1.6 The Global Unions' Organising Campaign
01 December 2002

(See Campaign Kit for Global Unions Organising Campaign: “Unions for Women;
Women for Unions” and Discussion Sheets 1.4 and 1.5)

Female union membership has been rising. Women are now making up an average of 40% of the members, mainly because they make up the bulk of the increase in the workforce or because there have been specific recruitment drives or publicity campaigns targeted at them. In spite of increasing participation and accounting for most of the new members, women are still under-represented in the total membership of unions. There are still millions of women workers who are outside the union.

Launched on 7 March 2002, on the eve of International Women’s Day, the three-year Global Unions Women’s Campaign: “Unions For Women, Women For Unions”[1] aims at a significant increase of women membership rates (with the ultimate goal of doubling the number of women union members). More specifically, the Campaign aims to:

  • substantially increase the number of women trade union activists and women at the decision-making level and in leadership positions
  • remove barriers which prevent women joining and/or remaining in the trade unions
  • address the needs and improve the working conditions of women workers
  • bring about transformation of trade union culture and structures through equality and diversity.

The target groups of the Campaign are: a) Women workers in the informal economy and a-typical workers, b) Young women, c) Migrant women and women from ethnic minorities, d) Other groups which unions may identify as a priority: women in the public sector, Export Processing Zones, etc. (See Discussion Sheets 1.7; 1.8 and 1.9).

In three years’ time, activities should have taken place in 60 countries. Each year the Campaign has a specific theme: for 2003, it is Pay Equity Now!. In the Campaign Kit you will find more information and guidelines concerning the Campaign.

Unions need women; women need unions

Integrating high priority issues into larger strategies is an effective way to ensure that action is taken and that their importance is reflected in action as well as in words. One example is work in the area of equality. Striving for equality for women and for others in our society who have suffered discrimination and exclusion is, of course, the right thing to do. But, it is also a key building block for the future of the trade union movement. Trade unions have always been a tool for excluded groups to advance their interests and win justice. And the source of strength of trade unions has always been active members and leaders. Vitality and strength in the trade union movement will come from larger numbers of women members coming into our ranks and many more women trade unionists becoming leaders. (“Future Directions of the ICFTU” – See Discussion Sheet 2.1)

Campaign activities

Since the launch of the Campaign, activities have taken place in more than 30 countries. Here are a few examples:

  • Asia: BMSF Bangladesh launched a 3 year Campaign as part of the Global Women’s Campaign on 7 March. Two hundred women and men leaders of the National Centre were present. Their plan of action includes the publication of leaflets, posters, campaign Kit and organizing women workers through personal contacts and the ‘Door to Door’ approach. Women leaders of BMSF are leading the campaign, which targets workers in the informal economy and the Export Processing Zones.
  • Central and Eastern Europe: 1) on 10 December, International Human Rights Day, the Campaign focus was on women in the informal economy, 2) On 6 March, Campaign activities in 15 countries were launched on the issue of women’s health (the reduction and deterioration of health care services and health protection systems).
  • Russia: On March 16, the Campaign was launched in Moscow, with representatives from KTR, VKT, FNPR (the three ICFTU affiliates) and the ILO Moscow Bureau.
  • Europe: the Campaign was launched in the following countries: Spain (CC.OO.), France (FO), and Austria (ÖGB). LO Norway is planning to organize campaign activities on young women as part of their ‘Youth Year’ in 2003. FGTB Belgium will also take part in the Campaign in 2003.
  • Africa: ICFTU-AFRO developed a specific action plan for the region resulting in activities in several countries e.g. Burkina Faso, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo.
  • Latin America: ORIT decided to integrate the campaign into its on-going activities, notably a 3-year women’s training program in 12 countries.
  • North America: As part of the Campaign, CLC Canada set a target to double the number of unionized women in Canada over the next three years. Nancy Riche, then-Secretary-Treasurer of the 2.5-million member labour organization unveiled the 1+1 campaign on March 8, 2002 in downtown Ottawa.

GUF’s:

  • ITF linked their annual Campaign on Women’s Day to the Global Unions Women’s Campaign, focussing on young women. Over 50 countries have participated in the Campaign.
  • IUF: Through the adoption of a Congress resolution, the IUF committed themselves to the organizing campaign. On 8th March, it called on all its affiliates to intensify their work in organising women.
  • PSI links the Campaign with their Campaign on Pay Equity Now!
  • UNI promotes the Campaign at their workshops, seminars and meetings for women trade unionists. They have distributed the Global Unions’ leaflet on organising on a wide scale.

