Women of Steel Progress: Are We There Yet?

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Women have struggled for equality, democracy, and social justice over many decades. None of the progress we have made has come easy. We have worked in our unions, in our communities, in politics, and in our personal lives. Together we have made our voices heard. Together we have demanded an end to injustice.

Our goal for the future is to determine how we can build women’s power in the union. Women of Steel can be proud of the steps that have been taken over the years. Our activism and participation in the union have increased, making a real difference in our workplaces and in our union.

At the 2005 International Convention, the Steelworkers adopted a constitutional amendment requiring all local unions to establish women’s committees. This will add to the number of women’s committees already active at the area, district, and national levels.

The Convention also adopted what is being called the Building Power Action Plan that outlines four different areas on which to focus building power. This plan provides a framework for how Women of Steel can think about next steps.

  Building Power
From the Steelworker Building Power Action Plan:

Activism in our union must be judged on the basis of building our union’s bargaining power to win improved wages, benefits and retirement security for our members and for working people everywhere. The key to building power is communicating directly with the membership, addressing issues that impact members’ lives, and bringing member’s voices to legislative and political decisions. Time and again, educating our members on issues and mobilizing them for action has made the difference. An engaged membership builds stronger locals and a more powerful union. The union is focussing on four ways of building power:

1) Through Membership Growth and Density

2) At the Bargaining Table

3) Through Education and Mobilization, and

4) Through Legislative and Political Activism.

  Building Power Focus #1 - Membership Growth and Density

Union density - the level of unionization within an employer, industry, or community - is directly related to our members’ ability to bargain and to participate effectively in political action. A lower percentage of unionization at any of these levels makes it a lot tougher for unions to bargain and to have an impact on the political climate.

The United Steelworkers is committed to strategic growth through organizing the unorganized, pursuing mergers, and entering into strategic alliances.

In the last year alone, the Steelworkers have merged with the IWA (over 55,000 members) and PACE (around 1,500 members in Canada, more than 275,000 members in all of North America), and entered into a strategic alliance with ACTRA (over 23,000 members).

So, Are We There Yet…?

YES

Women in the Canadian Workforce :

• A majority of women are now in the paid workforce.
• A majority of working women are now employed full-time.

Women in Canadian Unions:

• Women’s union membership growing: in 1977 women were 12 per cent of unionized membership. Today, over 49 per cent of Canada’s 13.5 million union members are women.
• Women are more likely to be unionized than men. 30.2 per cent of all Canadian women employees are unionized. Only 29.7 per cent of all Canadian men employees are unionized. 2005 is the first year in Canada’s history that women are more organized than men.
• Many of Steelworkers recent organizing victories in places where women work (universities, credit unions, banks, call centres, manufacturing).

NO

Women’s Gains Limited Mostly to Public Sector:

• The public sector employs a higher proportion of women than the private sector (over 60 per cent of public sector workers are women; 28 per cent of all women workers are in the public sector, while only 18 per cent of all men workers are in the public sector).
• The public sector more unionized (unionization rate in public sector 71.3 per cent, private sector only 17.5 per cent).
• Privatization threatens to erode these gains.
• Women workers are still far behind in the private sector, where 1 in 4 men are unionized, but only 1 in 7 women are.

Large and Systematic Pay Differences Remain:

• Occupational and industrial segregation: Women are relatively concentrated in lower-paid occupations (such as clerical, sales, and service sector). Three-quarters of young working women are in clerical, teaching, or nursing. Highest paid occupations in which women make up at least half the workforce are in the public sector, in particular heath care and educational services.
• Vertical segregation: In every sector, women on average still paid less than men.

Women and Representation (percentage of women in):

• Management positions = 35 per cent
• Senior management = 27 per cent
• Professional jobs in maths, sciences, engineering = 20 per cent
• Professional jobs in business and finance = 49 per cent
• Professional jobs as doctors or dentists = 47 per cent

Women and Contingent Work:

• Contract, temporary, part-time, and self-employed work is on the rise. Non-standard employment made up a full two-thirds of all new jobs created in the past year, and is now a reality for more than a quarter of all workers. These jobs typically come with little or no benefits and job security and poorer working conditions.
• Since 1997, temporary workers earn on average 16 per cent less per hour than workers with permanent jobs.
• More than half of temporary or contract work is done by women. 70 per cent of part-time workers are women.
• Working women are still 2.5 times more likely than working men to be employed part-time.
• 1 in 5 women are in temp jobs or self-employed.
• 1 in 4 women part-timers would rather be working full-time
• Contracting out is on the rise. Overall, women are over-represented in the groups of workers directly affected by contracting out - whether you consider the stable jobs that are lost, or the contract jobs that are created. (As an example, consider the food service work that is contracted out by public institutions like hospitals or universities.)

