This paper considers positive action strategies amongst UK trade unions, aimed at increasing membership and levels of participation and representation among women and black workers. It provides an overview of women's, black members' and race structures within large Trades Union Congress unions and a detailed case study of one large UK trade union.We find that there are salient differences in the way that unions approach issues of gender equality, compared with the approach adopted towards race equality. The paper explores possible explanations, justifications and implications of these differences.
This paper addresses the under-explored relationship between women's structures and union democracy and argues that women's structural progress is mediated by an enduring gendered oligarchy and an associated struggle to access power resources. It provides, first, an analysis over time of women's structures in UK unions, and second, a case-study analysis of the Manufacturing, Science and Finance (MSF) trade union. The analysis over time demonstrates women's progress in achieving positional power, but conceals the complexity of the way different resources are used to constrain and enable women trade unionists. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd/London School of Economics 2000.
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