Women and skills at work
The next installment in our series for International Women’s Day and beyond – on the theme of women, learning, literacy and liberation – comes from Judith Swift MBE, Union Development Manager. Judith takes the lead role for supporting unions in developing their learning and skills capacity, including overall management of the Union Learning Fund and union learning centres, as well as supporting union learning representatives (ULRs). Judith also has responsibility for unionlearn’s contribution to the delivery of the government’s skills strategy and for the TUC’s ESF EQUAL project.
Many women will have been given a boost by the unanimous election of Frances O’Grady as the TUC’s first woman General Secretary. There are currently nearly 7 million union members and about half are women. Frances is a spirited campaigner for women’s rights in work and wider society.
Over the last few decades, the proportion of women in the workplace has been on the rise. As things now stand the proportion of men and women in the UK workforce is now about 50%. This is variable across sectors and women are still underrepresented in sectors such as engineering despite the shortage of employees there. A much higher proportion of women are in low paid, part time work in sectors such as retail and care.
In 2013 the glass ceiling is still very much there for women trying to get on at work. Women entering the labour market are as well qualified as men but very few make it to the highest levels of their professions, let alone the Board room. Even in sectors such as teaching with a majority of women, women are still not proportionately represented at Head Teacher level.
Some traditional issues for women persist. Women in their 20s earn more than men. However, once they have children and take maternity leave, familiar barriers for women come into play. By the time women workers are in their 30s their pay lags behind male counterparts.
So what could be happening? Most mothers who want to return to work on a part-time basis can answer that question easily. Despite increasing amounts of evidence to the contrary, there still seems to be a perception that part-time hours have lower status. An audit of pay and personnel data in the call centre of a major UK bank revealed that the age profile of part-time staff was virtually identical to the age profile of middle managers. Needless to say the part time workers were nearly all women, and the middle managers were mainly men. By the time women are ready to work full time again they are likely to have ‘missed the boat’.
Unionlearn believes that skills and learning needs to be a tool for removing inequalities at work. Unions, through the role of union learning representatives, are providing encouragement and support for women to learn at work. Unions such as Usdaw, Unison, Unite, the RCN (to name just a few) understand the barriers which can be time, confidence or otherwise. This gives them a head start in creating a better environment for their women members. As Kath, an Usdaw member says “Women usually have a host of caring responsibilities and are used to putting their own needs last. My learning rep made it possible for me to get my learning going again. I have loved it and I have been promoted recently!”
Changes in adult education such as loans in Further Education and higher tuition fees in Higher Education are bad news for everyone – but particularly for women. Unions will need to keep on going!
