Tracing and Placing Women Trade Union Leaders: A Study of the Female Confectioners Union
Studies of union leadership commonly examine full-time officials and workplace delegates. Less attention has been given to those union activists who hold honorary elected roles, on executive or management committees and as office bearers. Women can actively access these positions as a strategy of separate organizing for increasing women’s participation, representation and voice in their union. Separate organizing in the form of a women’s union creates a broader canvas for women workers’ collective activity. Addressing a gap both in the historical literature on women’s union strategies and the contribution of honorary officials, this analysis focuses on the rank-and-file women who emerged as the core leadership group in the Australian women-only union, the Female Confectioners’ Union, in the 1920s. By drawing together analysis of archival records with genealogical sources, the women’s biographical profiles were created and, through the use of thematic analysis, insights were gained into the intersections of the individual women’s industrial and political activism and their domestic experiences. For the next 20 or more years, these women formed the backbone of the union (until an amalgamation with the men’s union in the confectionery trade in 1945) and were instrumental in shaping female collectivism.
Organising and Representing Women: the historical case of the Female Confectioners Union
How women workers’ interests should be represented and advanced by unions underpins debates about the merits of separate organising. This study of an Australian women's union, the Female Confectioners Union, shows how separate organising created union space and voice for female confectionery workers. Set against this was inter-organisational conflict that developed between the union and the existing male-dominated union, in which separate organising became a contested strategy. For the Female Confectioners Union, this conflict not only reinforced the necessity of separate organising to ensure that the interests of women workers remained a central union concern but also what form the separate organising should take.
Women in Unions: What Progress in South Australia?
Women have traditionally been under-represented in Australian trade unions. Declining union density and the desire for more equitable representation have stimulated union interest in women's participation and led to the adoption of various measures to increase their voice in unions. This paper outlines the results of a survey of women's representation in South Australian unions in 1992; the survey had an 84 per cent union response rate and includes unions covering about 85 per cent of unionists in the state. The results are compared with those of a similar survey in Victoria and earlier estimates. The study gives a reliable snapshot of women's under-representation, which is persistent at all levels from shopfloor to federal councils. Women are generally under-represented, relative to their share of membership, in around three-quarters of unions at most levels—among workplace representatives, key state committee members and officials. They are especially under-represented at federal level. Overall, women make up 39 per cent of union members in the respondent group of unions, 32 per cent of shop stewards, 31 per cent of state councils, 20 per cent of state executives and 25 per cent of union officials. Women's share of positions declines as power increases: they are concentrated in appointed positions, among organizers and industrial and specialist staff. They are often found in positions outside the normal career paths to senior union office and political power. The study documents actions to increase women's voice in unions and shows that many unions are aware of the problems and taking some kind of action. However, comprehensive programmes have been adopted in only a small number of relatively large unions. The response of South Australian unions to the survey is outlined.