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IIRA 2007 – The dynamics of European Employment Relations – 3rd – 6th September -Manchester

The revitalisation of trade union: a women’s issue?The case of France, UK and Hungary

Guillaume Cécile Pochic SophieMaître de conference Chargée de rechercheUniversité de Lille 1, France CMH-CNRS, Francececile.guillaume@lise.cnrs.fr Sophie.Pochic@ens.fr

The paradox between the continuous feminization of the workforce and the constant underrepresentation of women in union’s structures, cultures and agendas has been confirmed byrecent comparative studies (Silvera, 2006; Ardura, Silvera 2002). Despite significant evolutionsin terms of union density for women, delivering democracy and equality remains a majorchallenge for most unions in Europe. Apart from eastern European countries, like Hungary,women’s employment rate has constantly risen in the west part of Europe, such as in the UK orin France1. Correspondingly, in those three countries, the percentage of women affiliated to aunion is now almost equivalent to the proportion of women in employment2, but with largedisparities between unions depending on the gender composition of the workforce covered by theunion. In France and in Hungary, union density for women is now almost similar to men.. In theUK, it has even been higher for women than for men for the third consecutive year in 20063 andmembership has been regressing at a slower rate among women than men, like in Hungary4. Inthis context, attracting women has been identified as a condition to slow down membershipdecline, at least in the UK. Unions have acknowledged that the renewal of their membership willbe linked to their ability to attract young, male and female workers, working in the private sectorand in small companies5. The organising agenda (Heery et al. 1999) with its emphasis onrecruitment of new members and the equality agenda are developing together. Diversity andequality are being promoted to attract and accommodate a more diverse workforce, through a

1 In the UK the employment rate for women of working age (16-64 years) is 73% in 2003 (TUC Equality Audit,2005), in France it is 63% in 2003 (INSEE, 2004) and it is 44% in Hungary in 2005 (16-74 years) (Fazekas, Koltay,2006).2 In the UK women accounted for 44% of those in employment in 2003, and for 39% of those affiliated to a union(TUC, 2006). In France they account for 45% of those in employment and for 35% of those affiliated to a generalunion (MSU Survey, 2004).3 In the UK union density for women is 29.7% and 27.2% for men (TUC, 2006). In France union density for womenis 7.2% and 9% for men (INSEE, 2006). In Hungary union density for women is 22% and 17% for men (LabourForce Survey, 2001).4 Notably because women are more represented in the public sector, sector that has been growing under the LabourGovernment in the UK and that has better resisted to unemployment in Hungary.5 The WERS survey made by the DTI in 2004 shows that 77% of the workplaces in the private sector have no unionmembers. The proportion of recognised union workplaces amongst 10-24 employees companies has droppedsignificantly in 6 years (from 28% in 1998 to 18% in 2004).

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strategy of “field enlargement” (Heery, 2005; Kelly, 2000). Most unions in the UK tend todevelop new forms of more inclusive trade unionism, through self-organisation or “interimseparatism” (Briskin, 1999; Colgan and Ledwith, 1996), with the idea of a circular relationshipbetween internal and external gender equality strategies. Research has found that female tradeunion officials bring gendered values and beliefs to their work (Heery and Kelly, 1988) and thatthe support for a feminized agenda is likely to be stronger among female paid officials (Healyand Kirton, 2000; Kirton, 1999). Moreover, a critical mass of women within decision-makingstructures should “ensure that the wider female membership has “voice” within the union”(Healy and Kirton, 2002).

However, if women clearly contribute to the stabilization of union membership and are believedto bring regeneration to an “unresponsive, male-dominated bureaucracy” (Colgan and Ledwith,2002a), they remain under-represented among workplace representatives, branch officials andpaid regional and national union officers. Evidences of vertical and horizontal job segregationinside union structures have been documented in the UK (Heery and Kelly, 1988) and in France(Guillaume, 2007; Silvera, 2003). In most countries and especially in the UK, unions have beencriticised for failing to respond to the concerns of women, black workers and other groups ofatypical members, including part-time, temporary, disabled workers. This selective and unequalrepresentation of women in union’s structures and agendas has been considered as a majordemocratic challenge (Colgan, Ledwith, 2002; Greene, Kirton, 2003). Among the classicputative causes of the under-representation of women in union leadership (Briskin andMcDermott, 1993 ; Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce and Hayes, 1990), research papers refer to differentstructural explanations such as the historical under-organisation of female workplaces and themarginalisation of women unions in the labour movement (Kirton, 2006; Silvera, 2006; Rogerat,2005; Frader, 1996), the gendered division of domestic work (Munro, 1999) or the structure ofwomen’s employment (Kirton, 2006 ; Walters, 2002). Considering the efforts made by mostunions in France and in the UK to promote equality policies, including the reorganisation oftrade union work (work-life balance policies, childcare provisions) and new opportunities forwomen (reserved seats, fair proportionality), other types of causes are now being investigated.Recent articles have focused their analysis on the gender-bias of organisational trade unioncultures and practices (Kirton, 2006) that can affect both propensity and perceived opportunity toparticipate. Following recent developments in sociology of gender and organisation (Guillaumeand Pochic, 2007; Halford and Leonard, 2000; Wajcman, 1998; Mills and Tancred, 1992), thistheoretical approach acknowledges the embeddedness of gendered inequalities in organisationalstructures and practices, providing new understanding for the permanence of the glass-ceiling forwomen in any type of organisation (including trade unions).

In this perspective, we have chosen to make use of a “union career” approach with a specificemphasis on the significant actors and events, and the main ‘turning points’ of one’s career (Hall,1948; Hugues, 1937). Inspired by recent studies on the making of women trade union leaders(Kirton, 2006; Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce, Hayes, 1990), we have compared women and men atfour stages of their union career: entry, activism, consolidation and directing. We have analysedretrospectively these four phases through trade unionists’ life-stories, who have demonstrated aconsistent level of activism in their union career. In doing so, we have chosen to focus ouranalysis on formal activism (Sayce, Greene, Ackers, 2006), knowing that the implicit assumptionof continuity and linearity of this career pattern is a masculine construction (Greene and Kirton,2003; Healy, 1999). Women’s careers in trade unions are more horizontal, in parallel to others

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‘careers’ (paid work, volunteer work, family), and rarely end at the directing stage. Applied tothree countries (France, UK and Hungary) this grid has allowed us to consider the maindeterminants of union participation, embedded in each ‘societal’ context: the gendered divisionof domestic labour, women’s employment and trade union work organisation. We have focusedour study on this last organisational dimension, as it can now be considered as a more significantbarrier to women’s activism than the gendered division of domestic labour (Guillaume, 2007;Kirton, 2006).

