Women’s struggle and class struggle – Part Three

Thursday, 18 March 2010

Should women separate themselves from the labour movement or should they be an essential part of it in struggling for their rights? Any attempt to divide trade unionists and workers in general according to gender is reactionary and plays into hands of the bosses. Experience itself shows that once women start to organise in the workplace and fight for their rights, this cuts across divisions, unites men and women workers and strengthens both the position of women and the working class as a whole.

Petty Bourgeois Feminism
Unfortunately, petty bourgeois feminism has also crept into some parts of the labour movement, and despite good intentions, it has had harmful effects.

Many on the Danish left wing have put forward a demand for more women managers in Danish companies. But what does this mean? It changes absolutely nothing for the vast majority of women who are not going to become bosses. It makes no difference as to whether they should receive a 15% lower salary from a female or male boss, or whether a woman or a man fires them. It does not change their situation. One argument in favour of more female managers is that it has been shown to produce positive numbers in the balance sheet with women on the boards - it means in fact that they are drawing even more surplus value out of the workers. While female executives, professors, politicians get their homes cared for by an underpaid au pair girl, working women are pressured to the utmost by long working hours, shorter opening hours in day care services, etc. etc. Such demands help to blur the class antagonisms. Throughout history, the bourgeoisie have tried in many different ways to create a sense of "we stand together" and we are doing something to solve the problems.

The very tops of the black population in the U.S. get good positions to give the impression that the problems have been solved, while the remainder are held down. The election victory of Obama in the U.S. gave immense hope for change but it has not meant a change in circumstances for the vast majority of black Americans. Just as having Hillary Clinton as Secretary has made no difference to the majority of American women. Thatcher in England in the eighties and Angela Merkel in Germany today cannot be said to represent a step closer to women s emancipation - quite the contrary.

Women s issues have also been used to promote a right-wing agenda in the labour movement. One of the arguments for Helle Thorning Schmidt, the right-wing candidate in the election for president of the Social Democrats against Frank Jensen, was that she was a woman. The same was true during the last general secretary election in the LO (the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions), where leftist Harald Bّrsting won against the right wing Tine Auervig-Huggenberger.

Women at the top of the labour movement can just as well as men move away from the ordinary members and betray their interests and requirements. It is not the gender that determines whether a person can best lead the fight for women s emancipation, but the person s political stance.

Therefore, Marxists also reject any positive gender discrimination, as for example gender divided lists of speakers, special quotas in party leaderships, boards, etc. We reject special quotas and seats in boards reserved for women. This is often used by the right wing to promote their people against genuine class fighters. Political issues not gender must decide the majority in the leadership of the workers’ movement. We also reject all proposals like gender segregation of lists of speakers for conferences in the movement. It is ideas, not gender, which are crucial.

Besides the fact that these initiatives do not work and do not get more women on the podium, for example, they are also degrading towards women who are actually active, because they implicitly say that they are unable to express their own views, to fight for their own ideas and win seats on the basis of ideas and skills.

We oppose all these proposals because they divide the working class, men against women and vice versa. We fight in the entire labour movement for women s issues to be taken seriously and discussed by all, both men and women.

Women s struggles in the early days of the labour movement
Women have been part of the working class since the beginning of capitalism. And since then women have participated in the class struggle. The first strike in Denmark, involving women, took place in 1886, where 225 unorganised women at Rubens Steam Weaving mill shut down the works.

Today, women represent 49% of the members of the LO but for women to get organised has not been without its problems. And there are still problems. As the proportion of female labour in the market has increased so has also their degree of organisation and participation in the class struggle. Below is a brief outline of some important battles among female workers in Denmark and especially the lessons learned.

Many feminists reject the common struggle. They explain that the men in the labour movement were and are chauvinists, and that women must organise themselves separately, which has been a constant discussion since 1871 when both the Social Democrats in Denmark and the Danish Women s Society was founded. There is no doubt that there existed and still exist prejudices within the labour movement, but history shows that through the common struggle, these prejudices can be broken down.

