Conference on Organized labour
Responses to the Conference Paper
Linda Briskin
Associate Professor, Social Science Division, York University, Toronto, Canada
12 October 1998
Here is my contribution to the electronic network on Organized Labour in the 21st Century. It is entitled "Organizing women unionists in the context of restructuring and globalization". For this text, I have drawn extensively from my the paper "Autonomy, Diversity and Integration: Union Women's Separate Organizing in North America and Western Europe in the Context of Restructuring and Globalization."
I have put in the mail to you a copy of an edited collection I did entitled Women challenging unions: Feminism, democracy and militancy (1993), a much revised copy of the "Autonomy, Diversity.." which has now been accepted for publication. Also copies of some other material I have written: "Gendering union democracy"(1998); "Equity in the 1997 York University strike"(1998); and "Equity and economic restructuring in the Canadian labour movement" (1994).
Organizing Women Unionists In The Context Of Restructuring And Globalization
One of the major challenges facing trade unions is to organize women--both those who are unorganized and those who are organized but not activist members of unions. For over two decades, in North America and many countries of Western Europe, union women's committees, and educational programs and conferences organized by and for women, have played a key role in politicizing women and producing them as a vocal constituency. Women have organized in response to male domination, patriarchal cultures, and hierarchical organizational practices in unions that have indisputably marginalized women and their concerns (Briskin and Yanz, 1983; Briskin and McDermott, 1993; Cunnison, 1993; Cobble, 1993; Pocock, 1997).
Traditionally separate organizing among women has been overly associated with the "separate from whom" (men) rather than with the equally important "separate from what" (bureaucratic and hierarchical organizational practices). However, women's separate organizing has challenged not only male domination of unions but also the domination of an organizational model based on bureaucratic, hierarchical, overly competitive and often undemocratic practices. Men's power, privilege and leadership have combined with traditional organizational forms to exclude and disadvantage women.
In contrast, women's committees have modelled more inclusive, flexible and responsive structures. Undoubtedly, separate organizing provides a basis for renewing/establishing Ber links between leadership and rank and file, and offers a vehicle for education, and facilitates internal democracy (Briskin, 1998). Union women's committees, especially in the Canadian context, have also been an important link to the community-based women's movement (Briskin, in press).
This paper makes the argument that not only does separate organizing ('special structures', in the language of the ILO document) continue to be relevant, but this strategy can make an important contribution to organizing marginalised unionists in the current context of national and global economic and political restructuring. Central to the argument is the assumption that gender matters in developing organizing strategies. Indeed, I would argue that race, sexuality, ability, age, and in some countries like Canada, language and first nations status are all significant to developing successful strategies.
In fact, unions can reconcile the competing interests of diverse groups of workers, an important issue raised by the ILO document, and thereby build a Ber union movement by taking special needs into account and developing a basis for 'unity in diversity' rather than seeking a common denominator like class interests or abstractly calling for solidarity.
In the current crisis, strategies of (and for) women unionists must pro-actively address the potential marginalisation of their concerns, and the need to build solidarities across diversities, with un-unionized women and across national boundaries. The past two decades of separate organizing in unions suggests that this strategy can make a contribution to these ends.
Marginalisation
In the face of restructuring and globalization, unions are under tremendous attack--from legislation which makes unionization more difficult, limits the rights of striking workers, and supports employers' resistance to certification (Panitch & Swartz, 1988), from anti-union corporate interventions, and from wage competition across national boundaries. This onslaught is often accompanied by an invocation of patriarchal and individualistic values for workplaces and households. In these circumstances, the potential for the marginalisation of women's concerns increases dramatically.
Those committed to women's empowerment in the unions raise strategic concerns about whether separate organizing leads to ghettoization or marginalization of women's concerns. Increasingly there is a call for the main-streaming of women's issues as the alternative (see, for eg. the 1995 report of the European Trade Union Confederation). However, main-streaming on its own is not the answer. I would argue that union women's continued success depends upon maintaining a strategic balance between autonomy from the structures and practices of the labour movement, and integration (or main-streaming) into those structures. The autonomy pull supports fundamental revisioning of union practices and prevents political marginalization--the dissipation of the radical claims for inclusivity and democratization often embedded in separate organizing initiatives. Sufficient autonomy provides the foundation for a B voice about women's concerns and the context for building alliances between union women and the community-based women's movement. Integration into union structures prevents organizational marginalization, and creates the conditions for both resource allocation, and gendering union policy and strategy (Briskin, 1993).
The last two decades of union women's organizing helps concretize autonomy and integration measures. Autonomy depends upon control over resources (including staff time and a budget); a decision-making rather than advisory function which offers jurisdiction over political and strategic initiatives (rather than having them vetted by a union executive or president), and an organized and politicized constituency to direct and support its work.
Integration depends on an institutionally-protected mandate for women's committees (often through union constitutions or rule books); direct input into organizational decision making, for example, the ability of women's committees to send resolutions to conventions; a link to the collective bargaining process through demand setting and/or participation on negotiating committees; and a means to communicate with the entire membership, through union print and electronic media.
In the current context, both autonomy and integration measures are necessary. Autonomy measures provide the vehicles for women to assert their rights (to full time work at a living wage, to social welfare measures, health care, to protection against violence) in opposition to the trajectories of current economic and political policies. Integration measures, which ensure that women are strategically placed in union structures, will help deter the unions from accommodating the conservative values which co-exist with and support restructuring.
