The Hindu Business Line : Unfair to women

If a worker comes to work after having suffered a thrashing at home, her comrades must go to her house and sort out the issue. Similarly, sexual harassment should be tackled.

ASHIM ROY, General Secretary, addresses a meeting of the New Trade Union Initiative.

Women have led agitations, gone to jail with little children, acted as shields for men, have been beaten up and hospitalised, and made huge financial and personal sacrifices — all for the sake of the labour movement. But the movement itself has given little recognition to women's contribution," says Shanta Bhattacharya, a grassroots trade unionist from the Gramin Mazdoor Union, Sonbhadra, Uttar Pradesh.

"Women have to wait it out on the pavement while the men negotiate with the groups concerned. Women's contribution is hardly ever mentioned in books and papers written on the labour movement. The movement leaders never take up this issue," she adds. In recent years, many activists — mostly women trade unionists — have expressed discontent over the male dominated, even patriarchal nature of the trade union movement. There has been a growing realisation that if the trade union movement — damaged recently by liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation — is to regain its strength, it must include specific issues related to women.

This issue was raised in a big way at the recently-held first conference of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), a national level federation of about 300 trade unions across India which are not affiliated to any political party. The constitution of the NTUI, adopted at the conference, pledged "to recognise women's work, both paid and unpaid, in the economy and the family" as one of the objectives of the federation. During the conference, a diverse range of views came up on the ways to make this clause effective and meaningful.

Attitude towards women

Participants argued that as much as 93 per cent of the workforce in the country is in the unorganised sector, and more than half of this workforce comprises women. And since organising the unorganised sector is one of the core strategies of the NTUI, the issues pertaining to women workers must be incorporated. Prominent women trade union leaders from different parts of the country who attended the conference felt that the members' mentality towards women has to change. "Even today, men in trade unions do not want women to have equal wages," said Anuradha Talwar, a prominent trade unionist from West Bengal, who runs the Paschim Banga Khet Majdoor Samiti, a body of agricultural labourers.

"Trade unions continue to treat unequal division of household work and domestic violence — where one member of the union (husband) commits violence against another (wife) — as individual or private issues. If women are to become trade union leaders, the movement must insist on fair sharing of domestic work. Issues like sexual harassment at work and within the union must also be taken up." Adoption of a code of conduct in this regard will be useful, she added.

V. Chandra of the Koyla Udyog Kamgar Sanghatana, Nagpur, spoke about the abysmal number of women leaders. "Eighty per cent of the men in the trade union movement still do not believe in women's participation in collective bargaining," she said. Sujata Mody, a Chennai-based trade unionist, who runs a union for women involved in domestic, construction and quarrying work, said that the trade union movement continues to have scant respect for working women. "They do not voice women's issues at all. They still talk of sexual harassment and domestic violence as the women's movement used to 30 years ago — they see women as victims of personal problems."

Towards gender equality

During a workshop on `Gender Equality and Women', held as a part of the conference, representatives of several all-women unions from the unorganised sector shared their experiences of battling with coercive managements, sexual harassment at work and domestic violence. Parvati Amma from Penn Thozilalargal Sangam (Women Workers' Union), Chennai, described how her organisation demanded and got a crèche for women working in stone quarries. Sharada of the Garments Mahila Karmikara Munnade (Garment Women Workers' Union), Bangalore, recalled how sexual harassment in one garment factory was successfully reduced to zero after workers arrived at their workplace one day wearing small placards describing the behaviour of the employers. "The publicity that the incident got in the city shook them all up," she said.

But most of the union representatives agreed that the struggle over the core issues of working conditions and minimum wages is getting tougher as government policies are becoming more and more anti-labour and anti-women.

Seeking space

Talking of strategies to strengthen the role of women in the trade union movement, Anuradha said that structuring is of crucial importance. "Our first attack must be on the structure of trade unions, as what we want is space within the structure."

Women can also choose the option of preserving separate space for themselves within the larger structure of the union, she said, adding that in the initial stages such exclusive space will help nurture female leadership.

Amisha Patel from Jobs with Justice, a federation of trade unions in the US, described the blatant wage discrimination on gender lines practised there, and said that the trade union movement has restricted itself to viewing workers as just labour. "We must remember that workers are people, and when they are women, there are more problems than just those which can be solved through collective bargaining."

"The issue of violence has to be taken up by unions," said Mody. "If a worker comes to work after having suffered a thrashing at home, her comrades — men and women — must go to her house and sort out the issue. Similarly, sexual harassment should be tackled."

Jayamma, representing a union of contract municipal workers from Bangalore, called for solidarity between all struggles based on women's issues.

Interestingly, the conference itself had very few men. During the concluding session newly-elected NTUI general secretary, Ashim Roy, raised this issue in his address. "Preaching and practice are different things," he said. "How can we hope to really bring about change when the male leadership, which is in majority, is not even willing to listen to what the women have to say? This error must never be repeated."

Women's Feature Service

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