MethodologyAs other comparative studies, we have chosen to investigate one particular strategy of unionrenewal across three countries (Fairbrother and Yates, 2003; Waddington and Hoffman, 2000),knowing that there is a wide range of strategies in diverse union movements across countries thatvary along a wide range of variables (Frege, Kelly, 2004). The three countries – France, UK andHungary - have been chosen because of their obvious differences in terms of institutional settingof industrial relations, dominant union identity and repertoire of collective action (Hyman,2001), economic and political context. In each country, we have selected two different unions(UNISON and GMB in the UK; KASz and VASAS in Hungary, the FGMM and Fédération desServices of the CFDT in France) belonging to the same confederation6 with different level offeminization and diverse type of industrial characteristics (industry / services; private/publicsector). The unions/confederations investigated are known to be rather moderate in theirleadership (Heery, 2002), promoting social partnership with employers and/or with thegovernment. We made 155 qualitative life-stories interviews with women and men tradeunionists (elected officials, paid officers, rep., lay activists) between July 2005 and July 2007. 60interviews were made in France. Cécile Guillaume spent 4 years working for the researchdepartment of the CFDT (2001-2005). 50 interviews were completed in Hungary (15 MSzOSz,15 KASz, 20 VASAS), with the help of Hungarian translators. 45 interviews were made in theUK (5 TUC, 20 UNISON, 20 GMB). Cécile Guillaume and Sophie Pochic attented the TUCWomen’s Officers Summer School in July 2007. Cécile Guillaume attended the GMB congressand a branch meeting at the Lambeth Council in June 2007. The research has been financed bythe European Social Fund.

1. Forms and dynamics of union equality policies in each countryTo understand the selective and unequal representation of women in unions’ structure andagenda, formal equality policies first need to be considered. Over the years, unions in Europehave tried to implement different types of measures in favour of women. The richness of acomparative study lies in the possibility to establish the contribution of a particular strategy topromote women and their interests, its relative costs and benefits compare to other forms ofaction (Frege, Kelly, 2004).

6 The TUC (Trade Union Confederation) in the UK represents 6.5 millions people affiliated to 59 unions with a totalfeminization rate of 50%. The CFDT (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail) in France has 600.000members (Andolfatto, Labbé, 2007), including 44% of women. The MSzOSz (National association of HungarianTrade Unions) in Hungary represents 240.000 members, including 48% of women (Neumann, 2005).

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1.1. UK: An early recognition of the “democratic deficit” for womenIn the UK, the issue of delivering union equality was identified more than 20 years ago, pushedby second wave feminism movements and vanguard equality activists (Colgan and Ledwith,1996, Cockburn, 1991, Heery and Kelly, 1988). In a changing political and social environment,it seemed untenable for unions to fail properly to represent the interests of a large and increasingproportion of their members and, at the same time, to claim to be democratic organisations.However, the drive to improve this democratic deficit for women (and other minority groups)has also been analysed as “an instrumental rather that a moral or ethical concern” (Dorgan andGrieco, 1993), in a context of huge membership decline (union density has fallen from 54% in1979 to 29% in 2005), and of growing level of employment rate for women (73% en 2005). In1979, the equality agenda was translated into recommendations by the Trade Union Congress(TUC) in its charter for Equality for Women within Trade Unions. This leading role of the TUChas never ceased. The TUC has been supporting all sorts of initiatives and made constitutionalchanges to increase diversity in its own structures, reserving seats for women and more recentlyfor black women, LGBT and disabled people. Similar measures have been taken by unions toimprove women’s participation. Most unions have switched from liberal to radical measures(self-organised groups, proportionality and fair representation for elections and conferencedelegations within union), to encourage the representation of varied constituencies within tradeunions. Following the introduction of a wide range of specific legal obligations againstdiscrimination (age, sexual orientation, religion, gender, disability) since 1997 and the obviouscommitment of the Labour government to gender mainstreaming, unions have been activelyworking towards improving gender equality through the setting of national priorities forbargaining and the negotiation of decentralised collective agreements7. More recently, theincrease of equal pay litigations against employers8 but also against unions9 has contributed togive higher priority to equality and diversity issues.

However, progress in the unions affiliated to the TUC has been described as “uneven, piecemeal

7 According to the TUC (TUC Equality Audit, 2005), 88% of Unions have produced written policies and guidelineson some aspects of flexible and work-life balance, 83% have produced material on parents and carers, 75% havematerial on women’s pay, 81% have guidelines and material on black, minority ethnic and migrant workers, and71% on LGBT workers. Equality training is also often provided to lay negociators. The effect on collectiveagreement is difficult to assess, because of the lack of national system gathering information on the content ofcollective agreements. But different sources show that Unions have achieved bargaining successes in the field ofequality. The TUC indicates for example that 67% of the unions declare successes on the issue of flexibleworking/life balance and childcare and dependants, 46% on women’ pay.8 See UNISON’s campaign to enforce the single status agreement and avoid that Councils pay out large amounts ofmoney defending equal pay cases rather than carrying out systematic pay and grading reviews.9 The Allan v GMB case (Source: Newsletter HR One, n° 174, 13 décembre 2006). Allan v GMB was brought as asex discrimination case in June 2006 by an employee of Middlesbrough council, and not as an equal pay case. Thetribunal held that the GMB did indirectly discriminate against its female members by placing more attention on payprotection for men than on rightful back pay for women. A determining factor against the GMB was the "way inwhich the back-pay offer has been sold to the membership". The tribunal listed the factors the GMB should haveexplained to its members :a) that the deal on offer was substantially less than they were likely to receive if they were successful before anemployment tribunalb) that part of the reason they were being asked to accept a smaller figure was so that funds could be used to protectthe pay of losers in the job evaluation scheme, including male bonus earners.The GMB appealed against the decision. If the GMB was to lose, it would make a serious precedent with hugepossible financial impact for all the unions.

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and incremental” (Kirton and Healy, 1999), very dependant on the level of activism of women,black, lesbian and gay, disabled and young trade unionists, the action of feminist senior activists,and the recognition by the existing leadership of the importance to the revitalization of the unionof emerging activists/leaders representing particular social groups (Healy and Kirton, 2000). Inour study, UNISON and GMB give a good illustration of this variety. UNISON is always citedas an example because of its long-established equality policy not only in terms of the amount ofresources given, but also in the actual representation of women in the governing body membersand the executive team. After years of limited resources allocated to the existing equalitystructures, the GMB has just conducted an equality review, under the supervision of its firstfemale deputy general secretary, recognising that major steps towards making the GMB a moreinclusive union were to be taken10. Overall, if we look at women’s participation in trade unionstructures, the percentage of women general secretaries has risen from 8% in 1998 to 17% in2004 (12 women out of 71) but mostly in smallest trade unions, except for two big teachingUnions (ATL and NASUWT). In 2006, 15 out of 66 general secretaries were female (LabourSurvey, March 2006). In UNISON and GMB, there is a gap between the feminisation of themembership and the percentage of national executive committee members (64% for UNISON,36% for GMB). The gap is even wider if we look at the percentage of women national officers(48% for UNISON and 14% for the GMB), and regional full-time officers (36% for UNISONand 20% for the GMB in 2006). The composition of the national executive committee is evenmore significant as only one woman is part of the GMB board out of 9 people. However theproportion of women among national officials has risen from 14% to 38% in the GMB. Bycontrast, women are now well represented among UNISON paid regional and national unionofficers, but political decisions are still taken by men and horizontal segregation remains obviousat the workplace level. If UNISON appears to be a more open union, self organisation structuresseem “to be resisted by powerful oligarchic mainstream groups” (Colgan, Ledwith, 2002). If thelegitimacy of these specific constituencies is not questioned inside both unions, questions occuraround the support they receive and the influence they have on the daily course of union agendaand actions. The difficult balance between autonomy and integration for self-organization isreinforced by the existence of separate (and competing) structures for women, race, LGBT anddisability. The inclusion of gender equality issues in the wider concept of diversity11 or humanrights can lead to the diminution of women’s specific interests. Even in a very feminized unionlike UNISON, particular vigilance is required to ensure that women continue to takeresponsibility at the workplace and branch levels.