The striking women in Rubens Steam Weaving mill joined the Textile Workers Union and got strike support from them, but the strike ended in a defeat. The leadership of the trade union presented the defeat as an expression of “female nature”, that it was due to the fact that women were incapable of showing solidarity, had not understood when and how it was best to fight etc. It was the first but definitely not the last time that the union leadership in the Danish labour movement blamed the strikers themselves for the defeat. When women have been involved, female nature was always to blame. This happened, for example again later in the female plaque painters’ dispute in the 1970s, which we will come back to.

In the early days of the labour movement many unions were closed to women, although women accounted for approximately 20% of all industrial workers at the end of the1890s. In addition there were other forms of female paid employment, as for example maids. For many working families the woman s income was very important and for female single parents it was crucial.

But although the women were generally more difficult to organise, partly because many worked from home and therefore were completely isolated, and indeed had enough to deal with both work and family commitments, the organisation grew steadily. At the end of the 1890s around 20% of female industrial workers were organised in trade unions, which were more than in most other countries.

From 1888 the Danish Social Democrats included in its programme, "The full emancipation of the humankind without regard to gender, race or nationality," and demanded the same voting rights for men and women and equal pay for equal work. It did not mean that there was not and still is not any prejudice also within the labour movement and that the labour movement in many areas had a reactionary approach to women s issues. But the feminist critique of the labour movement’s position on women’s issues misses the point.

Within the labour movement, the ideal that a woman should stay at home carried on all the way up to the 1960s. The man was considered the family breadwinner and the labour movement s goal was thus to get him a salary, which made it unnecessary for the wife to work. Although in the real world a large proportion of working-class women could not afford to stay home.

Today it is easy enough to say that it was a progressive step that the women came into the labour market, but at the end of the 1800s onwards there was not much to strive for in the labour market for working class women. Women of the bourgeoisie and the middle classes could pursue careers as doctors or lawyers etc., while working class women could only hope for 10-15 hours of hard, heavy work. At the same time, there was no public childcare. Bourgeois women could solve the problem by hiring nannies, but for working class women it was a serious problem.

Feminists also accuse the labour movement of putting to one side the interests of women in favour of the skilled male workers interests, and as an example they highlight the discussion on the prohibition of working from home. In the early days of the labour movement many worked from home, as for example seamstresses. For many women this was the only way of making work and family responsibilities compatible. The unions fought for a ban, because it split up the working class and the home workers were poorly organised. The feminists opposed the ban and their response was that it shows that women must be outside the trade union movement. The Marxist answer to this is that the labour movement must put forward the demand for proper, safe and affordable childcare, a living wage and humane working hours for all.

As Marx and Engels explained in the Communist Manifesto:

“In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.” (The Communist Manifesto)

We see how they stress the “proletariat as a whole”. There is no way around the labour movement. Women s issues cannot be seen as separate from the question of class struggle. It is not just on the women s issues that the leaders of the labour movement do not have a progressive line. Throughout history, the workers’ movement has been split along many lines. For example, skilled and unskilled workers have been played off against each other. Also, as we saw more recently in the spring of 2008 during the civil servants strikes in relation to wage negotiations, different groups of public servants, nurses, nursery workers, carers of old people, etc. were on strike for several weeks because they were dissatisfied with the wage deal that was being put forward. The leaders of some of the unions for public servants who were not on strike demanded in the media that the strikers should not get more than the proposed deal, since that would mean that their members would be dissatisfied. The leaders of the different unions on strike also fought each other; the leadership of the nurses’ union (DSR) for example put a lot of emphasis on the demand that the social and health care workers should not earn more than a nurse. The strike was an open-and-shut case for standing together across professions and demanding a higher wage for the low earning women’s sectors.

