The 'gentle invaders'

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.