The 'gentle invaders'

At this year’s “May Day” March in Perth, ACTU President Sharon Burrows called for a publicly-funded paid maternity leave scheme, demanding that the Rudd Government demonstrate its support of women in paid employment and “working families”.

Despite the potency of this “call” Ms Burrow’s declaration received little attention from the May Day crowd. Still carrying banners and placards asserting solidarity, equality and justice, many of the marchers had turned their attention to the food vans and stalls lining the crowd.

The incident, although seemingly innocuous, can be read as a metaphor for the relatively tenuous position that women and feminism occupy within the landscape of Australian unions. While many Australian unions have successfully campaigned alongside feminists in support of women’s rights, these collaborations have often been created within an uneasy alliance, characterised by competing interests and conflicting agendas relating to women, men and economic security. This latest event reminds us that such tensions continue.

Within the current context in which both “movements” are at crossroads in their histories, the uneasy relationship between unions and feminism holds a particular irony. While each side accuses the other of bias, nepotism and inadequacy, neither’s future is secure. The survival of both feminism and the union movement is threatened by decreases in “membership” and allegations of irrelevancy.

Despite this perception we suggest that the end is not “nigh” for either or both movements. Rather, the uncertainty provides a space for critical reflection and, as has occurred in Canada, a time for renewal.

In this essay we briefly explore the relationship between unions and feminism, taking account of past ambiguities while identifying important lessons for the present and future. We also reflect upon the capacity of unions to engage with feminist principles and practices as a means of better representing women’s diverse experiences and facilitating their ongoing participation in masculinised labour markets and union settings.

We propose that greater collaboration between the union movement and feminism, based upon informed understandings and an appreciation of difference, could engender a renewal in both membership, participation and engagement in this country.

Clarification

From the outset it is important to acknowledge that neither the union movement nor feminism are homogenous entities with a single narrative. Context is crucial in any telling and every reading. Like feminism the union movement is discursively produced, shaped by broader social, political, cultural and economic contexts. Both have long histories and connections with other social and political movements across time and place. Their commonality however, can be described as their commitment to creating a “better” world; a world in which equality, equity, fairness and justice mediates the everyday.

Representations of women as workers: tensions and differences

Whether marginalised because of gender or class, the feminist and union movements were established in the context of white Australia, to provide a formal public voice for what were considered to be private troubles; the domestic slavery of women and the exploitation and alienation of (male) workers. While populist politics throughout Australia’s history have sought to undermine the efficacy and value of unions and feminism, both movements have repeatedly proved to be necessary stalwarts against the excesses of capitalism and patriarchy.

Despite their positioning as “defenders” of margainalised populations, this commonality did not always produce harmonious alliances. From their localised beginnings in the harsh, masculinised landscape of the white Australian colonies, relationships between the union movement and feminism have been fractious and complex.

Much of this uneasiness has stemmed from what feminist’s consider has been the unions’ hostility to women’s rights, and their assiduous exclusion of women, and “other” workers, predominately those who were not “white” or heterosexual. This exclusion can be traced to the burgeoning capitalist economy of the 1830s, and continuing throughout the 20th century. Paid less than men, women have often been cast by unions as “gentle invaders”; women who stealthily undermined men’s rightful position in the workforce. This image of women as “invaders” became the hallmark of many union campaigns calling for better work and remuneration conditions for male workers, particularly in times of economic hardship and high unemployment.

The often hostile relationship between feminist demands for economic independence and union campaigns for better pay and working conditions for men, pinnacled with the 1907 Harvester Judgement. It can be said that the privileging of the “male-as-breadwinner” model institutionalised within this ruling from the newly established Commonwealth Arbitration and Conciliation Commission set the parameters of conflict for decades to come.

The Judgement (re)produced essentialised constructions of women as economically and socially dependent upon men, enforcing women’s economic subjugation and further marginalisation on the union agenda. While successive campaigns promoting women’s’ rights to equal pay have been instigated since this time, the current gender wage gap of 16 per cent suggests that the implications of this 1907 decision continue to shape women’s position in the labour market.

Since this time women have continued to enter the labour market at unprecedented levels. No longer tied to the public sector, which at one time provided one of the few women-friendly sites of employment, many women are now employed within the private sector and in non-traditional areas of employment. Women also occupy the majority of part-time and casual jobs, despite the low pay and limited working conditions.

The union movement’s responses to and engagement with women’s march on the labour market has been varied, encompassing moments of the “invader” discourse and a distinctive reluctance within some unions to broaden the “male-as-breadwinner” focus. Within areas of non-traditional employment unions have engaged positively with women’s entry, promoting gender diversity as an enhancement to the industry. Other unions have categorised “women’s issues” as distinctly “female” or as “special needs”, positioning them on the margins of the main agenda.

Women’s positioning in part-time and casual jobs has also marginalised women’s needs and experiences within the context of some union agendas. Despite its popularity, part-time and casual work has often been presented as the “other” to the standard full-time work, typically associated with men and the “male-as-breadwinner discourse”. It is only recently, primarily as a result of women unionists and feminist collaborations that the positioning of part-time and casual work has been upgraded within the union movement.

