scholarly journals Rethinking Strategy for Gender Equality in Trade Unions

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Indrasari Tjandraningsih

<p class="p1">The non-strategic role and position of women workers in trade union organization, even in the women-dominated sector, is hardly changed even though the number of women members of trade unions is increasing. Various programs have been carried out to increase the strategic role of women in trade union organizations but so far have not shown significant results. Based on interviews with officers of gender equality programs for trade unions, union leaders and women and men members and literature studies this paper offers an idea of the need for a non-exclusive approach and actively and proportionally involving men in awareness-raising and gender equality programs for trade unions. This idea is based on the fact that in trade unions gender-related program is always left to or only involves women. The strategy in the gender equality awareness and improvement program that only involves women causes the program’s effectiveness to be low because half of the causes of the problem is not involved.</p>

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Atnike Nova Sigiro

<p>This article was formulated based on interviews with 5 (five) trade union confederations from a number of confederations in Indonesia, namely: Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Nasional (KSPN), Konfederasi Sarikat Buruh Muslimin Indonesia (KSarbumusi), Konfederasi Serikat Buruh Seluruh Indonesia (KSBSI), Konfederasi Serikat Pekerja Indonesia (KSPI), and Konfederasi Kongres Aliansi Serikat Buruh Indonesia (KKASBI). This article seeks to explore the efforts made by the trade union confederation in promoting gender equality - specifically in advancing the agenda for the prevention and elimination of sexual violence in the world of work. This article was compiled based on research with a qualitative approach, with data collection methods through interviews and literature studies. The results of this study found that the confederations interviewed had already set up internal structures that have specific functions on issues related to gender equality, gender-based violence, and women’s empowerment; although still limited and on ad-hoc basis. This research also finds that the role of the trade union confederation is particularly prominent in advocating policies related to sexual violence and gender-based violence in the world of work, such as advocating the Bill on the Elimination of Sexual Violence, and the ratification of the ILO Convention No. 190 on Violence and Harassment.</p>


1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Ramaswamy

Key offices in most trade unions in India are held by "outsiders" who do not belong to the trade or industry from which the members are drawn. The outsiders have marked political loyalties, with the result that almost every trade union in the country owes explicit allegiance to a political party. The partisan leanings of the outsiders have often been taken to mean that their primary role as union leaders is to seize on every available opportunity for making political gain. This paper, based on an intensive study of a textile workers' union in South India, contends that the outsiders, notwithstanding their partisan leanings, may be vitally involved in furthering their members' job-related interests. The purely trade union activities of the outsiders are divided into three broad categories. The nature of the grievance, the power wielded by the outsiders in its settlement, the pressures they can bring on the management, and the role they play differ significantly among these three categories. But in none of these is any attempt made by the outsiders to bring in their political interests. Imparting an ideological color to industrial disputes is neither necessary nor useful. While the outsiders do use their union base to further their political interests, they keep trade unionism and politics as discrete spheres of activity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 01
Author(s):  
Antônio Santos-Silva ◽  
Antonio Carvalho Neto

This paper presents the report of a survey that aimed to investigate the role of union leaders in gestation structures of domination in Brazilian unions adopting an interpretative Weberian analysis. Weberian concepts, such as domination, social relation and legitimacy were articulated to explain, in a qualitative approach, the internal social relations within trade unions. The exploratory analysis of 26 interviews conceded by trade union leaders allowed the identification of five groups of orders that constitute maxims and rules of action among the union leaders. This paper focuses on the documental analysis of 115 documents looking for evidence of the domination structures genesis. The documents revealed that these structures go back to the trade union training process, especially from the decade 1970s. The data analysis was structured in five groups of orders: ethics; political repression; ideology; mistrust between parts; and validity of laws. The study concluded by the pertinence of the adoption of the interpretative Weberian approach to explain the action of administrative staff (as in Weber, the influential individuals on the decision making process within the organization) related to the making and preservation of the structures of domination, confirming the Weberian theory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Barbara C. Allen

Abstract While Vladimir Lenin found it necessary to depend upon and support technical and managerial specialists who had been trained in pre-revolutionary educational institutions, the Bolsheviks were never comfortable with this dependency. Under Iosif Stalin, the specialists were vilified, persecuted, marginalized, and eventually replaced by highly specialized technical personnel trained in Soviet educational institutions. This article examines the attitudes toward specialists held by leading members of the Workers’ Opposition, a group of communist trade union leaders who promoted the economic management role of workers through their trade unions. In Western secondary literature, the stance of the Workers’ Opposition toward specialists is sometimes misunderstood or oversimplified. In correcting such errors, I will show that Stalin’s motivations for repression directed against engineers and technicians during the First Five-Year Plan should be sought elsewhere than in the attempt to expand the role and prominence of workers in the party bureaucracy and industrial administration of the new Soviet state.


