In the current period of economic crisis and militant workers' struggles there has been a significant upsurge among women workers; a slowly growing awareness among them of their subordination in society. However, the struggles of women have been isolated and fragmented. Some have arisen where the workers' organisations are strong enough to take militant action and draw women into action e.g. in the Manchester engineering occupations. in others women have taken the lead, e.g. at Brannans in Cumberland.
Since the collapse of NJAWER, which developed as a result of militant action at Fords, there has not been an organisation of women within the trade union which has taken up the political issues of women's rights and demands in a coherent way. The NJACCWER organisation was dominated by the Communist Party, who let the demand for equal pay go out of the trade union' struggle into the "political' arena, i.e. the Labour Party. So we saw the emergence of the Equal Pay Act, put on the statute book and administered by the State machinery totally independently of the struggles of the working class. We shall look at some of the lessons to be learnt from this later, but we should note here that this diffusion of the issue by the Communist Party set the struggle for women's rights back for several years. So we now have legislation, which of course is full of loop-holes which can be used by employers to their advantage and for which there is no penal clause for non-operation. In this situation the equal pay clause can well become a give-away clause if left to the trade union bureaucrats, and indeed to many of the workers. There are two main reasons for this: (1) That women are trying to get what they have never had - equal treatment across the board, recognition of their particular needs, at a time when the working class as a whole is struggling to mainlain what it has already got, to defend its living standards. What is easier for the trade union bureaucrats than to sacrifice the equal pay clause as a first concession in negotiation. (2) That unfortunately women are not fighting in a coordinated and militant way on this kind of issue.
Because the wind has been taken out of the struggle for equal pay, we find progress being made mainly in either well-organised, militant and male-dominated unions such as the AUEW. where there is an agreed policy for equal pay by 1973 (although in many rank-and-file struggles in this Union the equal pay clause has got lost), or well-organised women-dominated unions, such as USDAW (51.8 per cent women) where some sections have achieved it. So, although this bourgeois "right" has in fact been conceded by the ruling class, it is tar from being realised in practice. But what does this "right" amount to in a concrete situation? If there are men and women working alongside on a factory bench, men can lift the heavy materials, women can't. I have heard this example cited to me (by a woman worker) as a reason why there should be an 8 per cent difference between men and women's wages where they are working in the same grade. This factory has already "got equal pay". This is because in capitalist society the right of the producers is proportional to the labour they supply, because the measurement criterion is labour, The employees are merely sellers of At the time of writing there are only three occupations (Hawker Siddeley, Woodford; Metal Box, Altrincham; Ruston Paxman, Newton-le-Willows) and two strikes (C.B. Johnsons and Fletcher Bros.) left in the Manchester engineering dispute. The factories that have gone back to work have, for the most part, not settled on hours and so are banning overtime, following the new Manchester CSEU line (see The Red Mole, 43).
As we explained before, this backdown on the hours substantially reduced the bargaining power on money, equal pay, and holidays, as well as on hours. Nearly all the new settlements have been for between £2 and £2.50 new money plus one day's holiday this year and one next year. This is at least £1-£1.50 new money less than the stewards were settling for previously. The two main setbacks in recent weeks have been the settlements at Ferrantis and at HQ labour power, and if the employer can get one kind of labour cheaper than another by taking advantage of differences between them he will. And once we accept this, we have to accept all the divisions, grades etc. within society: we have to accept the employer's right to determine "women's" grades vis-a-vis "men's" grades, to determine that there is a thing called women's work whereas men's work is unskilled semi-skilled or skilled, to determine a grade too low for men to accept, to say that labourers Now to consider how the question of equality affects the life activity of working womenfrequently women are not very much in favour of equal pay for reasons such as, men have wives and children to support and should get more money, a woman's income is secondary usually, men do heavier, dirtier work etc. In themselves these justifications for the status quo show precisely that the issue of equality is not an economic issue. They beg all the questions ruling class, become bureaucratic and undemoabout who should be responsible for children, what is a man's role, what is a woman's role, what is women's work etc. If a woman works, how can she get to a trade union meeting if she has total responsibility for the children? Clearly much wider issues are involved, but central are the demands for equal opportunity and nursery facilities, which raise these issues. Precisely this marks the difference between doing work with women and with men workers, and here, from an understanding of the oppression of women flows an understanding of the organisational forms necessary for fighting this oppression in