THE trade union movement has ignored women for much of its approximately 200-year history. This only began to change in the latter part of the 20th century. The fact that the late 1960s marks a turning point for women in the labour movement is due to a combination of two factors — the growing influence of the left in a number of key unions and the influence of the then vibrant women’s movement. The turning point in the late ’60s and early ’70s, was marked more by a change in attitude in that at long last women workers were perceived as having problems rather than being problems. 

This led to a number of unions and the TUC itself looking at policy issues and structural changes to encourage greater participation and membership of trade unions by women. It is a process that could hardly be resisted once women organised and demonstrated their collective power, as for example in 1968 at Ford’s Dagenham plant when the women sewing machinists struck for pay regrading. Even more important was the equal pay victory won by women workers at Trico as a result of their historic strike in 1976. 

However, the extent to which real change for women was brought about should not be exaggerated. What appeared as a forward march of women workers was, and still is, a process that can either be reversed or remain at the level of good intentions unless the forces that gave rise to it in the first place remain strong and united. 

Today these forces — a women’s movement and an effective left — are no longer strong and united, with the result that the forward march of women workers has been halted and even reversed. While total union membership has declined by almost half since its record high of 13 million in 1979, women’s trade union membership has declined at faster rate than male membership. 

Although there has been a slight reversal of this downward trend in recent years, with, in 2024, a small increase (172,000) in the number of male union members (totalling around 2.9 million), the number of women union members has fallen since 2022 by 115,000 (totalling 3.5 million). However, despite this worrying decline, women still account for 56 per cent of trade union membership — a majority. 

What does this reveal, and does it matter anyway? Firstly, it is clear that at the moment women’s issues and demands are not front and centre of trade union priorities. Nonetheless, the movement is still replete with good intentions on equality issues: witness Paul Nowak’s introduction to this year’s TUC annual report: “The TUC continues to prioritise equality as we seek to build a more diverse, more inclusive and more representative movement … the campaign for equal pay and equal treatment for all workers, regardless of background, remains at the heart of our work.” 

However virtuous these good intentions, the fact is that there has been very little progress on the central issue of women’s pay. The TUC passed its first resolution on equal pay in 1889. Over 130 years later, despite legislation (ie, the 1975 Equal Pay Act and the 1984 Equal Value amendment) women still only earn roughly two-thirds of men’s wages (based on average hourly earnings). But the law is a minefield — fraught with obstacles and loopholes — it provides rich pickings for rapacious lawyers. 

The current practice of pursuing equality issues through the legal system rather than through collective bargaining backed by mass action has led to delay and demoralisation. (An exception to this was the successful Glasgow City Council equal pay strike in 2018 which utilised a combination of public campaigning and industrial muscle.) The equal value claims of women workers in private-sector retail companies like Asda, Next (almost won after 12 years), Tesco and Morrisons have dragged through the law courts for years and are still unresolved. 

Clearly collective bargaining backed by industrial action is the way forward for women. This applies to all other equality demands as enshrined in the Charter for Women. This was launched in the trade union movement in 2003. It contains the key policy demands for women in the arena of social policy, the labour market and the labour movement. Twenty years later, these demands still remain at the level of good intentions — none of them have been won.

Women are not a minority problem — our programme is integral to every single “mainstream” workplace issue. However, the agenda for this year’s TUC annual conference hardly mentions women other than in four out 78 motions. Apart from these four motions, the word “woman” is used only 14 times. There is nothing on the massive increase in violence against women and girls — a shocking crime against women as a biological sex which even the police name as a national emergency. 

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) highlights in an extreme form the oppression of women buttressed and enabled by sexist and misogynist ideology. 

Perhaps the reticence of trade unions on VAWG helps explain why women’s issues have been sidelined and hence why women’s trade union membership is declining. The widely adopted “inclusive” equality agenda has viewed women’s sex-based rights as a contested and controversial area apparently best left alone. But where does this leave women — now in a majority in the labour force and in trade unions? Bizarrely we are treated as a marginalised and minoritised majority! 

Where do we go from here? If we are to learn from our history, it is clear that the only way to progress the rights of women is via a class conscious anti-sexist labour movement allied with a socialist feminist women’s movement. 

Unfortunately, the former is somewhat weak right now, but the good news is that a socialist feminist women’s movement has emerged in the newly formed Women’s Liberation Alliance (WLA). The WLA seeks to work with our sisters in the labour movement to challenge the dominant narrative which has marginalised women and deprioritised our demands.

The WLA is a progressive coalition of women and women’s organisations from diverse backgrounds focused on rebuilding and sustaining a women’s liberation movement. 

Our guiding principle is that the precondition for women’s liberation is the abolition of class exploitation, sex-based oppression and racism. Thus, the WLA prioritises the abolition of the codependent dynamics of racism and sexism. 

We expose and challenge women’s oppression in society and our super exploitation as workers. The WLA supports women’s self-organisation as a means of ensuring that our issues are integral to every aspect of trade union organisation and collective bargaining. The WLA is committed to opposing religious fundamentalist and far-right movements. 

Both are based on supremacist and anti-rights ideologies that seek to uphold hierarchical structures of discrimination, oppression and inequality. WLA views the struggle for women’s rights as international. 

We recognise that global military/industrial power relies on the exploitation of female labour in production and reproduction. 

These founding principles have been carefully thought through by women determined to continue the struggle for socialist and feminist change in alliance with the labour movement. 

We are in the process of designing membership and communication so that by the end of this year we can begin the work of bringing together the alliance of working class, black and socialist women that will take the next steps, in the fight for our liberation.