engaged in exerting control over the
performance of the task - that is regulating their relationship to their
work alone. (see many of the contributions in Zimbalist(1979)) This
neglects the system of co-operation in the labour process which will
require the workci also to exert control over relationships with other
workers in order to control his/her own task performance. O n the other
hand studies such as Hawthorne have emphasised the social controls
entailed in job regulation but they have retained an individualistic
We would argue that no longer a 'petty commodity producer', the
individual labourer's job controls must be viewed in the context of
the collective worker characteristic of the socialised,capitalist labour
process. The individual worker's job controls therefore have
necessarily, a collective basis and orientation. The process of
worker
protecting/advancing those of one/is dependent upon them also being
engaged in the 'protection/advanceraent' of the collectivity or social
organisation in which each individual's controls are embedded. The
maintenance/development of job controls entails therefore the regulation
of individual workers' relationships to the job and to each other and
also the protection of the group as a whole (the strength of the whole
being greater than the sum of the parts).
One problem with the literature is that the study of job control
practices has usually been carried out in relation to craftsmen where the
concept becomes conflated with notions of "craft" and "skill" which tend
to emphasise its technical aspects as well as confine its applicability
to a tiny minority of (male) workers. We would argue that it is more
useful to view the construction of a "skill" and craft strategies (such
as those aimed at controlling labour supply) as variations on a more