Intensifying the Campaign

More needs to be done to be able to meet our objectives, in particular achieving a significant increase of women membership rates. For that we need to look at:

  • How we can intensify the Campaign to make sure that more national centres and trade unions actively take part in the Campaign.
  • How to ensure a regular flow of information on Campaign activities and their results.

Why are unions not growing?

There are several reasons, both external and internal, why unions are losing members or why unions are not growing (see Discussion Sheet 1.3). These include:

External

  • Industry/enterprise closures and downsizing and labour market restructuring resulting in retrenchments, growing unemployment, increasing proportions of workers in the informal economy and smaller regular workforce in some industries – mainly because of privatization and downsizing particularly in the transition economies,
  • Structural adjustment programmes in some developing countries
  • Financial crisis in a variety of countries.
  • Unions in industrialized countries also cite the impact of new technology and the shift of production to cheap labour countries as important reasons for declining employment and, consequently, declining union density.
  • High retrenchments, mass layoffs and rising levels of unemployment all over the world have reduced union membership and fuelled fears among workers of losing their jobs because of reprisals from employers if they join unions.
  • The smaller regular workforce in some industries has reduced the traditional support base of the unions.
  • The increasing proportion of atypical workers in the labour force has had serious effects -- because the diversity among full-time, part-time, temporary, casual, home-based, factory-based, etc. workers has meant greater divisiveness among workers, which has been destroying labour solidarity.
  • Anti-union attitudes among employers or governments have made workers, especially women, even more reluctant to join unions. In the actual work environment, women fear reprisals by employers (including losing their jobs). This is particularly the case in the export oriented industries but many of the public service unions also cited this factor.

Internal (see also Conclusions of 7th World Women’s Conference below)

  • Unions lack the knowledge, skills and will to set up and strengthen networks and reach out to: women workers, young workers, migrants and other groups. Part of the reason is the male-oriented culture and structure of trade unions which are not attractive or suited to these groups. Hostile reactions from male members also tend to discourage women from joining. Many unions are recognizing that they are not sensitive to the special needs of women workers.
  • Besides external factors (see above), there are also members who leave the union because they have lost interest or have felt that being members did not benefit them (anymore).
  • Women do not have time to join unions because of conflicting family responsibilities. They often also face objections from their spouses or families, or there are still religious or cultural constraints (See Discussion Sheet 2.7).

Conclusions of the 7th ICFTU Women’s Conference:

The Conference was of the firm conviction that unions can - and must - take up the challenge of transforming the labour market through equality and justice. However, this can only be done if the unions are unified, strong and vibrant. While it is true that women have been swelling the ranks of the unions, much remains to be done to organise them, in particular those belonging to vulnerable groups, e.g. those in the informal economy and with atypical work. Young women and women migrant workers and from ethnic minorities.

The Conference identified the following as the main barriers for women to join the unions :

1. Lack of understanding of how unions can help them;

2. Fear of reprisals from employers;

3. Conflicting family responsibilities;

4. Male-dominated culture/activities of the union; the trade unions continue to be male bastions (machismo) ;

5. Women lack confidence to join unions;

6. Women are not being asked to join the unions;

Effective strategies and methods to organise women members

  • Making women members more visible in leadership roles and in recruitment drives;
  • Identifying and then addressing the specific needs of women, in general, or of targeted groups of women through education and training programmes
  • Organising events, during which women workers feel comfortable and are encouraged to participate (like smaller study groups, debates, and seminars and training sessions) tend to yield good results.
  • Running intensive publicity and membership recruitment drives;
  • Gaining knowledge about the barriers faced by women in joining the union and finding solutions to overcome these. (see Discussion Sheet 1.5).
  • Organising programmes to build greater awareness of trade unionism among workers e.g. benefits of trade union membership, what unions are doing, etc;
  • Putting women’s issues high on the collective bargaining agenda,
  • Changing the constitution of trade unions to enable specific groups of women workers (e.g. those in the informal economy) to join the union;
  • Creating a positive public image, through issuing frequent press releases or regular information sheets on union’s activities.

A-typical workers
(see Discussion Sheet 1.9)

A-typical workers are part-time, casual workers, despatch workers (in Korea and Japan), seasonal workers, domestic workers, homeworkers, etc. They have jobs which can be described as precarious, with little or no protection and generally low wages. Women make up the bulk of these workers. In Japan, for example, out of 49.77 million workers, 14.83 million (nearly 30%) are “irregular” (part-time, contract workers, despatch workers), with women making up the majority,. The JTUC-RENGO has established a structure to handle job placements and the dispatching of workers called “Rengo Hello Work”. It provides information about vacancy lists, liaising with 5,000 private firms with enterprise unions affiliated to JTUC-RENGO. The national centre intends to expand such job placement services to other major cities of Japan, including Osaka and Sapporo.

