Collective Bargaining and Gender Equality

By Jane Pillinger and Nora Wintour

Collective bargaining has been a major force in delivering social justice and decent work in the workplace. However, the role of collective bargaining in achieving gender equality in the workplace is relatively under-researched.

In this book, Jane Pillinger and Nora Wintour investigate the complex and expanding area of collective union action for women’s rights in the workplace. They explore how the feminization of unions in both developing and developed countries is changing bargaining agendas to address such issues as equal pay for work of equal value, work–life balance, maternity and parental leave rights, non-discrimination in access to employment, and the spill-over of domestic violence into the workplace.

The authors examine recent policy developments by the International Labour Organization, the United Nations, and the European Union, alongside many examples of national and industry-specific collective agreements to showcase how collective bargaining can be an effective tool for progressing equality in the workplace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Agenda Publishing
• Release date: Nov 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781788212090

Jane Pillinger

Jane Pillinger is an independent researcher and a former visiting professor in gender studies at the London School of Economics and a senior research fellow in the Department of Social Policy and Criminology at the Open University.

Book preview

The Gendered Economy

Series Editors: Sara Cantillon and Diane Elson

This path-breaking new series critically examines the economy and the theory and methodology of economics through the lens of gender. It will publish original and incisive research that explores the role of gender in the contemporary global economy. The series showcases how economic relationships, actions and institutions are directly affected by gender norms, how a gendered perspective illuminates aspects of the economy that would otherwise be ignored, and challenges many of the tenets that underpin both the mainstream and heterodox interpretation of how economies function.

Published

Collective Bargaining and Gender Equality

Jane Pillinger and Nora Wintour

The Economy’s Other Half

James Heintz

The Sex Economy

Monica O’Connor

© Jane Pillinger and Nora Wintour 2019

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2019 by Agenda Publishing

Agenda Publishing Limited

The Core

Bath Lane

Newcastle Helix

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE4 5TF

www.agendapub.com

ISBN 978-1-78821-076-8

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan

Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter, Devon

We dedicate this book to our sisters

Contents

Acknowledgements

Acronyms

Foreword by Series Editors

1.Introduction

2.The gender dimensions of collective bargaining

3.Collective bargaining as a tool for gender equality: evidence from across the world

4.Changing employment patterns, precarious and informal work, and the challenge for collective bargaining

5.The global dimension of collective bargaining: the role of global framework agreements in promoting gender equality

6.Conclusion

References

Index

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the many women and men we have worked with over the years in national and global unions, in social dialogue structures and in the ILO, whose work and dedication to gender equality have provided much of the inspiration for us in writing this book. Thanks also go to our editor at Agenda, Alison Howson, who gave much appreciated advice and suggestions during the writing of the book; to Steven Gerrard for guidance and support during the publishing process; and to Tomáš Žák for his great help with the index.

Acronyms

Foreword

Sara Cantillon and Diane Elson

The Gendered Economy is a new path-breaking series of short books which critically examine our understanding of the economy through the lens of gender and expose the androcentric biases within mainstream and heterodox economic analysis.

This book contributes to the series by looking how trade unions and other membership-based workers’ organizations can support gender equality, drawing on examples from across the world. This issue is missing from most of the global reports on women’s economic empowerment, from organizations like the World Bank and the IMF, which celebrate individual entrepreneurship but ignore collective action. As more women take up paid employment, they are joining trade unions or other membership-based organizations in growing numbers, so that in some countries women now outnumber men in trade unions. But this book is clear-eyed about the challenges: collective agreements often cover only male dominated industries and the public sector, and usually have not included sub-contracted workers; trade unions have often been slow to take up gender equality issues; and the majority of women in employment in many countries are in the informal economy where organizing is much more difficult.

Nevertheless, as this book shows, change is happening. Collective bargaining agendas have been broadened to address issues such as workplace discrimination, equal pay for work of equal value, the care responsibilities of workers, and the impact of domestic violence in the workplace. Women are increasingly participating in the leadership of some trade unions.

This book does not only look at traditional trade union organizing. It also looks at new ways of organizing workers in informal employment, and the ways in which trade unions can support this in networks developed with NGOs, and in bargaining forums in which trade unions participate alongside informal workers’ organizations. Global Framework Agreements have established new bargaining frameworks at transnational level, and some have sought to cover sub-contracted workers throughout the supply chain. Trade unions have participated in multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as the Ethical Trading Initiative. Some trade unions have also begun to engage with the communities who use the services they produce. For example, teachers’ unions have engaged with parents in campaigns for good quality public education; while health care unions have focused on the quality of patient care.

This book concludes that a broader perspective beyond the immediate workplace, focusing on citizen’s rights as well as labour rights, and including concern with the impact of spending on public services and on taxation is critical for strengthening the impact of collective bargaining on gender equality in the future.