1.2. France: A moderate interest pushed by legal incentivesIn the 70’s, the two major French confederations - CFDT and CGT – were pushed by strongfeminist movements, vanguard female equality officers and numerous women’s strikes to lookinto gender equality issues (Maruani, 1979). The CFDT took a leading role in the recognition ofa women’s condition agenda (1976 congress) that included a wide range of women’s issues (freeabortion, contraception, working time, domestic work). This policy was supported by theintroduction of a new range of legislation in favour of women’s emancipation in the 70’s, and thefirst gender equality law promoted by the newly elected socialist government in 1983 (Roudy

10 CEC Report to congress 2007. Progressing equality issues in the GMB.11 Approach that is becoming much more institutionalised with the creation of a new commission for Equality ofHuman Rights which is going to replace the separate commission called Gender Equality, Race Equality andDisability.

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law). However, because it relied on collective bargaining agreements with no real incentives orsanctions, this first law has had very mediocre results (Laufer, 2003; Laret-Bedel, 1999). Fromthe mid-80’s until 2000, the equality agenda within unions was weakened by the emergence of“State feminism” (LeBrouster, 2006). Many women activists who had pushed this issue insidetheir union were tempted to work for other new governmental structures or institutionalisedfamily/women movements. The rising unemployment rate and the continuous decline of uniondensity (28% in 1950 and 9% in 2006) have also pressed unions to opt for a more pragmatic andwork-related agenda. Since 2000, collective bargaining on equal opportunities and pay has oncemore been pushed by new legislation inspired by European mainstreaming philosophy, with acompulsory dimension that has never existed before12. One hundred agreements were signedbetween 2001 and 2006, mostly by big companies (groups of more than 10.000 employees). Inmost cases, employers have initiated the negotiation in order to respect the legislation and matchup with social responsibility criteria (Laufer and Silvera, 2006a, 2006b). Since the promulgationof a new equal pay law (2006) and the creation of a national anti-discrimination body (HauteAutorité de Lutte contre les Discriminations et pour l’Egalité), employers also fear possiblelitigations. Overall, unions have rarely taken the lead on equality bargaining and very few casesof tribunal actions have been reported. Unions suffer both from the weakness of their equalityagenda and the very low union density which prevents them from being able to negotiate inmany unorganised workplaces (especially small firms).

Despite the fact that equality has been quite secondary in union’s agenda for more than twentyyears, some unions have implemented equality structures and have modified their rulebook toencourage women’s participation. Since its 1982 congress, the CFDT has adopted a mix ofliberal (dedicated financial resources, specific training courses, equality officers, equalityconference) and radical measures (reserved seats for the national executive committee andminimum representation for congress delegations). In 2001, the confederation set the objective toachieve parity for regional and national structures and fair proportionality for industrialstructures13. The CFDT was the first confederation to have a woman general secretary, NicoleNotat, for more than 10 years (1992-2002). However, this equality policy has had mitigatedresults. If women account for more than 44% of the CFDT membership in 2006, only fewwomen have managed to become general secretaries at the regional or industrial levels (mostlyin very feminised industrial federations). Overall, women remain under-represented in industrialand regional executive teams (in 2004, they account for 32% of federal executive members, and27% of regional executive members). If we look at the union level (equivalent to the UK branchlevel) the situation is even worse. The average percentage of union female general secretaries is 12 Since the Génisson Law (2001), it is compulsary for companies and sectorial branches to negociate equalityagreements every 3 years.13 In France, most unions are organised around two types of structures (the two “legs”): industrial (professionnel)and territorial (interprofessionnel). Industrial federations (fédérations professionnelles) cover a specific industry andrepresent employees of this sector through branch and company bargaining. These federations are divided innumerous unions representing a more limited constituency (something equivalent to the UK branches). These unionshave a specific role within the CFDT. Because of its «grass-rooted » ideology, unions have been entitled with asignificant voting and ruling role. Regional structures (unions régionales) represent the CFDT in a specific area,sitting in different external committees, organising professional elections (Prud’hommes), and assisting industrialunions with servicing and organising activities. They are also divided in smaller units (unions départementales). Allthese structures have been given great autonomy to act for the CFDT in their area and organisze themselves. Theconfederation itself has a bigger role than the TUC in the UK, but its influence on the other structrures is limited bythe high level of decentralisation.

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24% en 2004 (CFDT, 2004). Despite very few data, horizontal job segregation has been reportedboth at the workplace and office levels (Guillaume, 2007; Hege, Dufour and Nunes, 2000). TheCFDT is caught in between the determination to achieve better women representation at alllevels and the difficulty to take compelling actions. Because the confederation was afraid of notbeing able to fill more reserved seats, complete parity for the NEC was not decided at the last2006 congress. Similarly, the CFDT seems to hesitate between promoting mainstreaming actionsand maintaining separate structures and actions. Obviously, the principle of self-organisation forwomen or any other type of minority groups is not easy to implement in a general uniontradition. Moreover, like in Hungary, equality issues are overshadowed by generational renewalquestions.

1.3. Hungary: A superfluous concern in the grand march towards economic marketIn Hungary, equality is obviously a recent concern pressed by European legislation. The firstEqual opportunity law was signed in 2003. Before the change of political regime in 1989, theunique communist trade union (SzOT) did not display specific actions in favour of genderequality. Labour relations were locked into the workplace and union headquarters had very fewinfluence on union agenda (Toth, 2000). Union activity was mainly focused on day-to-dayworkplace mediation (disciplinary or grievances procedures) and the distribution of companies’social funds and holidays resorts benefits (Neumann, 2005). Decentralised collective bargainingon pay was allowed (Toth, 2000), but because of the high level of job segregation equal pay wasnot seen as a matter of negotiation. Family issues such as work-life balance andmaternity/parental rights were covered by State legislation, preserving a rather conservativevision of gendered social roles (Fodor, 2003; Fodor, 2002; Acsady, 2006). In Hungary, like inmost eastern European countries, the influence of second wave feminism (70’s) has been limitedand the only women movements allowed were affiliated to the communist party (Pet_, 2002).Even if women were encouraged to work in a “full-employment society”, the communist rhetoricactually promoted a model of limited emancipation for women. Because of their attributeddomestic responsibilities, women have never been perceived as able/wishing to pursue a career(Nagy, 2005) or to become a reliable activist, even inside the communist party (Fodor, 2003).With a union density rate of nearly 96% (compulsory membership), unions had numerouswomen in their membership. Women were represented in the lay members and rep. populationbut very few could access higher positions in the union hierarchy.

