Unions boost women’s role

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 10

Unions boost women’s role

NZPA-Reuter Blackpool Britain’s trade unions, weakened by the Prime Minister’s decade of Conservative Government, have decided to seek women leaders of their own.

The Trades Union Congress, grouping 78 unions representing 8.7 million workers, voted yesterday to double the number of women on its general council from six to 12, giving the council a new total membership of 53. Delegates to the T.U.C.’s annual conference in the northern seaside resort of Blackpool also approved at its opening session a blueprint for the 1990 s citing women and young workers as prime recruitment targets for the unions.

Union membership in Britain has fallen by more than a quarter in the 10 years since Mrs Thatcher’s Government came to power.

Mrs Thatcher’s tough labour laws made secret strike ballots compulsory, outlawed sympathy strikes, and introduced tough financial penalties

for unions which defied the law. The T.U.C. aims to boost union power in the next decade by reversing the membership slide, aware that women now make up well over twofifths of the workforce, and that a growth in parttime jobs will increase that share.

Women delegates welcomed the vote. “It will be a clear message to the public that it’s no longer a male domain, it’s a modern, forwardlooking organisation,” said the clerical workers’ leader, Ms Brenda Dean, a member of the general council.

Union members arrived in Blackpool in buoyant mood after a string of recent pay victories and indications in opinion polls that the public mood is swinging back in their favour.

They hope to improve their image further with a barrage of environmental motions and discussion of a “green charter” aimed at curbing industrial pollution and acid rain.