[THE 53rd TUC Women's Conference in Scarborough in…]
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-03-03Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 6 →
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THE 53rd TUC Women's Conference in Scarborough in the middle of March should be a good talking shop for many issues that affect women in and out of work. But how the conference will actually shape the work of the TUC in the course of 1983 is a different matter.
To start with, there's the structure and nature of the conference itself. Most delegations are heavily dominated by union fulltime officials. Even in unions where rank and file members are delegates, they are generally chosen by national executive committees from nominations sent in by branches. The CPSA is the only union I could find which elects its delegates direct from its conference.
As well as being a bad way of proceeding in terms of general union democracy, this tends to mean that women who do become delegates have usually had to spend years competing in their unions on men's terms: they are either the determined, persistent, politically conscious feminists, or have been sucked into the bureaucracy themselves.
Report back
Delegates chosen in this way tend not to feel very accountable to the members, and under no compulsion to report back to branches. Add to this the fact that within most unions it is also the national executive committee that chooses which motions to send, and you hardly have a recipe for rank and file women trade unionists to feel involved, to participate or even identify with their own national conference.
So once these delegates are collected together, what can and do they do?
One look at the conference resolutions shows you It's a long, long way to Sci that, beyond nodding their heads enthusiastically at the principles of some of the motions, delegates won't actually be able to do very much.
The ASTMS resolution on the "Right to Work" is typical: after reaffirming women's right to work and condemning job segregation it ends with a call to all unions to "redouble their activities (.. .) to ensure that they (women) are not especially victimised" Given present levels of activity on this issue, it should not be too hard for most of them.
At least NUPE notes the growing number of unemployed young women, and calls for full support for the TUC March for Jobs -although even then it doesn't make the connec10: T London Jenny 1 reports
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March to JOHN HARRIS O0K