After the change of political regime in 1989, union reform took place through pluralisation, withthe emergence of new confederations (LIGA, Solidarity and MOSZ), and fragmentation with thepartition of the former sole union into four successor confederations, regrouping the 19 sectoralunions of the SZOT (MSzOSz and ASzSz mainly in the private sector, SzEF and ESzT in thepublic sector). Unions had to reinvent their role and adapt both to competitive market economyand parliamentary democracy in a context of high competition between confederations and rapidmembership decline14. Until recently, the union agenda has been focused on institutional issuessuch as the creation of national tripartite institutions, the invention of sectoral level bargainingand the implementation of work councils, following the German dual model of industrialrelations. Equality was not seen as a matter of concern, considering the huge industrial andorganisational issues that unions had to face. In the 1990’s, the massive privatisation of

14 Trade union density has fallen from almost 100% to about 40% in 1994, 20% in 2001 and 17% in 2004 (Neumann,2006)

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Hungarian industrial assets has been followed by a strong economic recession. The massivedecline of union membership has led to an unprecedented shortcoming of resources. Most unionshad to sell their assets and learn to work with a smaller ageing officer population and fewprospects of revitalization15. Equality was considered as a superfluous issue compared to theprotection of jobs, wages and working conditions. In this context, European legislation hasprobably allowed to “counteract the erosion of gender equality and women’s rights” (Pollert,2005), at least in the workplace16.

Inside unions, a small number of (feminist) women have been lobbying actively at thegovernment level, contributing to the adoption of two significant laws in favour of women(pension and equal opportunities), under the socialist government in 2003. The existing womensections in unions, such as the long-established VASAS’s section, continue to be rather active atthe national level. The MSzOSz women’s commission regularly publishes its statements and isrepresented in the Council for Equality between Women and Men. However, “despite goodlegislation and existing institutional provisions, policies affecting women are not satisfactory”(Neumann, 2005). Even in very feminized sectors, women’s rights are generally not recognised.Except for the MAV (Hungarian State Railways), the content and implementation of genderequality plans that are compulsory in state-owned companies and in local and publicadministration since 2004, have not been analysed. In the private sector, collective bargaining ongender equality is very rare, knowing that the access to gendered Human Resources data isrequired and very often denied by employers. For their part, most men trade unionists refute thepriority of women/men wage inequalities, compared to regional wage inequalities. Overall,gender inequalities are not part of the public debate. When acknowledged, women’s specificissues are mixed with other causes of discrimination (age, disability and race/ethnic origin).

In their own structures, unions have been quite hostile to radical measures, such as reservedseats. Apart from women’s committees and conferences, self-organisation has been avoided(except for one reserved seat given to a woman in the MSzOSz national executive committee).Any type of more interventionist measures, such as quotas, has been regarded as a rejectedlegacy from the communist regime. Overall, and apart from VASAS, women’s sections are quiterecent. Some big unions, like KASz does not have any. Once again, the influence of Europe isquite predominant in the unions’ equality agenda. The 2002 European gender equal opportunitiesprogram has pushed VASAS to adopt its own specific agenda and lay activists have benefitedfrom equality trainings organised by the TUC through the British Council in Budapest. In 2007,inspired by the European equal opportunities year, the MSzOSz set a dedicated working groupthat made various proposals including trainings and bargaining briefs. However, the articulationbetween the women section’s suggestions and the union general agenda remains questioned. Theactual support of male officers is not obvious and some of them openly criticize theprofessionalism and relevance of the equality program. Obviously, generational succeedingissues overshadow gender equality matters. Not surprisingly, if women account for 48% of theMSzOSz lay members, women are under-represented among national and regional paid officers.Few data on job segregation inside unions are available, but if we take the example of a veryfeminised union like KASz (80% of women members), we can see that women only account for 15 According to recent studies, the average rate of unionization among young employees (20-24 years) is of 8%(Neumann, 2006)16 The equal opportunities law has not included the issues of domestic violence and gendered division of work.

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50% of the regional officers. Considering the low turn over of the officer population and therestriction of available positions, this situation will probably last for some time.

2. Barriers to women’s activism: the irreducible glass ceilingDespite the obvious differences in terms of equality agendas and policies, the situation of womeninside unions in the three countries studied shows striking similarities. Even in favourableorganisational contexts with supportive policies and high rate of membership feminization, likeUNISON in the UK or the CFDT in France, women seem to have difficulties to access unionleadership positions. When some of them manage to do so, worries that other women will not beable to follow and replace these female pioneers are often formulated. If women’s situation isoverall progressing thanks to equality policies, the gap between men and women’s career remainrather stable. To understand the recurrence of these difficulties from one generation of women toanother, we have compared the careers of women and men at four stages of their union careerdevelopment: entry, activism, consolidation and directing17.

2.1. The entry: Becoming a memberMany studies on union participation show that women have less propensity to participate thanmen, which is commonly linked to their employment patterns. They generally work in lessorganised workplaces, new sectors, private services or small firms (except from public services),where they have less chances to interact with union members and activists, the ‘significantothers’ of union involvement. The difference between unionised and non-unionised workplacesis striking in Hungary, where multinational companies display a violent anti-union behaviour andfire any employee who wishes to create a new union section (examples cited by the interviewees:Auchan, Mac Donald, Sony, Suzuki18). Because of vertical job segregation, women are alsomore often atypical employees (on part-time19 or temporary contracts), particularly in lowqualified and low-paid jobs. As the interests of these part-timers remain less represented byexisting trade unions and sometimes even better addressed by family-friendly firm policies(Tomlinson, 2005), union membership is lacking of usefulness. Because of their job insecurityand mobility, young women (and men) are also less integrated in a stable working environmentand they experiment less pressure from their colleagues to join a trade union. Because of theseatypical employment patterns, women have less opportunity to meet union activists and whenthey do so they are less satisfied than their male counterparts with the contacts they have withfull-time officers or shop stewards (Waddington and Kerr, 1999). In contrast, there is a growingnumber of qualified women in more secure jobs (professionals and managers), with longworking hours and career opportunities, categories that are generally less unionised in the privatesector, particularly in France and Hungary.

17 To follow (Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce, Hayes, 1990), the consolidation stage corresponds in the United Kingdom to a‘local union leader’ and the directing stage gathers a ‘quasi-elite branch level officer’ and an ‘elite national levelofficer’. We have prefered a grid based on union practices more than on job titles, in order to use it easily in eachcountry.18 The actual Prime Minister, Ferenc Cyurcsany, was invited by Suzuki in 2004 to visit a new part of their Hungariansubsidiary. He refused to go as long as trade unions are prohibited in this company.19 Part-time is not developed at the same level in each country and has not the same meaning for the employees andthe employers: more than 40% of women work part-time in the UK, 30% in France and 6% in Hungary (Eurostat,2005). In these two countries, temporary contracts are more frequent, particularly for the new entrants in the labourmarkets (young people, unemployed or women after maternity breaks).