  Moving Forward:
What Women of Steel Can Do To Build Power

1. Start a women’s committee in your local.
2. Invite a speaker to talk about changes in the workplace/economy.
3. Recruit more women organizers.
4. Identify where women work in your workplace. Is there a glass ceiling? Look for hiring and training opportunities.
5. Negotiate pay equity.
6. Lobby for proactive pay and employment equity.

  Building Power Focus #2 - At the Bargaining Table

Being at the bargaining table is one of the places where a mobilized union membership has the most influence in its relationship with the employer. Collective bargaining is basis of everything we do. It improves members’ lives and provides workers access to everything the union does outside of bargaining. We negotiate our compensation, our working conditions and our rights, including the right to union leave for conferences, seminars, conventions and much more.

So, Are We There Yet?

YES

Union Wage Advantage:

• Average hourly wage: Union $21.57/hour; Non-union $17.07/hour (difference 26.4 per cent or $4.50/hour)
• Wage advantage for women: 38 per cent (or $5.68/hour); for men, 18 per cent (or $3.36/hour)
• Wage gap among non-union workers: 28 per cent (or $4.10 more/hour for men)
• Wage gap less among union workers: 8.6 per cent (or $1.78 more/hour for men)
• In 1990, the Steelworkers developed SES (A Simple Effective Solution to Pay Equity and Job Evaluation) to replace gender-biased job evaluation systems. SES is used by union and non-union employers to negotiate an equitable compensation system.
• Steelworkers have negotiated many employment equity plans, including special equity provisions for Aboriginal persons in a number of mining sector agreements.

NO

The Wage Gap Might Be Smaller, But It Still Exists:

• In the private sector, unionization raises women’s wages but does not close the wage gap. Wage advantage for women is $1.48/hour; and $2.05/hour for men.
• Average earnings for women working full-time in Canada are 72 per cent that of men’s full-time earnings. If you include part-time workers and those without any paid work, women’s annual earnings are only 58 per cent of men’s. Factoring in taxes and social program payments, women’s earnings increase relative to men’s, but are still only 66 per cent of men’s earnings.
• 84 per cent of people earning over $100,000 a year are men. The number of women of colour in this category rounds off to 0 per cent.
• Women have higher poverty rates than men, and the majority of the poor are women. Some of the main factors contributing to women’s poverty rates are the presence of children; "women’s work" tends to be devalued; cuts to social assistance; and inadequate pensions.
• Tow-tier wage and benefit packages threaten women disproportionately. Two-tier is the introduction of lower benefits, wages, or pensions for either new hires or workers with less seniority. On average, women, young workers, and workers of colour have less seniority. They are over-represented in the groups most affected by two-tier erosion of collective agreements. More two-tier agreements means the wage gap will continue to grow.
• Globally, 1.3 billion people in the developing world live in severe poverty; 70 per cent are women and girls. A billion people live on less than a dollar a day; 3 billion more live on less than $2. The richest 1 per cent of the world’s population receives as much income as the poorest 57 per cent.

Unions and the Working Poor:

• Getting work, especially in a union job, used to be a long-term ticket to the middle class. Increasingly, however, mobility is just not there for the poorest of workers. Today, the lowest paid jobs are less an entry point to an income ladder, and more a long-term trap.
• Poverty among workers is especially prevalent for single parents (the overwhelming majority of whom are women). A recent report in Canada found 36 per cent of single parents felt they had inadequate income. Of single parents, women are three times as likely to be low income.
• A study on poverty in Ontario found that two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women.
• One-third of all working women are in sales and service jobs.

MAYBE

Pensions :

• Working women are almost as likely as men to have a workplace pension.
• The government provides Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) to support seniors with limited retirement income, which helps low income senior women.
• Pensions still penalize women based on working years. Women on average work 75 per cent of their potential work years. Men work on average 94 per cent of theirs. This affects amount of monthly pension benefit.
• Women live longer, which means women live on retirement incomes longer. 70 per cent of people over 85 are women.
• Average income for women over age 65 is two-thirds of that for men over 65.
• Only one in four non-union working women have a pension.