However, despite the fact that the leaders of the unions fought each other, the strike did lead to some prejudices being broken down. In line with the women becoming a part of the working class they also became a part of the struggle. It is through common struggle that unity across gender or religion etc. can be created.

In 1875 there was such a labour dispute, where it seemed that unorganised women would take over the striking men s work, which changed the attitude of the tobacco workers union, and they realised that they also had to organise the women. The general secretary of the tobacco workers said after the conflict:

"By a regrettable misconception the female and male workers have hitherto stood hostile toward each other as competitors but also here Socialism had exercised its blessing Effect because we through the socialist doctrines reached the recognition that all workers are in solidarity, equal against the attacks from Capital. Of this doctrine, we also come to clarity on woman’s equality with the man, and therefore the woman worker for the same work must be paid in the same proportion as the man." (Larsen I Arbejdernes historie i Danmark, 2007 page 376)

The strike of the female plaque painters in the 1970s
Throughout the 1960s, there were a growing numbers of so-called wild-cat strikes, i.e. strikes outside the officially recognised bargaining process. In many of these strikes, including in industry, women played an important role as in the Philips strike in 1954, where a majority of the employees were women.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s women workers through struggle raised demands for better conditions, higher wages and in several cases equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. In the 1970s new groups began to participate in strike action, primarily civil servants, the vast majority of whom were women. Nursery teachers, nurses etc. began to use strike action as a weapon.

One of the best-known and most important strikes among women in the 1970s was probably the strike among the female plaque painters at the Royal Porcelain Factory in 1972/73. It was a strike that became a point of reference for the entire working class, and which triggered huge solidarity from the rest of the working class, and which showed that women are certainly able to strike.

Approximately 150 plaque ladies, those who paint plaques at the Royal Porcelain Factory, complained about deteriorating working conditions, which meant a decrease in the piece rate. Factory management agreed to negotiate a new wage deal, but two weeks later terminated the agreement. The plaque ladies refused to work according to the old agreement, but would continue working according to the new one. They demanded that the factory should comply with the standard two months notice for termination of local agreements. Against this background, the factory s management sent them home with the claim that they were on strike. The plaque ladies showed up at the factory every day and requested to be allowed to work under the new agreement.

The matter was taken up in the Labour Court, where the court agreed with the women’s claim that the factory had illegally rescinded the local agreement. The Labour Court sentenced the factory to pay a fine of DKK 20,000 for terminating the local agreement illegally, but at the same time it sentenced the plaque ladies to a penalty of DKK 72,000 for going on strike illegally a clear-cut example of the class character of the Labour Court.

During the strike the plaque ladies, who previously had not imagined that they could change anything, learned a lot and the women showed themselves and the rest of the working class that women can strike and in many cases lead the class struggle. The Plaque ladies met every day and discussed the strike, and many of the women who previously did not dare say anything in larger gatherings, began to participate in discussions. The Plaque ladies also organised a tour of other workplaces where this was possible and explained about their strike. At the workplaces the support was tremendous, both morally and financially. In total DKK 352,311 was collected, which at that time was a huge amount of money and the verdict in the Labour Court led to spontaneous collections across the country, which totalled an additional DKK 60,000.

The trade union and the LO led the negotiations in the Labour Court without involving the plaque ladies, and generally treated the women with incredible disdain. When the plaque ladies asked what professional arbitration was, they got the answer from their union representatives that it was “a room with a table and two chairs. [...] Although we explained it to you, you would still never understand it.” (Thygesen, Erfaringer fra en arbejdskamp, 1974) The LO President, Thomas Nielsen commented to the press that it was the plaque ladies own fault that they had received such a large fine, and that they were "silly, stubborn and stupid" (Plattepigernes kamp, 1974). The tremendous support from the workplaces, on the other hand, showed that although the leadership of the trade unions treated the plaque ladies with disdain, this was definitely not the case with the trade union rank and file.