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However, union density for women has been growing and has reached almost 50% in the threecountries (France, Hungary, UK). Women membership has resisted better to the general decline,because of their high representation in the public sector. In this highly unionised context, joininga union or being a member continues to be seen as quite ‘natural’ or ‘automatic’. Unions provideservices (help/advice in employment mobility and rights, social benefits) and also try to preservea certain definition of public service (quality of service and job security). Above all andparticularly in the private sector, the rising level of union density for women can be explained bytheir over-exposure to ‘significant events’ in the workplace (social injustice, exploitivetreatment, industrial dispute or restructuring). More than inherited propensity to participate, thisnegative working experience has become the main determinant of participation for new memberswho seek protection and defence, and want to fight for their rights (Guillaume, and Pochic, 2006;Guillaume, 2004; Watson, 1988). Because of their employment structure, women are especiallyconfronted to direct or indirect discrimination on many aspects (collective redundancy, unfairdismissal, lack of promotion, low wages, hard working conditions…), which can account fortheir propensity to join a union. In Hungary, since 1990, women are facing a higher rate ofunemployment and find it difficult to return to work after their long maternity leave (2 or 3years, called GYES) with few public or private childcare facilities. In union recognisedworkplaces, they often seek for protection and join a union the first month of their return to work(they have a high probability to be fired after this short legal period of protection20). As Floriansaid, ‘they better see their interests in joining’.

She explained to me that it was only benefits for me.

At 32, Florian is a new member as she joined the trade and shops branch of MSzOSz (KASz) only two yearsago. She is a bizalmi (a rep., 20 in her company) and a member of the youth committee (they were 4 but nowshe is the only one in her company). In the 1980s, period of openness of the Hungarian economy to market-orientation, her parents were not members of the SzOT (unique trade union) and she was too young to beinfluenced by the communist youth movement (KISz). She has quickly experimented the new managementstyle of multinational companies in Hungary, as she started working in 1992 at 17, in a Hungarian grocery store(which became Belgium after, Match). She then worked in several companies as a seller or a cashier, mainly insupermarkets, always full-time. When a German grocery store (Métro) arrived at Budapest, she applied as asales assistant to increase her wage twofold, but worked too hard and was fired because she was considered astoo fragile (exhausted, she fainted once). She started to work for a Korean company (Samsung) but was firedduring her trial period because she dared ask for days off for her wedding. She managed to stay three years in aHungarian shop (Profi), even if she took one year of maternity leave. As she re-married to a truck driver andmoved in another suburb of Budapest, she was obliged to change work and became a Match’s employee for thesecond time: ‘you can find easily a job in that sector’. But because of a health problem (a leg operation), shewas obliged to search for a sitting job and became a clerical in a pharmaceutical company during 18 months.Then she took a second maternity leave of two years. As she moved to the countryside, she applied for aMatch’s job for the third time, in a shop near her new home. But this time, she became a union member onlyone month after, because the rep., a woman really ‘enthusiastic and convincing’ came to see her and explainedto her the services offered by KASz (legal assistance, pay negotiation, leisure and social benefits). ‘It was onlybenefits for me’ In this relatively unionised-workplace (within 35 employees, 50% are members), the malesecretary of Match’s union offered her to become a bizalmi ‘because they needed young people and thatthey’re first objective was to recruit young people’. She is still a rep on a voluntary basis, which createstensions with her partner, ‘because he wants my trade union activity to be integrated in my working hours’. Ifthere was a possibility, she would like to be a full-time paid officer, because there is already a women officer

20 Before 1992, women could not be fired during 90 days after their return to work, period which has been limited to30 days in 1992, and employers often use various excuses to make them redundant (particularly delays or absence forchild sickness).

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who is ‘a model for me’, and because of the collective identity: ‘entering a trade union is like arriving in acommunity, a family, and if we belong to a family, we are more relaxed and beside, there is some advantages’.

2.2. The involvement: becoming an activistThere is a gap between being a member and becoming a lay activist, with a formal participation.Becoming a legitimate spoke-person depends mainly on the perceived structure of opportunity(Kirton, 2006). The general context of participation shortage offers objective opportunities forwomen to be elected (unions need to find new candidates for empty seats), particularly in Franceand in Hungary, but in a context of union repression and employees’ apathy. Many youngrepresentatives in France explained that it had been quite impossible to remain passive. Theyhave been ‘sucked into the labour movement’. Very quickly, union officers have approachedthem and offered them a role at the local or even at the branch level. Generally, these proposalshave been subjected to the recognition of a ‘natural leader role’ in the workplace. These newmembers had usually demonstrated their capacity to defend or advice their colleagues (an‘outspoken person’, a ‘big mouth’ or a ‘stroppy woman’, it depends). However, this cooptationremains easier for women in female-dominated areas. As it depends on the sponsoring byexisting union officers, this selection has a gendered bias linked to the fact that officers aremostly male (Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce and Hayes, 1990). Unionists’ life-stories reveal that thissponsorship can take different forms, from a quick detection to a long recognition process, frommentoring (by men or women officers) to rivalry (as women are also often younger). Thisnomination also depends on trade union peers’ support (advice, information, buildingconfidence), sometimes with competing gender interests at work. Numerous examples ofantagonism between women and men shop stewards in the same company have been reported.Because of the high degree of job segregation, there is always a concern that the improvement ofthe terms and conditions for women will in return depreciate men’s work. If more women cannow access these first levels of lay activism, they are over-represented in certain type of unionroles, responsible for social activities or daily representation (rep in UK, ‘bizalmi21’ in Hungary,‘Délégué du Personnel22’ in France). The development of new roles, such as learning or equalityor health and safety rep in the UK and in France or work councils in Hungary has allowedwomen to take side roads (and maybe dead-end career), leaving the most prestigious roles(negotiation and servicing) to men.

I won’t be capable… but I can’t drop my mate!

At 58, Edith is an assistant national officer of the steel and mining branch union of the CFDT (FGMM),commuting from Monday to Friday from her village near Dijon to Paris. As she has almost no qualification (aBEPC), she felt all her life than she was not capable of climbing in the organisation, but she has been sponsoredby colleagues in a very male-dominated union. She entered at 19 a steel tube industry (the main firm in hervillage) as a non-qualified white-collar (punch card operator). Two years after, she joined the CFDT as apassive member because they made a leaflet about a migrant workers’ case and she was sensible to thatcampaign, because she was making some volunteer literacy courses to migrants workers with her friends froma catholic youth movement. During a big strike on pay issues (8 weeks during 1975), she drew attention toherself by being on the piquet line during the night ‘as the other men’. The regional officer offered her to goafterwards to a French-German unionists exchange, ‘it gave me the desire to evolve’ and she entered theregional committee. Within three years, she was elected as Délégué du Personnel (rep. at Work Council) and

21 First level of formal participation, elected by their colleagues to represent them in the Committee of bizalmi atcompany level (deals with pay and conditions, and social benefits).22 First level of formal participation, elected by their colleagues to represent them in the ‘Company’s Committee’(deals with pay and conditions, and social benefits).

