Speech to CWU women's conference, Leeds

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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It is my privilege to address you today. The need for the self-organisation of women, and women trade unionists, is as great as ever.

It is evident that the cost of the economic recession and crisis is being borne disproportionately by women. In these circumstances, your voice, collective and individual, is of the greatest significance.

If we are to address the problems that our movement is facing, we need your views. 1.09 million women are out of the workforce. This is a terrible setback for women’s rights. Without access to paid employment, we cannot talk of equality.

At the same time, 11 billion of the 18 billion pounds cuts through changes to tax and benefits this year is coming from women’s pockets. As living standards have been assaulted by this Government, so are women bearing the greater burden.

David Cameron wonders why the Tories are losing support amongst women voters - rather than seek advice from his spin doctors, we suggest the Prime Minister makes a few retreats, such as:

Re-instate the ring fencing to Sure Start Grants for Local Authorities
Restore the Child Care element of the Working Tax Credit to its previous level
Ensure that funding remains for services protecting women against domestic violence
And lift the threat to women’s pensions in the public sector

On this last point, according to Unison – the average pension of a low paid woman council workers is just £2,800 a year. And the Government wonders why there is going to be a strike on the 30th November.

I have offered some simple steps for the Government to take - but these are ones they simply aren’t taking. We must make a fight and your efforts are vital in this.

The GMB has estimated that two thirds of those losing their jobs in schools and councils are women. These are desperately bad figures. Decades of progress in integrating women into the workforce are severely set back by the Coalition Government’s austerity measures.

We have to argue and organise against the suggestion that there is no alternative to austerity. Despite Cameron’s insistence this week that we are in a debt crisis – the fact remains that the debt crisis is a product of the collapsing economic activity by the private sector.

We have witnessed a long investment strike by private companies and by the banks. They want wages and public service cuts so that profits can be fully restored.

We must press for investment – not cuts. Only growth in the economy will allow for unemployment to be reduced. Only growth will increase tax revenues to the Government, which actually reduces the deficit in Government spending. Cutting public spending and services while the private sector is stagnant will result in many years of low, or no, growth.

So, as a Union, we keep pressing for an expansionary policy for the economy as the only way to really address our problems. We have difficult fights in front of us. But difficult though they are, the fact is that your campaigning makes a difference.

Ask Nadine Dorris. She was determined to demonstrate that abortion providers such as Marie Stopes and BPAS were receiving a commission for every termination they carried out.

Assisted by some of the media, there appeared to be a real threat to organisations which support a women’s right to choose. A fiction of “vested interest” was bring created. But women took a stand. The Abortion Rights Campaign, and many others, ensured that MPs would know the truth.

Under this pressure, Nadime Doris’s proposals to direct women to counselling by “a private body does not itself provide for the termination of pregnancies” were voted down by MPs…This was an important victory for women, and an inspiration to all of us.

Now this week, we have published the first document to implement Proposition 67 carried at this year’s Annual Conference. Proposition 67 is essentially in line with Propositions 11 and 12 carried at your Conference last year.

Basically, the NEC has been directed to draw up proposals to implement Rule 2. You should all have copies of this first document which lays out the staff profile of the CWU as an employer.

I think this was the right place to start. We cannot properly address our grievances with employers, until we are a model employer ourselves. And we cannot expect branches to have rounded equality programmes, if we do not have a programme at CWU headquarters. Now the profile does not surprise us - women are under represented in the higher grades, and black employees even more so.

OK – to address a problem we must first identify it. We know that there are obstacles to the promotion of women and black employees.

We have some particular problems, as our employees include those who have been elected by the membership, and staff who have been appointed. But we now have to have a dialogue with our employees unions, and members of staff, as to how to remove the obstacles to equality and proportionality. We are clear that these are not problems of individuals – they are problems of organisation and practice. But they are problems which we have to tackle. That’s one step.

The next step will be to take this issue to the Branches. We will begin a process which will allow us to audit proportionality amongst our branch officers and reps. This will be a lengthy process with many difficulties but I am confident that we can achieve a stronger and more proportionately represented union through this process.

In all of this, the Women’s Advisory Committee, and your local and regional Women’s Committees have a major role to play. No one can better identify the hurdles women face in our organisation than our women members.

I hope you will use the structures of the Union – both your committees and your Branch and Regional structures to ensure that your views are represented in this process.

We need to know, and only you can show us the way.

I am delighted to see that you have a very full agenda today, so my best wishes for a successful conferences.

Thanks for listening.

[AnotherLimey]

Reverse correctness, all those things effect men too, if there were a men only conference they would be up in arms!

[dvbuk55]

Reverse correctness, all those things effect men too, if there were a men only conference they would be up in arms!

You are now officially named as a male chauvinist pig . Man or woman, whatever colour, whatever preference they are still an employee of Royal Mail and potentially a member of the union. Any restrictions placed upon them are usually covered by law. Do we really need and can we afford these sideshows? Pay, pensions and conditions affect us all and those are the things the union should be concentrating on.