THE 1980s under Margaret Thatcher marked a regressive period for working-class people as a whole — and women in particular.

The conditions were laid down for a savage assault on the public sector. Competitive tendering was laid out in the provision of domestic, catering and laundering services, which led to the super-exploitation of outsourced hospital workers that we see today.

Monetarist policies, economic deregulation, the slashing of social security, privatisation of public services and anti-union legislation had a devastating impact through deindustrialisation and unemployment rose to three  million. State benefits including child benefit were cut and child poverty doubled as Thatcher attacked working mothers for “raising a creche generation.”

According to the TUC 65 per cent of the entire public sector workforce are women — and for several decades it has been savaged by cuts and privatisation. In the NHS 77 per cent of all employees are women, first in line for the brutal assault on wages, terms and conditions that is set to intensify.

Constant rounds of restructuring are the method employers use to make cuts — cuts targeted at services, opening up the door to the private sector, driving down the skill mix, downgrading roles and moving staff from one service to another until they are utterly demoralised and leave.

Take-home pay has been plummeting across the public sector and research by the GMB shows that in the NHS, workers have lost up to £9,000 a year over the last 10 years. Inflation running at 12.7 per cent and rising will only compound this problem further.

Workers who are outsourced to private companies fare even worse as job security and the right to be paid on time for all hours worked are undermined.

Low pay, scandalously low levels of sick pay and the failure to grant paid carers’ leave are all issues that plunge working women and families into poverty and are driving increasing numbers of families to food banks and homelessness.

The fragmentation that goes hand in hand with outsourcing creates organising challenges for the unions. We face the necessity of running multiple ballots with multiple employers. Private employers either don’t recognise unions, de-recognise unions or recognise unions sometimes but not other times.

The “make it up as you go along” attitude of many of these companies completely undermines the months of work chasing the holy grail of the recognition agreement. Union-busting tactics are rarely challenged by the host employer and they work hand in hand with the private company behind the scenes.

Women workers, even those with young children, can get organised and win victories against employers imposing cuts. This is exactly what nurses achieved in my previous workplace after the financial crash of 2008.

We made the time to step up and defend ourselves against a savage restructuring that would have pushed down our wages and we forced our various trade unions to get behind us.

It is far harder for women to get involved in trade union activity due to our additional role as primary carers in our households, but it’s not impossible.
Unfortunately the practical barriers women face alongside endemic levels of bullying and harassment cause too many women activists to disengage from the unions.

This is a tragedy not only for women who are left defenceless in the face of attacks from employers but it also strips the unions of untapped talent.

Lay female activists have been isolated for defending women’s rights when their unions should have stood with them. The resulting loss of good activists has weakened the movement and the silence of many of our brothers in the face of the attacks on women has been deafening.

In traditionally female dominated roles like nursing, too many of the union leaders at lay level, officer level and beyond, are men. Far more could be done by our movement to engage and support women to become workplace leaders.

The trade union equality committee should not be the end of the road for good union women — but all too often it is. Women can organise, we can lead, we can strategise and we can take on the employers who are trying to crush us. Disputes and strikes are not just the domain of men as the GMB Glasgow equal pay campaign has shown.

The issues that are raised by working women must form the basis for collective action which would bring more women into activity. One of these is the requirement by too many employers for mothers to work as though they don’t have children.

Women come under enormous pressure to come into work even when our children are sick. According to the Office for National Statistics 42 per cent of women work part time but most are still denied working hours that would enable them to pick up and drop off their children to schools and nurseries.

The staggering lack of affordable childcare that could be provided in-house by larger employers but isn’t, could form the basis of union campaigns. The law on flexible working is weak and women find themselves forced onto part-time contracts for good if they do succeed in securing flexible working. This could also be taken up and robustly challenged by our movement. Why isn’t it?

In a period of unprecedented attacks on women’s rights and rising violence against women and girls, the labour movement should be doing more to listen to women, address concerns in a serious way and empower them to develop skills via organising their own workplaces. Experience in organising is the key to enabling women activists to become successful trade union leaders.

It should never be the case that union women have to show extraordinary levels of persistence just to remain active in unions.

It’s important to recognise that during past periods of economic regression under conservative governments, here and abroad, attacks on women intensified and basic rights were rolled back.

Defending women is integral to defending everyone and our movement should be first in line when it comes to listening to women, respecting women, defending women and developing women.

History has repeatedly shown that both working women and men gain by women taking a lead in the industrial and political arenas. Unions need women and women need unions — and the sooner we all accept this, the sooner the Tories will be up against the full unstoppable force of a united working-class movement rather than a divided one.

Helen O’Connor is GMB Southern regional organiser.