When feminists accuse unions of being dominated by men, they forget that there are huge differences between the leadership and the ranks. Generally the leadership behaves arrogantly towards members regardless of their gender, but mostly against marginalised groups. The task is to create unity among the rank and file against this fragmentation of the working class and thereby put pressure on the leadership, instead of helping to increase fragmentation.

The strike as such had nothing to do with women s issues, but during the strike it also raised questions of that character for the women involved. One of the plaque ladies explains how this came about:

“I guess we had had it in us all the time that they should not be allowed to talk down to us, even though we are only girls - but it is only within the past year, that we have become really conscious. Not primarily as women but as human beings. Previously it was unthinkable that women could sit down and enter into conflict, but this is no more. We have been told from many places that they had not expected that a group of women could hold out so long without becoming enemies themselves. It is that old-fashioned view that men have of girls. But it contains the truth that it probably has been a bigger problem for many of the girls than it would have been for a similar group of men. There are many single mothers and in general many who have a lot on their plate.” (Thygesen, Erfaringer fra en arbejdskamp, 1974 page 66)

Many of the women saw that the conflict took place on three fronts, employers, unions and the home front. For single mothers, it was obviously hard to be involved in a dispute, but also many of those with partners had a difficult time when their men could not understand what the strike was about and complained about being neglected. For several of the plaque ladies the conflict resulted in a divorce. A strike often has far-reaching consequences, including personal ones for those involved and divorces, for example, are not rare.

It is certainly not unique, that when women go on strike, they acquire a very different conception of themselves as several of the plaque ladies described it, "they had woken up", and it also changes the conditions in the home. Several women subsequently became active in the union. But a single strike will not solve the problems by itself; a general struggle against capitalism is necessary before people can truly be free. The following comment from one of the plaque ladies after the conflict shows well why this is:

"Now we got back to work. It was strange. I was filled with joy, but at the same time it hurt. I would be on piecework again. I was not supposed to think, not to speak or to act. I could not. I looked at my co-workers. Did they have it just as difficult? It couldn’t be true that we again had to be productive machines, without any opportunity to discuss and figure out all that we had been through." (Thygesen, Erfaringer fra en Arbejdskamp, 1974)

The fight for equal pay
Equal pay was introduced in the collective agreements in the private sector in 1973 after years of pressure from women workers, in particular during strikes among female crane drivers in the shipyards and a joint campaign from trade union women and also the Red-stockings movement. The Women Workers’ Trade Union in Denmark, KAD, had over many years raised the demand of equal pay. They adopted this demand in wage agreements in 1945 and throughout the 1960s, and several trade unions, put equal pay on the agenda. More generally, in society there was a greater focus on women s issues as part of the general process of radicalisation. Young people, especially middle-class women began to raise women s issues and formed different groups that were jointly known as the Red-stockings movement. The Red-stockings from the beginning raised the demand of equal pay. On the same day as the Red-stockings first famous event took place, with bra-burning on Strّget [the main street in Copenhagen], they went to Tuborg Brewery and distributed flyers calling for equal pay.

The Red-stockings drew attention to this demand, but it was only when it was raised in the working-class movement by working women in the unions that it was possible for it to be implemented. In 1971 a group for equal pay was set up, attended by active trade union women from in particular the KAD s Dept. 5 (industrial workers), the Red-stockings and possibly women from other groups. It was not KAD nationally that was involved, but the left wing in the union. The group organised a demonstration for equal pay and distributed 13,000 flyers in the large workplaces in Copenhagen, and women from several of the main workplaces got involved in the organising of the demonstration. The demonstration was held on February 8 1971, which was attended by several thousands and the female workers at Tuborg went on strike.