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nominated as Déléguée Syndicale (shop steward). In this union dominated by qualified blue-collars, she haddifficulty to make a niche for herself, particularly because she denounced the illegal financial practices of theexisting union team and she imposed a more fair fee grid for low-qualified women: ‘my first fight was toimpose the national fee grid based on a percentage of wage. Because it was unfair that cleaner women paid thesame fee as highly skilled men’. She has been sponsored all her career by the company’s union treasurer, whosaid to her when she was asked to become the secretary of her company’s union in 1986: ‘Little girl, if they askyou, you have to trust them, they judged that you were capable, so you have to go.’ She though she wasn’tcapable, but she felt relaxed as her union peers said that they will help her. Being often away from work, herhierarchy harassed her (less wage increase, heavy workload), ‘but I didn’t care because I had no careerpretensions’. In 1989, even if she was opposed to reserved seats, because she thought that ‘it should be anatural movement’, she was elected on a reserved seat as FGMM regional officer, but with some negativeremarks: ‘Someone said it was not because of my skills that I was selected, but because the union financed myoffice, it was a real pleasure to hear that!’ Moreover, she wasn’t really supported by the feminists within theCFDT, as she was opposed to reserved seats, single and childfree: ‘They said to me that I wasn’t a real womanbecause I didn’t understand the childcare issues!’

Apart from the permanence of a creeping job segregation inside unions, women find it moredifficult than men to enter lay activism. First, it is quite dependent on time-off agreements,which are very different depending on countries, sectors and employers. Many lay activists carryon their role on a voluntary basis. Because of participation shortage and limited resources,activists generally hold several mandates at once (in the UK shop steward, convenor, chair of abranch or a local trade council; in France Délégué du Personnel, Délégué Syndical, élu auComité d’Entreprise or élu CHSCT). Beside their mandates, they have to organize members andattend branch or women’s meetings, to organise/participate to demonstrations (particularly inFrance), to organise/participate to self-organising groups (case of UNISON in the UK), and alsospend time with lay members and activists outside work. This progressive involvement in unionactivities can create work/life balance problems for mothers of young children, even if someunions have modified their schedules to accommodate work/life balance, particularly in the UK.In each country, women trade unionists said they needed a supportive partner when they hadchildren to be available for volunteer union activities (Le Quentrec, Rieu, 2003). This formalparticipation can also create tensions with the workplace hierarchy and diminishes opportunity ofcareer development, particularly in an anti-union context. These professional risks are perceiveddifferently depending on life’s cycle, family situation, and type of occupations, sector andcountry. For example, in the French public administration, union involvement is supported bygenerous national time-off agreement23 and job security. However, even in these goodconditions, it seems difficult to lead two or three parallel careers (union, work and sometimesfamily) and many women chose to limit or reduce their union involvement (only localmandates). In the private sector, some big companies (particularly the former public companiesin utilities or transport sector) have also generous trade union facilities agreements. It is not thecase for small firms, where trade unionists generally experiment anti-union repression acts (wageor career stagnation, managerial hostility). In that last context, becoming a full-time paid officercan be seen by lay activists as an ‘alternative career’ (Kirton, 2006b; Guillaume, Pochic, 2006), away to combine further union activity and more stable and more interesting paid occupation.

23 20 hours maximum for each mandate, which can be added up.

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2.3. The consolidation: being selected as a full-time officerTo be selected as a full-time officer (paid by the union or not, but not in senior positions)depends on the gendered and societal structure of opportunity. The union employment market ismore or less attractive across countries. In France, the union employment market can bedescribed as an ‘open market’ for women with a high turn-over (job contracts of 3 or 4 years)and few applicants for relatively low paid jobs, with a ‘cushy job’ stigmata. The absence ofexternal publication of each job offer increases the weight of cooptation and social networks(same sectors, regions or even workplaces). Union officer jobs are also stigmatised in Hungary,with an ‘old regime’ stigmata but in a context of severe reducing union finances. The rapiddecline of membership and the privatization of the Hungarian companies24 have reduced thenumber of paid full-time officers at every level (branch, regional and national). Union staff hasbeen diminished by five. Officers are ageing25 and are really afraid of losing their job in acontext of low employment rate for senior people. As the vice-president of the MSzOSz, a youngwoman, said: ‘with one hand, they hang on their chair, with the other they hang on their desk, sono hand is left for working’. In the UK, there is a strong competition to access full-timepositions, as there is a low turn-over (particularly for regional union staff) and many applicantsto every job offer, particularly in the context of union mergers. Unions are seen as goodemployers, with relatively good wages and particularly good working conditions for women (35hper week, flexible arrangements, maternity rights, long holidays). The use of external jobpublication through national newspapers has increased the number of applicants and has alsoallowed a change in the candidates’ profiles (external women from the volunteering sector orwomen coming from the administrative/secretarial union staff).

This diversification has been sustained by the enlarging of union career patterns. The evolutionsof the union movement in the three countries have open new career routes for young activists,especially women. In the UK and to a certain extend in France26, the switch from a servicingmodel to an organising model (Heery, 2006; Heery, Adler, 2004) has already allowed themodification of union “government system” with the development of representative structuresfor target groups and the promotion of new profiles. Specialised positions (“organiser” in the UKand “développeur” in France) have been offered to young officers, especially women and ethnicminorities to fit with the ‘like recruiting like’ principle. Because of their qualities (gender and/orrace and/or youth) women are identified as being able to recruit and build active memberscoming from a more diverse workforce. Beside the permanence of an inherited rank-and-filepattern, young officers are pushed into accelerated careers. Thanks to participation shortage andradical measures, many young activists, men and women, are put on fast-track roads. Dedicatedtrainings (such as the Organising Academy in the UK) and special attention are provided toretain these would-be senior officers.

Beside this membership dimension, several ‘expertise routes’ (legal action and advice, health &safety, economic analysis, social policy, international and European action) have been

24 As time-off agreement was dependent of the size of the company, privatization and restructuring has diminishedthe number of employees of many firms, and in consequence, the number of full-time trade union officers.25 In this general lack of resources, they sometimes continue as volunteer when they retired.26 In Hungary, the organising model is facing a global lack of resources, hostile company management and generalemployees’ apathy (Neumann, 2006).

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encouraged both by the evolution of union political action and employers-union relations.Because of their moderate leadership, the unions studied have been involved as negotiatingpartner or advisor in legislations on pensions, unemployment benefits, working time, minimumwages, health and safety. At the workplace level, social-partnership is being promoted27, even ifpartnership agreements with employers are described as isolated experiments limited in scope inthe UK (Frege, Kelly, 2004) and if collective bargaining at the workplace level remainsheterogeneous in France (depending on sector and company size…) and quite difficult inHungary. In the three countries, this growing union participation to socio-economic regulation atthe national or local level has led to the promotion of officers and activists with new type ofqualifications. The case of Hungary is probably the most striking. In the last fifteen years, thedeparture of the former union executives has allowed second-rank officers (Toth, 2000) recruitedin the late 70’s for their skills (economy and law) to build their legitimacy in a context ofeconomic deregulation, repeated restructurations and reform of the Labour code. This need formore qualified officers has offered new opportunities for women with professional expertise orhigh qualification and no activist background.