2019 ◽  
pp. 13-19
Author(s):  
O.S. Bezvin

The article deals with the trade unions as a grant to protect the rights and interests of civil servants, reveals the main tasks of trade unions. The activity of trade union organizations in the structure of the state body in Ukraine is analyzed. The legal mechanisms of asserting the violated rights of a civil servant by a trade union organization of a public body and the role of trade unions in protecting the rights of civil servants in developed countries are emphasized. The state at certain times gave the trade unions great powers to protect the rights and interests of workers, and then deprived the trade unions of these powers. In connection with this, various problems arose in regulating the activities of trade unions in the protection of individual and collective rights and interests in the protection of public servants. All this affected the legal status of trade unions. However, it should be noted that trade unions are in constant flux and this leads to improvements in the regulations governing their activities. However, it should be noted that today there are many problems in Ukraine regarding the exercise by the trade union organizations of their powers in the civil service. In particular, the legal status of trade unions in the civil service is not regulated enough, which, in turn, does not allow them to fully protect the legal rights and interests of civil servants. Considering the importance of trade unions in protecting labor rights and the socio-economic interests of workers, in developing democratic forms of citizen participation in managing economic and political processes, a democratic, legal, and social state, which is Ukraine, should support trade unions and take care of legislative consolidation. their authority. Trade unions at all levels should once again return to the consideration of their core functions and pay attention to those that will now be more conducive to the achievement of the main objective of the creation and activity of trade unions – the protection of social-labor rights and interests of trade union members. Today’s Ukraine needs strong unions. A strong union is a union that effectively protects the interests of its members, enjoys their trust and support, is able to organize, if necessary, collective action to protect the socio-economic rights and interests of employees, has sufficient organizational, financial, and human resources to fulfill its statutory tasks. Keywords: trade union organization, protection, rights, the role of trade unions, legal mechanisms.


This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0143831X2094368
Author(s):  
Julie Prowse ◽  
Peter Prowse ◽  
Robert Perrett

This article presents the findings of a case study that aimed to understand the specific leadership styles that are valued by women and men lay representatives in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and to determine the gendered implications for increasing women’s leadership and representation in trade unions. Survey responses from PCS lay representatives (reps) show the majority of women and men agreed that the leadership style they value, and that makes a good union leader, is post-heroic (communal) leadership. This approach is associated with leadership characteristics such as being helpful, sensitive and kind and are generally practised by women. This contrasts with male union leaders who are associated with a traditional, heroic (agentic) leadership style characterised by confidence, self-reliance and decisiveness. Although some differences exist that highlight gender issues, both women and men lay reps have positive attitudes towards increasing women’s representation and participation in union leadership.


2001 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Lindberg

The main concern of this paper is the issue of women workers' identity and class consciousness. This investigation is principally based on in-depth interviews with three generations of female factory workers. Extremely unequal power relations between capital and labour is insufficient to explain the more pronounced exploitation of female workers over males. In spite of these women having the potential for collective power, their factory lives have been characterized by treatment in constant violation of labour laws. Low-caste female workers have gone through a process of effeminization which has acted to curb their class identity and limit their scope of action. In the process of caste and class emancipation, the question of gender has been neglected by trade union leaders and politicians. The radicalism of males is built upon women's maintaining of the families – a reality which strongly contradicts hegemonic gender discourses and confuses gender identities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Landau ◽  
John Howe

Trade unions in Australia have long played an important role in the enforcement of minimum employment standards. The legislative framework today continues to recognize this enforcement role, but in a way that is more individualistic and legalistic than in the past. At the same time that the law has evolved to emphasize the representation and servicing role of trade unions, the Australian union movement has sought to revitalize and grow through the adoption of an “organizing model” of unionism that emphasizes workplace-level activism. This Article explores how these seemingly opposing trends have manifested themselves in the enforcement-related activities of five trade unions. Considerable diversity was found among the unions in relation to the extent to which and how the unions performed enforcement-related activities. However, all five unions spent significant time and resources on monitoring and enforcing employer compliance with minimum standards and saw this work as a core part of what they do. The case studies suggest, however, that the way in which this work is undertaken within unions and by whom has changed significantly in recent decades. While there was evidence that enforcement work was used tactically by unions in certain cases, this was largely on an ad hoc basis and there was little indication that the enforcement work was integrated into broader organizing objectives and strategies. Overall, the unions were ambivalent, if not skeptical, as to the capacity for enforcement work to grow unions through building workplace activism and collective strength.


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