Gender And Leadership In Unions

Gender and Leadership in Trade Unions explores and evaluates the similarities and differences in equality strategies pursued by unions in the US and the UK. It assesses the conditions experienced by women union members and how these impact on their leadership, both potential and actual. The discussion of women trade union leaders is situated more broadly within debates on governance, leadership and democracy within social justice activism.

Examining the experiences of leadership among trade unionists in a range of unions and labor movements around the world, this volume addresses perspectives of women and men from a range of identities such as race/ethnicity, sexuality, and age. It analyses existing models of leadership in various political organizational forms, especially trade unions, but also including business and management approaches, leadership forms which arise from fields such as community, pedagogy, and the third sector. This book analyzes and critiques concepts, expectations, and experiences of union leaders and leadership in labor organizations, while comparing gender and cultural perspectives. Contributors to the volume draw on empirical research to identify key ideas, beliefs and experiences which are critical to achieving change, setting up resistance, and transforming the inertia of traditionalism.

Making Globalization Work for Women explores the potential for trade unions to defend the socioeconomic rights of women in a global context. Looking at labor policies and interviews with people in unions and nongovernmental organizations, the essays diagnose the problems faced by women workers across the world and assess the progress that unions in various countries have made in responding to those problems. Some concerns addressed include the masculine culture of many unions and the challenges of female leadership within them, laissez-faire governance, and the limited success of organizations working on these issues globally. Making Globalization Work for Women brings together in a synthetic and fruitful conversation the work and ideas of feminists, unions, NGOs, and other human rights workers.

I Knew I Could Do This Work is designed to promote women's activism and leadership within unions across the country at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Based on interviews with union organizers and activists throughout the United States, the report explores three main questions: What are the main obstacles that discourage women's union activism and leadership? How can unions help overcome them? How can women's movement organizing better support union women? The report outlines seven strategies that unions can use to encourage women's increased participation.

Explores issues of gender and union activism by means of a study of female and male shop stewards in Sheffield National and Local Government Officers' Association (NALGO) conducted in 1989 and 1990.

Over half the women in the United States are now employed outside the home, and the proportions are comparable in many European countries. Yet nowhere has this revolution in the composition of the labor force been followed by the triumph of a more difficult revolution—the struggle for full equality in the rights and roles of women. Building upon research begun by the late Val R. Lorwin and Alice H. Cook, Cook and Arlene Kaplan Daniels survey recent efforts of trade unions in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Great Britain to ensure equal opportunity in the workplace. In identifying the successes and setbacks of the European experience, the authors consider the implications for change in the agendas of American unions. Cook and Daniels show how unions in the countries studied have promoted women's equality through the channels of internal policy, collective bargaining, and political influence. They provide rich cross-cultural comparisons of patterns of government involvement, the extent of women's participation in the unions, education of women for union leadership, access to vocational training, pay equity, the conditions of part-time work, and workplace health and safety concerns. The Most Difficult Revolution will be a vital resource for comparatists in the fields of women's studies, labor studies, political science, anthropology, sociology, and economics.