I discovered that I was in my element

Sophie can be considered as a new profile of trade union officers as she arrived directly in 2000 in a negotiating jobat national level of CFDT without any formal activist background. Even she is an ‘heir’, as her parents(professionals in the public sector) were activists in politics and trade union movement in the North of France, shehas not been involved in any volunteer activity before 2000. After her Master degree in economics, she began towork in 1991 on vocational training issues for local government (as a training period and in a temporary contract).She followed her partner to Paris, and thank to his networks, she entered the Labour Ministry as a contractualworker, mainly on training and employment issues. She discovered the trade unions through two ways: she helpedher colleague who was an old CFDT activist and feminist to organise meetings or to write leaflets but refused to payher fee (‘I didn’t want to lose my freedom of expression, I thought they were too dogmatic’); and she represented theMinistry in consultative committee of a training institution (AFPA) where she discovered the social dialoguebetween employer and trade unions. Her professional career was blocked, because as a contractual worker, shecouldn’t be promoted, and through her parents’ networks, she met the CFDT General Secretary, Nicole Notat, ‘andshe felt that I had activist feelings, and I had a profile which corresponded to what she wanted: I was young and Iwas not from union background.’ After an external recruitment process, they offered her two possibilities: inresearch department or in negotiating/campaigning department (Action revendicative), and she chose the secondone, to work mainly on wages and collective negotiation. Within three months, she discovered that she was in herelement, ‘a collective intelligence’ and that she went to work with happiness every day. She managed to put longhours even with two young children, because her partner had really flexible working hours, as he had an intellectualwork. But rapidly she was disappointed by her hierarchy’ attitude and the power struggles, ‘because sometimespersonal strategy won against collective intelligence’. She had a political conflict with her own manager, and madethe mistake to express it to the General Secretary (which was interpreted by her peers as a lack of loyalty). ‘It’s a toouncertain career, someone can suddenly found himself at the head of the organisation, even if he’s not ready, assomeone well qualified can be sidelined only for personal reasons’. And after having applied for several jobs, sheunderstood also that she would always lack activist legitimacy. Only three years after, she decided to leave CFDTand works now as a consultant, but she misses the trade union world. ‘I’ve got some regrets, if I had been morepersevering or more patient, now I would be perhaps responsible of that issue (increasing employment security)’.Indeed two women with new profiles have been elected last year to senior national officers positions in the CFDT, asignal for all the women in that trade union.

27 The TUC has created the Partnership Institute in 2001.

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However, even in this more open context, being selected as a full-time officer (at branch,regional or national level28) continues to depend on career norms and informal recruitmentprocesses. Unions are obviously ‘greedy institutions’ (Franzway, 2000). Senior officers areobliged to put long hours (Watson, 1988), as a sign of commitment and loyalty to theirorganisation. Flexibility represents a further burden, with a culture of ‘masculine heroics’ ofheavy workload, and many business trips each week (sometimes abroad). In each country, full-time officers also need to be geographically mobile (commuting or repeated moves) to have acareer progression within the union structures. When there is a strong competition (UK,Hungary), this mobility allows lateral moves that are needed to build experience (from back-office to front-office responsibilities, from a little region to a big region), and sometimes allow areturn to university (in Hungary). This need for total dedication is obviously more discriminatingfor women with young children, even when childcare provisions or domestic help is availableand affordable (like in France).

Besides, even when a policy of transparency exists (obligation of external publication in the UK,external HR recruitment tests in CFDT in France for example), internal candidates have betterchances because they often know in advance that there will be a vacancy. Sometimes they havealready worked or networked with one of the recruiter or made a temporary replacement on thatjob. Internal applicants are also preferred because of their skills (research, expertise, organising,public-speaking, negotiating) developed through several experiences and intensive training(internal training in UK and France, return to university in Hungary). Training increases self-confidence and sometimes compensates knowledge gaps, but this empowering effect depends oninitial resources (determined by gender, race and class). In male-dominated unions, mostly atlocal and regional level, women faced obvious sexism, reinforced by age discrimination againstyoung women, who don’t ‘fit’ with the role. To counter the reluctance of male officers topromote junior women, senior women officers with feminist convictions sometimes opt foractive mentoring, as explained Christina in GMB in the 1980s. More rarely, these mentors can besenior men officials who want to change the trade union culture or use women’s expertise skills,and ‘help them to learn the ropes’29. In comparison, Hungarian senior women officers with aparadoxical ‘equalitarian-conservative view’30 rarely adopt this mentoring attitude, consideringthat barriers to access union responsibilities depend more on family responsibilities andindividual choices (private costs) than on union culture and practices.

Since the 1980s, equal opportunity policies in the UK and in France have tried to tackle theseissues of unfair representation, with reserved seats for women at regional (in UNISON31 in theUK for example) and/or at national level (in CFDT in France). These policies of reserved seatshave objectively offer growing opportunities for women, gave them opportunity to be know assenior activists (Healy, Kirton, 2000), but with side effects: suspicion of lack of skills, risk ofbeing labelled as ‘feminists’ and depreciation of reserved seats compared to general seats. Manywomen interviewed in UNISON thought these women, particularly on low-paid seats, should be 28 According to union finances and structure, but also to industrial relations system.29 Interview of a GMB women senior officer.30 They defend an equalitarian treatment for women within unions (rejecting any reserved seat policy, with acommunist old regime stigmata) and have a conservative gender role definition (Nagy, 2005), justifying specificmeasures for combining motherhood and employment.31 UNISON is very famous for its policy based on proportionality, fair representation, with reserved seats mainly forwomen and low-paid women, and self-organising groups for women, black people, disabled and LGBT.

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supported by specific training and mentoring, in order to empower them and gave them moreconfidence. Moreover, the hierarchy between “technical” and “political” positions remain quiteresilient. In the UK this distinction is reflected in the staff/elected officer categorization. InFrance and in Hungary, officers with specialised skills, including equality officers, often remainin secondary positions with few hope to access national responsibilities (including negotiationand external representation).