class struggle. Let us take for an example a militant struggle, a factory occupation of men and women workers, which is fighting amongst other things for equal pay. Women will be involved in the struggle initially in relation to men in the same way as they are in relation to men in other situations in society, e.g. they look after the canteen and take a minimal role in the organisation/decision making (this happened in the Fisher-Bendix occupation where one of the leading shop stewards was quite proud to say that the women did well to get a certain percentage of men's rates). This is because the subordination of women cuts right through all aspects of society and is so much part of bourgeois ideology that our brothers are sometimes barely aware of it. Here, if the issue is limited to the economic - equal pay - which many of the male trade unionists will support, the women's consciousness of their oppression within the oppression of all workers in such a situation will not be changed. Since their consciousness as workers is inseparably tied to their consciousness as women (take a look at the life-activity of women) in the situation cited above they will inevitably constitute a more reactionary (relative to men involved) section of workers. Women workers cannot become fully involved if they have to go on looking after the children. cooking all the meals etc. It's no good male workers carrying out a struggle "for" women. Conversely the more that women do get involved in the determination of events the more their consciousness as women workers grows because they have that much more than men both ideologically and practically to fight against. Unless women take upon themselves their own organisation and decision-making within the struggle their relationship to the struggle will generally (with the possible exception of one Sercks. All six of the Ferranti plants in dispute went back after the factory at Hollinwood voted to return on a slightly increased offer with hardly a move towards equal pay, which is so crucial in Ferrantis. This defeat was particularly important as there were very strong signs of the dispute spreading to Ferranti plants on a national scale. Both Dundee and Barrow plants looked certain to follow suit.
At Sercks, a small plant of just over 100 in Gorton, a "settlement" was reached after an eight week strike, following the timely intervention of Bro. Rigby (the local full time official of the Sheet Metal Workers - the majority union at the plant) which involved the management taking the men back in stages because of lost the gates and 26 redundancies were announced. In spite of efforts by two of the three stewards and by representatives of the Gorton and Openshaw Joint Shop Stewards Liaison Commor two militants- usually the wives of leading militants). The political understanding and question of organisation are absolutely inseparable. The argument is the same in all working-class activity; in Union branch meetings, in shop stewards committees ete; men will do "for" women (if they are feeling nice and class-conscious. We are of course absolutely in favour of them taking up every demand that women make, but since the male supremacy cannot be changed overnight it is absolutely necessary for women to organise themselves across the factory to intervene in shop steward's committees, across areas to intervene in branch meetings, on the political issues that particularly affect them.
Not understanding women's oppression in all aspects of society can lead to disastrous results. Thus not only have the trade unions themselves, because of the particular function that they perform in capitalist society in relation to the cratic, but it is no accident that in a society geared to the advantage and domination of men, the majority of trade union officials are men. Class-conscious working women will find, just as male workers do, great difficulty in getting these officials into action on their behalf, but at the same time they also realise that they are mostly men who have these well-paid comfortable jobs. A combination of these two factors, bureaucracy and male-domination, can tempt women to opt out of trade union activity. Usually this is passive, women just pay their dues and participate very little, but in the case of the 200 women in the Lucas factory in Burnley it led them to leave their Union (the GMWU) altogether and form their own. Subsequently they appealed to women in other areas to join their Union and received a lot of publicity, much of it adverse. Women organisers in the GMWU encouraged them to campaign within it, but the undemocratic character of the Union outweighed, it seemed, to them at the time, the advantages of being in the general organisation. The new Women's Industrial Union had a little success at the beginning: a few women in different parts of the country showed interest, many were sympathetic, but few joined. Of course they hoped to become part of the trade union movement, but the main blow they received was the refusal of the TUC to recognise them. In desperation they registered on the new Industrial Register of Trade Unions, but not for long.
The women's liberation groups rallied round; this was just their cup of tea working-class women workers doing their own thing. Since we first met Mrs Sturdy (President of the new Union), we in Socialist Woman have encouraged her to take her strength into the trade union movement and retain her organisation within the Union. Probably the main practical thing that has determined the women's proposal to now join the A.U.E.W. is the lack of concrete support they received from women outside Lucas; but they have of course also come to understand much more about the class nature of society and the political nature of what they are doing.