The demonstrations and generally an increasing number of illegal strikes, such as the plaque ladies strike, put the leadership of the trade unions under pressure and the KAD’s general secretary threatened after the collective bargaining in 1971 that, if equal pay was not introduced in 1973, the female workers would go on strike. The discussion on gender equality began to spread into the Social Democratic Party, and in 1976 the Equal Pay Act was passed. The fight for equal pay was successful because of the mobilisation among all the members of the labour movement and thus the leadership was put under pressure.

The Red-stockings raised some important debates, and many of the Red-stockings also played an important role in the labour movement. The Red-stockings Movement, however, continued along the feminist road with a separate organisation of women and a focus on "purely" women s issues. The labour movement and some of the left wing were written off as lacking solidarity with women and only full of prejudices. It was probably partly true that there were still many prejudices which, for example, was clearly expressed by the LO General secretary Thomas Larsen, but history has shown that there is no way forward in separate groups outside the labour movement. Activities, no matter how spectacular they are and how much press coverage they receive, cannot solve any problems. The fight must be taken up inside the labour movement, in the trade unions and the workers’ parties.

Subsequently we have seen that the pay differential between men and women has not moved one iota. Adoption of equal pay revealed in reality only that the problem is much deeper rooted and cannot be solved by laws and agreements.

It appears that equal pay could once again become an issue during the next round of collective bargaining in spring 2010 in Denmark since several of the unions’ leaderships have suggested it as a key demand. This is certainly a positive step, however the biggest problem for the working class right now is unemployment, which is growing, and employers everywhere are using the threat of sackings to put pressure on wages and working conditions. There is a great danger that the demand for equal pay will be used by the employers to demand a minimum wage freeze and perhaps even reduce earnings for male workers. We must not accept this! It would divide the working class. We must demand that the employers immediately remedy the situation by implementing what was agreed in collective agreements and by law more than 30 years ago; equal pay for equal work!

Civil servants in growing wave of strikes
As mentioned earlier, the vast majority of public servants are women, who began to strike on an equal footing with the rest of the working class in the 1970s growing wave of strikes. The Danish labour market is very segregated. Women for example constitute 75 per cent of the staff of municipalities and men around 66 percent of private sector employees1. The situation of women is closely linked to the situation of public servants. Throughout both the eighties and nineties, public spending had been heavily reduced, favourable terms of employment for civil servants were abolished, there was a wave of privatisations, and in general working conditions for civil servants were attacked. The number of children per educator or teacher, or elderly per family assistant, etc. increased.

This policy continued with the right-wing government from 2001 onwards. But from the turn of the millennium, the class struggle entered a new period and protests began to recover strength. The right-wing government conducted cuts mainly through local councils, and for several years this led to large movements. In autumn 2006 there was a strike among nursery teachers and others in numerous municipalities. The nursery teachers in the second largest city Aarhus was in the vanguard with a 4 week long wild-cat strike, and in the summer of 2007 a whole new group began to move. The social and health care workers began to strike for better pay.

In the eighteen month period from spring 2006, three demonstrations with more than 100,000 participants were held against cuts in welfare. It was not fighting spirit or courage that was lacking in these women and men, but leadership. The public employees’ unions would not support the strikes and not coordinate the strikes in the different municipalities, so the strikes were defeated, and the cuts continued.

In spring 2008 collective bargaining for public employees resulted in many weeks of strike action by nurses, nursery teachers and social and health care workers. The demands were "equal pay" and "a man’s wage to women workers." But it was unclear what was meant. As explained above, the leaders of the various trade unions, both those on strike and those who did not strike fought each other. A graphic image was that at the same time on the same day there was a demonstration of the nurses at the Town Hall Square and a demonstration of educators at the square in front of Parliament. Once again the leadership of the trade unions decided to play one section off against the other. While the DSR nurses union raised the demand for equal pay, they made it very clear that equal pay applied more to the nurses than to the social and health care workers.

As for the plaque ladies, the strike meant a huge change for the women involved. Nurses went on strike for the first time in 1973 and said even then that they wanted to break with the idea of considering the job as a nurse as a calling and the Florence Nightingale avocation, something the strikers reiterated during the strike in 2008, now referred to as the end of being "nice girls".