Women on the inside

The primacy of the male worker, his privileged positioning as the “One” to the female worker as “other”, also became entrenched within the culture and organising practices of many unions. While some unions have sought to address the sexism which belies the dominant masculinist culture, many continue to treat gender as an anomaly, masking gender difference within the generic category of “worker”. This process of masking, epitomised through the “add women and stir” approach to gender equity shapes how unions perceive women’s wants and needs within the labour market and how unions engage with women within its own ranks.

In particular, women have highlighted the masculine presence which permeates the union movement, and renders women’s voices as invisible or peripheral to the main agenda. Zelda d’Aprano, a passionate unionist and feminist described the humiliation she experienced in not being able to speak at the famous “equal pay for work of equal value” case in 1969, despite her position as labour organiser: “The women sat there day by day as if we were mute, while the men presented evidence for and against our worth. It was humiliating to have to sit there and not say anything about our own worth.”

This issue of “voice”, or more specifically, men speaking for and about women, intersects with the broader question relating to power within union settings. The power of the traditional male discourse which permeated the union movement throughout the first half of the 20th century still lingers and some trade unions continue to reproduce themselves as the anti-hero of capitalism, and the vanguards of women as vulnerable workers. These traditionally masculine narratives provide momentum to a constructed synonymy between men, power, leadership and protection.

In recent years many union women and feminists have identified organisational and cultural practices within individual unions which have systematically hindered women’s participation and promotion in union ranks.

Contemporary research with women in unions highlights the need for significant structural and cultural change as a means of addressing gender inequality within unions. Integral to this process is a reconceptualisation of the union hierarchy and the replacement of linear plays of power and authority with power sharing and collective participation in decision making.

Similarly, the masculine construction of leadership positions (someone who can commit themselves to the work without the distractions of competing demands or responsibilities), must be reconstructed to facilitate women and men’s participation.

Tensions within sisterhood

Interwoven within this conflict between feminists and the union movement was the growing divide between union women, specifically those who had joined the ranks of unions as labour organisers and other officials, and feminists. Accusations of disloyalty and “crossing to the other side” were made and the battle ground was drawn.

Based upon perceived differences in class ideologies and gender politics, feminists argued that their union “sisters” had betrayed their commitment to women through their support of male workers, while union women saw their feminist counterparts as part of the impractical elite; the “chattering middleclass”. Since these early days many battles have been fought across these lines, while gradually exposing each movement’s internal politics concerning the positioning of labour organisation and women’s rights within their respective agendas.

While acknowledging these tensions it is difficult however, to identify a feminist or female unionist’s agenda which does not encompass or recognise women’s reproductive, legal, social, and political rights, alongside the traditional focus on economic rights.

This integrated approach is highlighted in the success of campaigns undertaken by feminist and women unionists which have facilitated monumental changes to women’s engagements with paid work; lifting of the marriage bar (1969), the right to maternity leave, and the 1969 “equal value for work of equal worth” ruling, the Sex Discrimination Act (1984) (C’th), and more recently, the campaign for publicly-funded Paid Maternity/Parental Leave.

Re-inventing narratives for action

Working with, and in spite of, the resistance, and at times, the outright hostility from male membership (and the broader community), women in unions have continued to campaign and engage with issues effecting women as workers. Similar to the early feminists, and their pioneering sisters in the union movement, these women learned not to rely on men in leadership to win their battles or pursue their causes. Sidelined in women’s committees and marginalised from the broader union agenda, the ground-breaking work of Zelda d’Aprano (1960s), Pat Giles (1970s-80s) and Jennie George (1990s) and Sharan Burrows (1990s - ongoing) is evidence of their steadfast determination for gender equality and equity both within and outside of the union movement.

On a broader scale, despite their often tumultuous journey, both the union and feminist movements within Australia must be acknowledged for their success in addressing women (and) workers needs in a rapidly changing social, political cultural and economic context.

At this moment in time both the union movement and feminism are positioned in a paradoxical situation. WorkChoices will be in use for another two years, the welfare reforms which changed rights to punishments, and the neo-liberal and neo-conservative discourses which rewarded some mothers and penalised others, remain as constraints in people’s everyday lives.

What is lacking and yet is vital to the survival of both unions and feminism is the (re)production of a new cultural narrative to inform how we understand, engage and represent people’s ongoing experiences, needs and aspirations.

Such a narrative is not formed through a single thread, response or strategy. Nor can it be created by one person. It is a narrative that has to acknowledge difference, respect and encourage diversity while maintaining an active commitment to equity, social justice and collective action.

It is a narrative which facilitates innovative and accessible expressions of people power; to engender political passion, public participation and broad-based activism; encourages, inspires and facilitates people’s connection with issues and interactions with other people, through action.

This narrative is not impossible to construct, nor is it one that is unfamiliar to many feminists and unionists. This essay has drawn on some of the ingredients in the telling of this story. It is a re-invented narrative, similar but different to the narratives that have guided and inspired Australian unionists and feminists for over 170 years. Like Zelda d’Aprano, perhaps we need to fantasise the possibilities and be prepared to action them as she was:

We both agreed that something more than just talking was needed to draw attention to the pay injustice meted out to women and more positive action was required. We began to fantasise women chaining themselves up like the suffragettes did, and jokingly asked ourselves, where could women chain themselves to make their protest effective? Quote from The Becoming of a Woman by Zelda d’Aprano.