Women in Unions: A History
email: jo'donnell-pirisi@vthc.org.au or ph: 03 9659 3511.
Women's Colours
The colours originated with the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), in the UK in 1908. The colours were said to represent: white for purity; purple for dignity, self-reverence and self-respect; and green for hope and new life.
The colours unified the movement and also emphasised the femininity of the suffragettes.
The tricolour of the WSPU soon became a visual cue for the women's movement in Australia. Purple, green and white were worn on International Women's Day and were used for other women's movement banners and posters.
The introduction of the colour gold representing ‘a new dawn’ has been commonly used to represent the second wave of feminism.
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Victorian Women Vote 1908 – 2008 - website information link click
here.
Australian women have been an important part of the trade union movement since the beginning of Australian trade unionism. With employers pushing for the deregulation of the labour market unions are just as important to women as they were a century ago.
1827 The first strike
The first rebellion staged by women in Australia was in 1827, when convict women at the female factory in Parramatta went on strike, when tea and sugar rations were withdrawn. They were victorious !
Victorian women were granted the right to vote in federal elections in 1901 and in State elections in 1908. Up until 1949 women's wages were only 54% of male wages.
1882 Victorian tailoresses lead the way
The first union of women workers was formed in 1882. Tailoresses in one factory stopped work after their piecework rates had been cut. The tailoresses approached Trades Hall and requested support in forming a union. They soon had 2000 members and went on strike in support of a catalogue of claims which was eventually won. This strike took place before unions were legally recognised.
The word log was coined from this dispute - referring to the catalogue which was the list of prices paid to tailoresses for different pieces of work on garments.
Effects of the tailoresses strike:
• won great public support
• stimulated growth in trade unionism and led to the legal recognition of unions in the mid 1880s
• drew public attention to the practice of outwork
• was partly responsible for a parliamentary enquiry into allegations of 'sweating' in factories in Victoria. Enquiry led to the Factories Act.
1912 The first strike by the Female Felt Hatting Employees Union
A strike for a guaranteed weekly wage for piece workers occurred.
Women Workers form their own unions
The participation of women in trade unions has not always been welcomed by male trade unionists. The prevailing view was that women belonged in the home and were only working for 'pin money'. They were not seen as a permanent part of the workforce, and many male trade unionists strongly resisted the admittance of women members to 'their unions'.
1907 Equal pay - the harvester judgement
Traditional and narrow attitudes towards women workers were reinforced and entrenched by the Arbitration Courts decision of 1907 which set women's wages at 54% of the basic male wage. This decision established the concept of the 'Family Wage', based on the notions that men had to support wife and children, and that women had only themselves to support. At that time women made up around 20% of the workforce and working class women were seen as a form of cheap labour. However the decision also meant women had an 'unfair advantage' in the job market because their labour was cheaper. Employers responded by trying to define more and more work as women's work. Male trade unions defended their conditions by trying to have women expelled from most areas of employment.
The result was that women were confined to a very narrow range of jobs, for which they received only 54% of male pay rates and usually at the minimum rate. This structure of the workforce still exists today and unequal pay rates can in part be traced back as far as this landmark decision.
Women responded by beginning the long fight for equal pay and this involved organising themselves industrially.
The women's organising committee
With the help of women inside and outside of the labour party, women organised themselves into female unions.
The history of the Women's Organising Committee is a story in itself. It was formed with the blessing of male labour party members who saw the need to attract women who had just been granted the vote. They could see that the conservative parties were much better organised and perhaps the women could also get the party out of its growing financial and organisational mess.
At the first women's convention at the VTHC the Junior Vice President of the Labor Party, summed up the prevailing view of the role of the WOC: "...to make the world better and sweeter and to hasten the time when the land would be filled with real homes and where by countless firesides would sit the loving females of Australia."
Some of the women in the WOC did not take too kindly to this subservient role. They believed that it was far more important to organise women industrially first before they were organised politically.
1910 Female unions
From about 1910 onwards they began to organise female unions, by addressing women at factory gates and talking to male dominated unions.
They used a variety of tactics:
1. Encouraging women to become representatives of female workers within male dominated unions, e.g. The Bricklayers Union, Fellmongers Union, The Agricultural and the Implement Makers Union, all had female representatives.
2. To encourage the formation of female unions.
Some examples of female unions:
Shirt and Collarmakers Union
Press Workers Union
White Workers Union
Confectioners Union
Women Cigarette Workers Union
Garment Workers Union
Laundresses Union
Office Cleaners Union
Mason Workers Union
Women fight for Equal pay
With this degree of power, women were now in a position to push for equal pay.
1912 A key decision on equal pay angered women so much that it gave increased impetus to the campaign.
The Commercial Clerks Wages Board handed down a decision granting equal pay for female clerks and typists.
The FCU lodged this claim to protect men's wages and jobs from the encroachment of women into the industry.
The claim was overturned on appeal but it forced on the labour movement a debate on equal pay, which unfortunately the women lost.
1913 Although the women gained a women's convention on equal pay in 1913, it was stacked by men and an equal pay motion was defeated 14 votes to 6. Only a few months later the WOC was disbanded by the Executive.
This early history has been focussed on because it dispels the myth that feminists and trade union activists have only existed since the late 1960s or that the history of unions is a history of working men.
At the same time it shows that women have always had to fight for their issues to be taken up by unions and this struggle goes on today.
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