Organising for Equality: Atypical workers

(Excerpts from Conclusions and recommendations of 7th World Women’s Conference)

Whilst the Conference recognised that more and more unions are considering atypical workers as priority targets for organising, much still needs to be done by unions in this field. The Conference therefore recommended the following:

Unions must be specific about targeting atypical workers to ensure that appropriate strategies for each sector and activity are adopted. For example, other groups must be added to those readily identified, viz. part-time workers, homeworkers, contract and casual workers. These other groups consist of those who are in transition (between sectors or categories) or multiple job holders, such as domestic work, farmworkers, seasonal workers, sex trade workers;

a) At workplace/local level

1. Develop “Know Your Rights” materials which are accessible and clear;

2. Do community outreach;

3. Establish telephone “help lines” to be accessible and in touch.

b) National level

1. Develop manuals to address the specific needs of all types of atypical work;

2. Focus on legislative and legal challenges as well as collective bargaining - atypical workers must have legal rights;

3. Build union visibility and pride;

4. Develop community based action;

5. Share information and strategies;

6. Develop long term organising campaigns with goals and timetables and resources;

7. Establish innovative projects to keep in touch with salaried workers and to meet the needs of atypical workers, e.g. job placement centres; telephone “help lines”; the representation of those concerned in organising; training for atypical workers; working with or help set up service associations.

c) At national, regional and international level

• On-going analysis of what is working and what is not.

• The co-ordination by GUFs of international trade union strategies to counter restructuring, etc. by multinational companies (codes of conduct).

• intensify our efforts so that governments ratify ILO Conventions 175 on Part-time Work and 177 on Homeworkers and recommended the following action for unions to take: a)Lobby parliamentarians, especially women; b) Use tripartite meetings to convince all partners of the importance of ratification; c) build or strengthen coalitions with NGOs and women’s organisations and campaigns; d) develop lobbying coalitions across countries to exert pressure on all governments, e) undertake assertive publicity campaigns to counteract negative propaganda by governments, explaining why these Conventions are in society’s best interest; and f) demand that atypical workers’ rights are covered in all ILO instruments and are strengthened not eroded.

How unions around the world reach out to and organise women workers
(for more, check out the Campaign Kit)

• Awareness and recruitment campaigns in a section of a major city for 3 days involving distribution of a booklet and the presence of union office-bearers for part of each day. Around 20 per cent of those women who came to inquire about trade union membership subsequently joined the organisation (India);

• A 1+1 campaign in the garment sector proved to be successful, with each union woman recruiting a new member (Bangladesh);

• The Women’s Committee went out in teams to the unorganised industrial sectors and the markets to talk with workers, especially women. This effort elicited the interest of many workers and resulted in the forming of local unions (Malaysia);

• Series of training activities to strengthen skills and practices of the organizers assigned to EPZ’s, plus 6-month intensive field training, accompanied by monthly assessments of trainees’ activities. Since 1996, 32 companies organized in and around EPZ’s (Philippines)

• In the United States, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) targets female-dominated occupations such as nursing with great success. Considerable planning is undertaken in preparation for the organizing drives: polling methods are used to determine the attitudes of potential members and care is taken to formulate and present the message of the union to potential members. Majority of the organizing staff are female. (55-65 per cent) and some 47 per cent of the union budget is spent on organizing, most of which is directed at women workers.

• Offering workers with atypical employment contracts and who are not covered by social security an insurance package and working towards extending labour legislation to enable these workers to join the union. (UNI affiliate in Austria)

• Creating a new section in the union called ‘informal sector’ to provide assistance to former members who lost their jobs. The union provides services, assistance and training to help them set up small scale businesses and to have access to credit. (UNI affiliate in Zambia)

• A group of dynamic young women set up the first union in a Greek Mobile Telecom Company, the Union of COSMOTE Employees. Established in 2000, the union has tripled its membership in the last twelve months, thanks to successful organising drives. They successfully negotiated in their collective agreement a reduction of the daily working time (by one hour for three years or two over one and a half year) after their maternity leave of 15 weeks. This convinced the largely young female staff in the call centres to join the union.

[1] The 17th World Congress (Durban, April 2000) adopted the Plan of Action “End Discrimination: Equality for Women Now!, which called for the implementation by trade unions the world over of a 3-year organizing campaign targeted at women workers. The campaign outline, which was discussed and approved by the Women’s Committee, was endorsed by the Executive Board at its 117th meeting in November 2001.