Growing Force

In the last 18 months, the number of strikes involving mainly women has increased dramatically. Women all over the country - in Drblin, Donegal, Drogheda, Enteld etc -have gone on strike; in the Lombard and Ulster bank, Pizzaland, telephone and unemployment exchanges, Enfield ‘post office, Kilmartin's bookies, the Sweepstakes, Shelbourne Hotel etc. And their demands for things as basic as union fecognition, staff toilets and payments under the National Wage Agreement, reflect their employers’ mistaken beliefs that women cannot be as militant as men.

The telephonists are pursuing a claim for equal pay which was made ten years ago as part of a general claim for equal pay in the public services. In 1977 their 4 week strike, supported by the male workers, severely disrupted countrywide communications, At that time if the claim had been granted only 14% of the women would have benefitted immediately from the action as the others had not attained maximum years of service - the point where full and equal pay would apply. But the strike was suspended because of the Department of Post and Telegraph's refusal to negotiate while a strike was on or threatened, Instead the claim was to be processed through civil service conciliation channels, The Labour Court and the Equal Pay Commissioner have rejected the claim on the basis that the women telephonists do not do night shifts even though night shift pay ts an extra onto the basic wage and it is in equelity of the basic wage that the women are looking for. So, two months ago, in December 178, 3,000 day telepiionists ~~ from all over the country, except Dublin, embarked on a daylong protest; and staged marches in Cork and Limer-~ ick, These were ‘unofficial’ ‘put the telephonists are undeterred and there remains the possibility of a general countrywide strike, In Drogheda, women occupied a clothing factory when their employer skipped the country owing three weeks wages plus six months worth of stamps and taxes which hei-had deducted from their wages but had not passed on, Their case seemed hopeless; their union, the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, were giv- . ‘ing no real help or assistance and it was difficult to know just to whom they should make their demands, Bonte had arrived on the invitation of the IDA with no screening done of his background or financial position, Due to their own militancy and to support from other trade unionists and also feminists, the women forced the IDA to accede to their basic demands, These were; payment of the money due to them, a guarantee of no victimisation and first preference of jobs when the factory opens again.

The Irish Nurses Organtsation,at their annual conference, voted to demand a 50% wages increase on the threat of mass resignations on March ist, More militant industrial action is now being considered, In the past, before the present period of upsurge, the lesser number of strikes by women has said a lot about the type of job they traditionally get -in offices, shops restaurants and the declining footwear/ textiles firms - where thionism ts difficult to introduce due to the highly personalised char:aeter of the work (similar to the kind of work women are expected to do in the home) or where employers claim inability to pay National Wage Agreement increases ETC, But it is also true that from birth women are encouraged to see themselves as passive, accommodating 'girls', This self-image is in total contradiction to the kind of activist ‘solidarity required for workers to defend themselves.

Once in unions, women face: male trade union bureaucrats who want to contain any struggle, whether of women or ‘not, within the limits set by theirr need to control any situation thus maintaining their role as acting for the workers, not with them, However women have now shown that they can organise and fight, and fight to win. And where the traditional union structures prove unhelpful, it is possible to go beyond them and to obt‘ain wider support among indep-endent trade unionists and ~ feminists,

10 YEARS OF STRUGGLE (part 4)