IT’S International Women’s Day again. That time of year when every organisation, trade unions included, rediscover their female memberships, and celebrate women who have fought to improve working conditions or made significant contributions to society. 

We will all be reminded that where women have organised together as women, policies can change. 

The current FBU campaign, Fight for 52, demands that all UK fire employers extend any current arrangements on maternity leave, to implement 12 months on full pay following birth. The importance of new mothers not being exposed to fire-related toxins should be built into workplace policies. This week we learned that the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service has agreed to 52 weeks full pay on maternity leave. 

The improvement is to be welcomed, but there is no doubt that it would not have even been on the FBU bargaining agenda without the work of the FBU national women’s committee. The campaign continues across the country.

With pregnancy discrimination in the workplace continuing to hit the headlines, we know that trade unions in every sector have work to do to represent their female members effectively.

When I worked in the rail industry in the 1980s, one of the first cases that I took through the then-National Union of Railwaymen union branch was on behalf of a female conductor who had returned to work after maternity leave, only to be told that she had no annual leave left because she had been on maternity leave.

The management view that having a baby was the same as being on holiday was not sustained — the employment tribunal case found against British Rail, and the Conditions of Service book at that time was altered to protect the terms and conditions for all women on maternity leave. 

This is only one example of many. Over my time in the trade union movement I have seen shop stewards and reps listening to women and working out together how to develop policies on family life, on caring, on women’s health and safety at work, and asserting that domestic violence has an impact on women’s needs in the workplace, and that tackling sexual harassment belongs on trade unions’ agenda too.

With more female members in the trade union movement, as the labour market changes, there are more women’s voices in the room.

This is to be celebrated. Women at the heart of developing our policies, bringing their experiences in the workplace to the fore. 

These struggles become owned by the whole movement with pride, often “adjusting” a history when trade unions at the time had been reluctant to give official support to some of these disputes. Memories include the Lancashire millworkers, the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, the women workers at Singers factory in Clydebank sacked in 1911 for strike action, the Ford machinists fighting for equal pay, the jute workers of Dundee, the women workers at Lee Jeans occupying their factory in 1981, as the multinational corporation threatened closure. 

In the 1970s we saw the enactment of the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act, taken forward by a female Cabinet minister, Barbara Castle. The Equality Act 2010 brought this and other equality legislation together. 

Yet discrimination continues, and trade unions themselves are not exempt from criticism. In the months and years ahead, as we mark International Women’s Day, women have the right to expect much more from the movement in which we continue to invest.

When we spoke of violence against women, we knew that we were often speaking for those who had been unable to speak up, and that we were speaking primarily of male violence. 

At the STUC in 2009, Julie Bindel was welcomed to address the STUC women’s committee fringe meeting at the STUC Congress, the theme of which was “Tackling Prostitution and Sex Trafficking,” and trade union women committed to playing their part in speaking up. At that time the STUC women also worked to highlight the unacceptable levels of female imprisonment, calling for alternatives to custody and appropriate supports for women in the criminal justice system.

An effective trade union movement must speak up for its members but also use our voice for those who cannot. The movement’s international solidarity has always had that message at its heart. 

In considering health and safety legislation, and some of the excellent work done by the trade union movement internationally and in this country, we are also reminded that the differences between men and women, have consequences for health and safety at work. 

To measure these developments, to speak for the women affected, and to propose effective workplace policies, means we must name women as a sex.

If we do not know how many women are in a workplace, we cannot argue for facilities and a working environment that best meet their needs. Changing facilities, uniforms that are designed for the female body, recognition of the life changes that come with the female reproductive cycle — these are trade union issues.

We also need to know that as trade union members, our rights to fair representation are protected. Believing that sex is a biological reality is not a reason to be bullied out of a union or workplace.

Every time violence against women is a topic at a labour movement conference, we hear delegates recount personal experience or examples in trade union casework. Recent investigations into internal trade union cultures which have revealed deep-rooted sexual harassment and bullying of women, show that we still have some way to go. 

For International Women’s Day 2024, let’s commit to building a movement which honours those women who have given so much, and who continue to fight for workplace policies which guarantee dignity, respect, privacy and safety for women, both at work, and within the trade unions.

Ann Henderson is former assistant secretary of the STUC and a former Labour NEC member.