THE ORGANISATIONAL NATURE OF UNION CAREERS

ABSTRACT

The equality agenda has gained a much higher visibility in the UK and in France. Most unions have adopted specific measures to improve women's representation in their structures. However, even in highly feminised unions, women remain under-represented in union leadership positions. To understand the gap between the presence of women in the lay membership/activist population and their slow disappearance at the higher levels of the union hierarchy, this study is focused on the role of organizational contexts. We argue that to understand the feminisation of union leadership, we need to consider the characteristics of ‘internal union labour markets’: ports of entry, typical/atypical career routes, norms of job evaluation, internal job segregation and hierarchy, human resources management and gender-equality policies. To fully grasp the influence of contexts on the process of feminisation, specific attention to the evolution of the repertoires of action by unions is also useful.

Keywords:

• union
• equality
• gender
• career
• organisation
• France
• UK

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the CFDT, GMB and UNISON. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for useful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

¹According to the Labour Force Surveys, in 2005, women accounted for 46 percent of those in employment in both countries. In 2003, women account for 39 percent of those affiliated to a union in the UK (TUC Audit 2006) and for 35 percent of those affiliated to a general union in France (MSU Survey 2004). According to the Labour Force Surveys, in 2005, in the UK union density for women is 30 percent and 27 percent for men; in France union density for women is 7 percent and 9 percent for men.

²Until recently, the amount of time-off for different union roles was linked neither to the number of members nor elections scores, but was given equally to five different unions that were considered as ‘legitimate’ and which could designate employee representatives in any company with more than 10 employees for ‘délégué du personnel,’ more than 50 for ‘comité d'entreprise.’

³This ethnicity issue has not been included in the study, as it has never been included in internal equality policies in the CFDT and remains unquestioned.

⁴A ‘syndicat’ in France is a local general union, affiliated to an industrial federation.

⁵This distinction was introduced by Jewson and Mason (1986). Liberal measures aim to create fair procedures through bureaucratised processes, such as training, to enhance women's participation. Radical measures seek a fair distribution of rewards, through the politicisation of decision making and the raising of conscientiousness, and promote positive discrimination.

⁶Translated as a ‘trade union of members,’ this idea suggests a participative unionism model, opposed to a ‘trade union of officials,’ close to the US notion of ‘business unionism.’

⁷Specific occupational status almost equivalent to ‘managerial and professional staff,’ represented by specific unions, status integrated in collective agreement and associated with specific advantages (such as pensions).