Addressing Diversity
Increasing competition among workers is at the heart of restructuring and globalization. Hence equity and solidarity, that is, "unity in diversity" must be central to union strategies. This means addressing discriminatory practices based not only on gender but also on race, ethnicity, ability, age and sexuality. Taking account of differences in power and experience does not create divisions among union members; rather, it acknowledges existing differences. In so doing, the unions build equality in practice, and increase the potential for a transformed, inclusive and activist union.
How diversity is understood and negotiated inside of women's separate organizing has been an ongoing concern, one that is made more salient by the deepening exploitation of racial and gender differences by corporate capital. Undoubtedly, focusing on women as a group can make invisible the diversity among women, and foster the false homogenization of women's experience. The dangers of separate organizing have also been raised by unionists, often men, concerned about solidarity. In the current conjuncture of sharp attacks on
unions and working people and an intensified need to build coalitions, it is legitimate to revisit the issue about whether separate organizing produces strategic fragmentation among various equity- seeking constituencies, and increases the possibility that the legitimately diverse agendas of various groups will be played off against one another.
Paradoxically, past experience suggests that union women's separate organizing has been instrumental in raising the issues of other marginalized groups. Highlighting differences between female and male workers and gender-specific patterns of discrimination has encouraged many unions to respond to the concerns of other groups of workers with specific needs: in the Canadian context, immigrant workers, gay and lesbian workers, workers from the First Nations, and those with disabilities.
Women's separate organizing has also provided an important precedent. Increasingly women and men of colour, lesbians and gay men, and native peoples are organizing separately inside the union movement, often through Human Rights Committees, Aboriginal Circles and Pink Triangle Committees (Hunt, 1997, Mann, 1997). Separate organizing can also provide the basis for different constituencies to come together from positions of strength. For example, Messing and Mergler (1993) document the links established between health and safety committees, and women's committees in Quebec which facilitated taking up previously-ignored women's occupational health issues.
The very success of separate organizing among diverse constituencies, and continued concerns from both progressive and conservative forces in unions has put on the agenda how these union constituencies will work together for change. As part of the shift to main-streaming discussed above, some unions are moving to integrated human rights and equal opportunities departments which no longer focus specifically on women but address the diverse needs of various constituencies.
I would suggest that, in order to avoid marginalization of women's concerns at the same time as building alliances among diverse constituencies, a dual structure is needed. Such a structure will combine integrated equity initiatives with constituency-based organizing for marginalised groups. The constitutionally protected equity committee with a wide mandate and significant power will ensure that the responsibility for equity will be born by the entire union, thereby preventing marginalization. The informal constituency-building caucuses for women and other marginalized groups will support formal equity interventions; it will also ensure that the specific needs of women and other groups are visible, and simultaneously that equity is not simply a code word for women.
Situating women's claims for justice within the complex web of equity issues mobilizes the political potential of unity in diversity, lays the groundwork for alliances among equity-seeking constituencies (which are the strategic expressions of 'unity in diversity') and increases the possibility that the voices of marginalized women--women with disabilities, women of colour, lesbian women--will be heard. In the current context of increased competition among workers, this dual structure of constituency caucus and equity committee helps to demonstrate that solidarity can be built on a foundation of diversity.
In conclusion, preventing marginalisation by encouraging both autonomy and integration, and structurally and ideologically addressing the realities of diversity will ensure that separate organizing continues to be an effective strategy for union women into the twenty-first century.
Bibliography
Braithwaite, Mary & Catherine Byrne. (1995). Women in decision-making in trade unions. Brussels, Belgium: European Trade Union Confederation.
Briskin, Linda. (1993). Union women and separate organizing, pp. 89-108 in Briskin and McDermott.
Briskin, Linda. (1998). Gendering union democracy. Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme 18(1), 35-38.
Briskin, Linda. (in press). Unions and women's organizing in Canada and Sweden. In Linda Briskin and Mona Eliasson (Eds.). Women's organizing, public policy and social change in Sweden and Canada.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Briskin, Linda and Lynda Yanz. (Eds.). (1983). Union sisters: Women in the labour movement. Toronto: Women's Press.
Briskin, Linda and Patricia McDermott. (Eds.). (1993). Women challenging unions: Feminism, democracy and militancy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Cobble, Dorothy. (Ed.). (1993). Women and unions: Forging a partnership. Ithaca: ILR Press.
Cunnison, Sheila & Jane Stageman. (1993). Feminizing the unions:
Challenging the culture of masculinity. Aldershot: Avebury.
Hunt, Gerald. (1997). Sexual Orientation and the Canadian Labour Movement. Relations industrielles, 52(4), 787-809.
Mann, Marian, Sue Ledwith & Fiona Colgan. (1997). Women's self- organizing and union democracy in the UK: Proportionality and fair representation in UNISON, pp. 194-221 in Barbara Pocock.
Messing, Karen & Donna Mergler. (1993). Unions and women's occupational health in Quebec, pp. 266-283 in Briskin and McDermott.
Panitch, Leo and Donald Swartz. (1988). The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms. Toronto: Garamond.
Pocock, Barbara. (Ed.). (1997). Strife: Sex and politics in labour unions. New South Wales, Australia: Allen and Unwin.
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