The way in which the Lucas women hope to developis through getting a women's industrial section in the A.U.E.W. This will offer perspectives for the organisation of industrial groups like that at Lucas in other A.U.E.W. factories. Mrs Sturdy and her fellow-members ittee, the section back in work refused to come back out in dispute. Meanwhile Rigby was at his union's National Conference, out of harm's way. The factories still either striking or occupying are more isolated than ever as the struggle has effectively been reduced to plant bargaining and mass action to prevent victimisation becomes harder to organise as the majority of plants are back at work. The three plants that are still occupied have been so since the start of the dispute and have now reached the three month mark, and are very much in need of moral", practical and financial support. If these plants succeed in gaining substantially better settlements than the more recent ones, they will have shown that the decision to back down on the hours was a grave mistake and that the Manchester Division could have gone it alone if necessary The outcome at Hawker Siddeley, Woodford, and at Ruston Paxman is particularly important. orders. In practice the militants were left outside Woodford is the only Hawker Siddeley plant to go all out in this dispute and they need a substantially better settlement than that at Chadderton (the other Manchester plant) to avoid demoralisation. will not only set an example of what can be done (and many improvements have been made at Lucas sinor the women began to organise themselves); they will be able to speak to other women and help to organise women in other places. She i currently preparing a manifesto stating the ms of the industrial group, which include the demands for equal pay, against low pay, equal opportnity, nursery facilities, etc. I think that while this kind of organisation is still in embryonic form it is the key to the development of the struggle against the oppression of working-class women. If it should develop along the lines now proposed it will have a definite effect on many people who are trying to see how the question of woman's oppression relates to working-class women, and also on working-class men. The main factor that leads working-class men to chauvinist attitudes is that women are apathetic, not militant and "lag" behind etc; as women become better organised they will stand alongside their brothers (and probably often take the lead). The key here is the Socialist Woman Groups which have the analysis and programme for developing this work. The national structure will enable close coordination between different developing areas, their political analysis which understands the class nature of woman's oppres sion will relate to leading women militants. We in Socialist Woman Groups have already begun to develop committees of women in factories across union boundaries, around the issues of women's oppression. Where these are formed, the idea of the industrial group can spread across unions in a locality. The main political opposition, as we grow and the industrial groups spread, will be the Communist Party. It has the organisation and much more influence already than we do in the trade union movement. However, it will be more difficult for them to sell out this idea than NJACCWER For NJACCER existed without involving women enough in their place of work, i.e. without really strong rank-and-file support. It was thus possible for the committees to degenerate and disappear, before the demands of most of its Charter had been achieved. A grassroots organisation will be more difficult to destroy. Of course the main problem is that it may not grow, and that is why it is vitally important to understand why it should. Although our numbers are small, we in Socialist Woman must give political leadership where we can gain influence, and organisational assistance. In short, there is a possibility of important advances being made in the politicisation of women workers as well as men at the present time; but not if they are thought of as just another group of workers. Only when the revolutionary left recognises that the problems of women workers are related to the total oppression of women, deriving not merely from their position as sellers of labour power, but also from the capitalist ideology of the family and women's subordinate role, can it begin to make these advances; and only the Socialist Woman Groups are in a position to do this. Lenin's comments are still appropriate; "Our national sections still lack a correct understanding of this matter........Their occasional recognition of the necessity and value of a powerful, clear-headed communist women's movement is a platonic verbal recognition, not the constant care and obligation of the Party" Nina Thomas Lancaster IMG Ruston Paxman is part of the GEC empire. The best settlement so far at GEC plants in the area has been at Openshaw, which was occupied for seven weeks and was a marked improvement on that at the 'Big House' in Trafford Park which was barely in the dispute and whose settlement was a major setback and a prime cause in the backdown on hours (as reported in The Red Mole, 43). A victory at Ruston Paxman would put pressure on the right wing in the union at Trafford Park.
Manchester IMG STOP PRESS: A settlement has been reached at Hawker Siddeley, Woodford, and the men have gone back to work, though operating an overtime ban in lieu of an agreement on hours. The settlement consisted of £2.50 new money plus extra holidays; better than at Chadderton but similar to the other recent settlements. There is another occupation, however, which we omitted to mention above and which is still going on, at the small Stockport factory of Basin and Son.
of the national/comprador bourgeoisie. The although we condemn Her Majesty's Army as