1

Introduction

This book examines the role and contribution of collective bargaining to gender equality in the context of globalization and women’s struggles, organizing and advocacy in trade unions. It tracks how union collective bargaining agendas have shifted to reflect women’s struggles for equality, providing avenues for sustainable gender equality gains. Building on the existing understanding of the role that women in trade unions have played in developing new agendas for equality bargaining, it reviews recent collective bargaining breakthroughs in areas such as equal pay, work–life balance and gender-based violence in the world of work. While the focus is mainly on European countries, initiatives related to union organizing and negotiating for women workers in developing country contexts and through global supply chains are integrated throughout the book, reflecting increased attention to this work over the past two decades. Nonetheless, it remains true that the vast majority of women, whether in paid employment, self-employment or informal work, do not benefit from collective bargaining coverage, particularly in the global south and in fragile states.

The authors draw on over three decades of engagement on equality issues with trade unions across the world. Based on primary evidence, original research and surveys, as well as the authors’ own participation in global union campaigns on issues such as pay equity, maternity protection, organizing self-employed and informal women workers, on migrant workers and on gender-based violence, the book also includes insights gained as a result of engagement with recent national, European and global social dialogue initiatives.

Despite the many challenges, it is important to recall that trade unions are the largest collective organization of women across the world. Collective bargaining remains critically important in the globalized economy, precisely because of new employment patterns and the increasing incidence of precarious work. By pointing to recent promising developments in collective bargaining, the book also reflects on some ways forward for collective bargaining to play a more central role in achieving gender equality.

UNION CONTRADICTIONS AND CHALLENGES IN RELATION TO GENDER EQUALITY

Trade unions were formed in the late nineteenth century to protect the interests of skilled male craft workers, a role later extended to the predominantly male workforce in manufacturing, transport and the public sector, mainly in Europe and North America. In this context, employment was based on an economic and social model of the family wage, women’s dependence on men and the limited participation of women in paid work outside the home. Trade-union structures and bargaining agendas reflected this reality. However, in recent decades, as women entered the workforce in large numbers and joined trade unions – most recently at a faster pace than men – new issues, such as the undervaluing of women’s work and women’s unpaid care work have been brought into the public domain and onto trade union agendas.

Unions face both contradictions and challenges in relation to gender equality. Trade unions are significant societal institutions, whose formation, roles and activities have been shaped by decades of male dominance and unequal gender roles and relations. Forms of representation and organizing have been slow to change since male power structures and resistance have been hard to challenge. However, with the decline of male jobs in manufacturing and the rise of service industries in developed economies, and particularly women’s employment in the public services, trade unions have adapted to the increasing feminization of work and rising female membership. Within trade unions themselves, the focus has been on women’s participation in decision-making and challenges to traditional methods of bargaining in a patriarchal system, described by the South African trade union COSATU (2016) as a struggle within the struggle.

Unions can give voice to and channel women’s workplace concerns into collective bargaining. As one UK trade unionist recently said:

When your black and women members see union reps who are like them and they see that they can do something to protect their rights, then they think that the union is relevant to them and they will join unions. That’s why we are seeing such a positive change in the union movement now.¹

Over the last two decades, despite the overall decline in union membership, the proportion of women’s members has increased. In 2012, women comprised the majority of trade union members in a third of the 39 developing and developed countries for which data exists. In 16 countries, women comprised more than 40 per cent of total union membership (Cobble 2012). In Europe, women comprise around 45 per cent of union membership and there is a trend to reach gender parity in decision-making (ETUC 2017b). In the UK, union membership among women is now higher than it is for men; 55 per cent of union members were female in 2015, compared to 45 per cent in 1995 (Department for Business, Innovation & Skills 2015). A higher level of union membership and leadership positions amongst women exists in the Nordic and Baltic countries, than in other European countries.

Trade unions have become more relevant to women, as reflected in the expanded scope of collective bargaining on gender equality issues (Baird, McFerron & Wright 2014; Briskin 2006). In the UK, struggles to transform trade unions from male-dominated organizations into women-friendly organizations took place, particularly in the public sector, in the context of the combination of the second wave of feminism and the introduction of gender equality legislation (Colgan & Ledwith 1996). In other countries, as is the case in Sri Lanka, women workers have challenged entrenched social norms and cultures that perpetuate the gendered division of labour and inequalities in trade unions (Withers & Biyanwila 2014). Global unions have also played a significant role in shaping equality agendas and supporting national trade unions in developing countries to address women’s participation in trade union decision-making and key workplace issues such as maternity protection, equal pay, living wages, gender-based violence and organizing informal, domestic and migrant workers.

Women’s struggles in unions have brought new issues onto bargaining agendas, including the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination faced by women, particularly working-class, black, migrant, LGBTI and other groups of marginalized women. In many contexts, traditional male bargaining agendas have been transformed, as is increasingly evident in the public sector, not only in Europe and North America but also in some African, Asian and Latin American countries. Furthermore, women in unions have used established occupational health and safety initiatives as an entry point to challenge patriarchy and unequal gender relations, by tackling issues such as women’s safety and gender-based violence at work.

SOCIAL DIALOGUE, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AND THE PROMOTION OF GENDER EQUALITY

The fundamental labour rights, as laid down in ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize (1948) and ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining (1949) provide the normative framework for trade unions to represent workers and negotiate on their behalf. Many workers in countries across the world, particularly in developing countries, are denied