JOE BESWICK of the London Renters Union talks to the Morning Star’s new Left on Record programme
Women’s issues are trade union issues

ACCORDING to government statistics trade union membership grew in 2023 by 89,000 but 83,000 women left the same year.
This is on top of 129,000 women (mainly private sector) leaving the unions in 2022. The exodus of women in a period when trade unions are growing must be openly discussed, if trade unions are to be at the forefront of building power and influence and advancing the interests of the working class.
Women are 52 per cent of the population, so this exodus of women from the trade unions, the largest democratic organisations of the working class, leaves a question mark over whether women believe unions are relevant to them.
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