The strike effectively ended in a small defeat with a minimal wage increase, not because of the strikers but because of the leadership of the unions that were on strike. The leadership of the trade unions did not involve the strikers in decisions, because it would mean that they would lose control of the strike, and likewise they did not coordinate the struggles because they feared losing influence and because they did not see the struggle as a joint struggle, but a struggle to get as many concessions as possible from the same limited money in the state and city budgets. The strike should have been spread to other groups, not least the private sector workers, but that could have meant the strike spiralling completely out of the control of the leadership and a situation like the general strike in Denmark in 1985 could have arisen.

Firstly, it shows clearly that it is not the gender of the trade union leadership, which determines whether they will take the lead in the struggle or not. The leadership of the DSR nurses union is composed of 90% women, and it did not play a better role in securing a victory in the strike, than the leadership of the other unions. Secondly, during the strike another problem for the public sector workers, and thus a large group of working-class women also became clear. In reality, here it is the politicians who are the employers, but at the same time they disclaim any responsibility, and refer to “the Danish Model” that in Denmark trade union struggles and political questions are supposed to remain separated. But the fact is that they cannot be separated and especially not for the public sector workers. The fight for higher wages, better conditions for public employees and, not least, for equal pay is very much a political issue and cannot be resolved through the trade unions alone.

The labour movement leadership, both in the unions and the workers’ parties, the Social Democracy, the Socialist People s Party (SF) and the Unity List, should together have presented the demand for a wage increase to remove the pay differential for all civil servants. That way they could have shown a clear alternative to the policy of the right-wing government. Another problem for public servants is that they really do not have the same weight to put behind their demands, as workers in the private sector. A strike is designed to hit the employers in the pocket, but when public employees strike, it affects no purses; on the contrary, it often affects children, the old and the sick. To avoid this problem the nurses for example always provide emergency staffing when they are on strike. That meant that even though all nurses were officially on strike during the strike in 2008, in many hospital departments more nurses were on duty than on a regular day because the emergency staffing provided more than the everyday staffing which is also reveals the crazy working conditions.

Civil servants cannot win the battle alone. They must appeal to and involve the workers in the private sector, which also has a large interest in achieving decent welfare services. The split between public servants and private sector workers should be overcome. Previously, the public and private sector agreements were negotiated simultaneously and the nursery teachers’ demand for a 35-hour working week for example played an important role in the general strike in 1985. Subsequently, they were split up so they negotiated separate contracts. We must call for all divisions to be removed both within the organisations and in negotiations on pay and conditions.

Forward to the emancipation of women!
Women have always played an important role in history, also in a series of revolutions from the beginnings of Christianity and Islam through to the French Revolution. The Russian revolution was started by Russian women demanding bread and peace on International Working Women s Day. And today, although many of those who participated in the recent strikes have been disillusioned, and the present recession has in general led to a collapse in the number of strikes temporarily, it does not mean that nothing is going on beneath the surface. In each struggle the working class learns, whether it ends in victory or defeat. The current stalemate is only temporary, under the surface conclusions are being drawn. One conclusion is that the fight must now be fought politically, and one of the outcomes of the public servants’ strike has been a huge growth in the number of people joining and voting for the SF.

The working class is forced into battle again and again, and they will demand a leadership that will lead the fight in their interests. A struggle to change society is fundamentally necessary to create a socialist society. Then the foundations will be created for the full emancipation of women and the elimination of all oppression. Women s struggle is part of the working class struggle for liberation.

It is up to the present generation to create a society based on genuine socialism where the emancipation of woman and humankind as a whole is possible. Throughout history, the women workers have demonstrated their courage and fighting spirit and played a crucial role in the fight for a socialist society, a society where we, in the words of Engels, go from “the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."

1 http://www.lige.dk

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