There wasn’t usually a route from my job to negotiating

At 51, Christina is a senior national officer in UNISON. As she comes from a ‘very working class background, in avery poor council estate in Scotland’ with a mother who was a cleaner in a local school, she always fought for low-paid women. She discovered activism through a Jimmy Reed’s speech during a shipyards’ strike and became amember of the communist party at 16 and an activist in claimants union. After several unskilled jobs, she returned touniversity for a degree in History and became a civil servant (housing officer), a job she didn’t particularly like.Using her paralegal experience in the claimants union, she applied for a tribunals’ officer job at GMB in 1982, andafter a while, aspired to go into a negotiating job, but wasn’t really supported by her manager: “He more or lesssaid: No chance, women don’t do that. It would be really difficult. You’ll have children and, you know, it’s probablynot really a good job for women. ” To bypass her chief, she applied to a GMB assistant legal officer job in Londonand her partner accepted to follow her from Glasgow to London. As she was really involved in women’s pay andequality issues, she found her mentor, the GMB national women’s officer: ‘she was very supportive of me and gaveme lots of opportunities to get involved in things, go to the TUC women’s conference, go to the Labour partywomen’s conference. You know, we wanted to look at how we could bring more women on.” She found moreopportunity to climb in NALGO (and UNISON after the merge), where she became women’s officer in 1990: “Ihad a portfolio of work that I could demonstrate I had done” and made a lateral move to be national officer in localgovernment service group, but she had to apply twice to be in the front-line staff. “I think if you can influence thebargaining agenda then you can make a difference to the members of the union’s”

2. 4. Being elected as a senior officer / executiveAs the example of Sophie shows, in France as in the UK, union officers who want to accesssenior officer or executive positions (General Secretary or Deputy in UK, President or Vice-President in Hungary) have “to comply with the male model of senior trade union official that islong, unbroken record of active experience and offices held” (Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce, Hayes,1990). At that level, there is a fierce competition among a small pool of long serving loyalofficers (mostly men), with repeated applications and numerous lateral moves, to stay in theunion movement and increase one’s visibility and networks within the organisation. The careerpath always includes a negotiating experience, at regional or national level (from officer tosecretary), where they made a name for themselves and develop their political and leadershipskills. Officials have rarely leapfrogged this position. In each country, as the officials areindirectly elected by the union members (through union/branch/region representatives32 at thecongress with always low participation rate), the result of elections depends less on objectiveskills than on ‘factionalism groupings’ (Ledwith, Colgan, Joyce, Hayes, 1990). As the nomineesare not allowed to canvass for themselves, factions fight to place their candidate in officialpositions.

These informal networks ‘clans’ are traditionally based on political orientations, but also onshared experiences inside the union. External political networks appear to be ambivalentresources, dependent on political elections and on the historical link between unions and politicalparty. For example, being a member of the Labour Party can help a regional secretary to build 32 With representation principles with are different across countries and union organisation.

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coalitions on a campaign, ‘as a vehicle to open door’33, but a too close/visible link can be ahandicap for a would-be Deputy General Secretary when lay members are critical towardsLabour government policies. In Hungary, political loyalty (being an officer of the CommunistParty) was predominant in the selection process, before 198934, where women were in minority.This characteristic is less visible but still effective. The two first General Secretaries of MSzOSzwere part of the political elite. The existing unions’ General Secretaries are generally paid-officers with a long internal career and were selected previously on their political reliability, asfor example Eva.

I already knew the national networks thank to the last period

At 61, Eva is Deputy General Secretary (vice-president) of the trade sector union of MSzOSz (KASz) and isrepresentative of trade unionists that went through the democratic and economic transition. She was a secretary ofthe communist youth movement (KISz) when she was at a technical university, and organised many leisureactivities and training sessions for her male comrades. When she entered a food store in the Human Resourcesservice in 1966, she continued her involvement for KISz, doing reports on the youth issues in the company. Shereturned to university to pass a degree in economics. After her maternity leave (2 years), she entered the trade sectorunion of SzOT (KPVDSz) as a paid assistant national officer, expert on political economy in 1974. During theinterview selection, as she was a young mother, she had to explain that her retired father could care of her child andchose afterwards not to have a second child. Thank to her commitment and expertise, she became Head of Socialpolicy department, and entered the Communist Party, ‘even in the 1980s, it wasn’t worth’. In 1989, as all trade unionofficials were fighting to keep their positions, she left this ‘carnage’ and used her networks to become an assistantdirector of a trade firm, where she doubled her wage. As a member of the Communist Party unit of this company,she proposed with other young employees to suppress it, against the old generation, and build her reputation of‘modernist’. In 1994, when the Socialist Party (MSzP, heir of the communist one) was re-elected, the GeneralSecretary of KASz offered her to come back, as departmental secretary, ‘I thought it was a good way to discover thenew structure of Budapest’. She left without any problem her executive position, even for a lower wage, as hercompany was privatized and she knew that it would close within two years. In 1997, she was asked to becomeDeputy General Secretary as ‘I already knew the national network thanks to the KPVDSZ period. The hard core wasstill there: the relations to my peers, to the employers, to the employees… There were small changes, but not toomuch’. She thinks that senior men officials in MSzOSz don’t take women’s committee seriously and even more, thatshe won’t be replaced by another woman next year, even if KASz has a more than 80% of women members! Sheconsiders that women activists should be empowered and have more opportunity to develop their skills, but in anequalitarian way, as she is opposed to reserved seats. ‘I think that these artificial tools are not viable. It’smathematics, but people are not a product of pure mathematics’.

More recently, formal networks based on generation (youth sections in France or Hungary) or ongender (women’s committees in each countries or self-organising groups in UNISON) have triedto campaign for their candidates, generally defending a different strategic orientation for theunion. This women’s networking within and across unions, ‘gendered factionalism’ (Healy,Kirton, 2000), has a real impact ‘from below’ when there is a critical mass, in female-dominatedunions in the UK, and sometimes when there is an unexpected vacancy. The election of womenofficials can be also supported ‘from the top’, depending on “critical acts” from seniorexecutives with political will and feminist values. But in this case, these women have to dealwith a ‘token’ stigmata (Healy, Kirton, 2000; Kanter, 1977) and have to fight to build theirlegitimacy ‘on the job’.

33 Expression of a UNISON Regional Secretary (a woman).34 “Union leaders were in practice intertwined with the party bureaucracy, so that the union was deeply embedded –indeed implicated – in the power structure” (Neumann, 2005, p. 65).

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ConclusionBy and large, the equality agenda has gained a much higher visibility in the three countriesstudied, including Hungary where it is a quite recent concern. Most unions have adopted specificmeasures, more or less radical, to improve women’s representation in their structures andagendas. However, even in very feminised and advanced unions, such as UNISON in the UK orthe CFDT in France, women remain under-represented in union leadership positions.Explanations such as the gendered division of work or women’s employment structure seemunable to clarify the gap between the presence of women in the lay membership/activistpopulation and their slow disappearing in the higher levels of the union hierarchy. To understandthis apparent paradox, this study has been focused on the formal and informal organisationalrequirements of a union career in a context of profound changes in union strategies and actions.Despite new opportunities given to women through self-organisation (in the UK and in France)and the opening of renewed career paths (in the three countries), the barriers to a lastingwomen’s promotion process obviously lies in the resistance of men’s oligarchy through thedefence of a masculine organisational culture, both in terms of career norms (age, type ofexperience required, working time and location, household configuration) and occupationalhierarchy (predominance of a charismatic and political legitimacy / technical and specialisedskills). These results end up questioning the relevance of equality policies that rely on the formalexistence of self-organised structures and equal opportunities rules. In many ways, unionpractices and culture manage to dissuade women from pursuing what a senior officer refered as a“daunting prospect” (running for a higher position). In this context, the support of a real equalityagenda will probably be more efficient if it is tightly attached to a more explicit strategy ofrevitalization that includes men and women. Obviously the promotion of the organizing agendahas demonstrated its potential of mobilization for a much more diverse young generation ofofficers (Herry and al. 2000) with probably different expectations and working practices.

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