Gender politics in trade unions. The representation of women between exclusion and inclusion

Abstract

How can we account for the persistence of exclusion of women from organizational power and leadership in trade unions in spite of their increasing proportion of the labour force and of trade union membership? For a while, often as part of revitalization strategies, trade unions have put in place extensive structural reforms to encourage gender equality, but in practice these do not result in gender proportionality in formal positions in unions. We have to seek for deeper explanations, and this article explores how at a more profound level cultures of exclusionary masculinity are strongly embedded especially in traditional unions and among traditional male leaderships. However, there is also increasing evidence of changing attitudes among younger and more diverse workers and trade unionists, those from different cultural and ethnic groups, migrant workers, men as well as women, as their experiences of increasingly precarious work align with patterns long established by women juggling family and part-time insecure work. An optimistic reading of these changes sees the possibilities for increasing inclusion and gender equity within trade unions.