Work-Life Balance:

• Women report higher levels of work-life conflict than men. Among mothers, 54 per cent report conflict; among fathers, 47 per cent report work-life conflict.
• Two-thirds of unpaid work is done by women. Young women today spend just as much of their time on housework and family care as in 1977.
• Work-life conflict is not limited to parents. In 1999, a quarter of all Canadian employees cared for an elderly family member.
• Maternity leave of 17-18 weeks has been legislated in all jurisdictions. 37 per cent of collective agreements provide for longer leave (in a few cases, up to a year or more). 40 per cent of collective agreements allow for seniority to be fully or partly accumulated during maternity leave.
• Legislation in most jurisdictions includes right to the refuse overtime, minimum rest period between shifts, maximum number of consecutive days worked, limits on split shifts, minimum notice of shift change, etc.
• A government study in 1998 found flex-time provisions in 15 per cent of collective agreements; compressed work week provisions in 20 per cent; paid personal leave in 10 per cent; job sharing in 10 per cent; and gradual retirement in several.
• Many collective agreements allow pregnant women reassignment to other work, or the right to not work with harmful equipment such as video display terminals.

  Solidarity and Sisterhood
     Means Finding Unity in Diversity

Recognizing diversity is key to building a strong movement. It means more than being aware of our differences. It means recognizing different women have different experiences and needs. It means each woman takes on the different struggles of women as their own. Young women, older women, women of colour, immigrant women, Aboriginal women, lesbian women, and women with disabilities all have distinct experiences and needs. A singular idea of what women need threatens to exclude these women.

Younger women:

Young workers are better educated than a generation ago but are paid less and saddled with higher student debt. The gap between youth and adult wages has widened steadily. Real wages for young workers (under 25) have dropped by 20-25 per cent from a generation ago. Youth unemployment rate is more than double the rate of the rest of the population. Young workers of colour experience even higher unemployment and longer unemployment, lower salaries, and fewer promotions.

Older women:

Poverty is feminized more severely among older Canadians. Women over 65 are twice as likely as men to have incomes below the low income cutoffs.

Women with disabilities:

Women with disabilities are half as likely to be in the paid workforce as other women.

Women of colour:

Women of colour are 15-17 per cent less likely than other women to be in the workforce. They earn 12 per cent less than other women on average, and they face racial discrimination, which is a real barrier in hirings and promotions. They are more likely to be employed in precarious work and living in substandard housing. They are also more vulnerable to violence (racialized and sexualized).

Immigrant women :

Immigrant women between the ages of 25-44 tend to have higher level education than Canadian born women, yet their poverty rates are 5 per cent higher. They confront barriers to gaining recognition of their prior learning, skills, training, and experience. Higher unemployment levels for new immigrants.

  Moving Forward:
    What Women of Steel Can Do To Build Power

1. Start a women’s committee in your local.
2. Survey your membership on work-life conflict and bargaining priorities.
3. Raise women’s issues in union meetings.
4. Identify and encourage women to be involved in the health and safety committee.
5. Invite a speaker to discuss the importance of work-life balance.
6. Lobby for better pay and employment legislation.
7. Celebrate our diversity.
8. Help identify and break down barriers to the participation of women.
9. Negotiate pensions and pension improvements.

  Building Power Focus #3 - Education and Mobilization

Union power comes from an informed and active membership. Members are more likely to get involved when the union provides education and training with this in mind. Efforts at member mobilization need to build respect, understanding and appreciation for diversity. In particular, this includes paying attention to the needs and interests of women members and members of colour. It means being aware of cultural differences, as well as having and enforcing anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies.

Education and mobilization efforts should aim to both build awareness, connect objectives to the broader goals of the organization, and explain to members how their actions can help make a difference. Often they will focus around campaigns or issues. These efforts should also recognize the role new technologies play in how members relate to learning and communicating.

So, Are We There Yet?

YES

Women and Education/Training:

• Women are just as likely as men to attain high school, college, or university diploma/degree.
• More women are attending university than ever before.
• 37 per cent of women participate in job related training, which is a higher rate than men.

Women and Union Education:

• In 1990, the Steelworkers became the first union to develop a leadership program specifically for women, to be delivered by women: Women of Steel Leadership Program. A special Women of Steel course is also available for visible minority women.
• The United Steelworkers has delivered anti-harassment workplace training programs to over 40,000 front-line workers, supervisors, and managers.

Women and International Solidarity:

• A Women of Steel survey showed more than three-quarters of women felt the union should be concerned about the effect of international trade deals on living standards, as well as the corporate exploitation of women and children in the global economy.
• For 20 years, Steelworkers have been bargaining the Humanity Fund into collective agreements, which funds projects, education, exchanges, and policy advocacy work. The Fund focuses on international development, anti-poverty and social justice work with partners across Latin America and Africa. Many of the programs include a gender-equality component.

NO

Women and Education:

• Immigrant women and visible minority women in Canada are less likely than men to attain a university degree.
• Globally, two-thirds of the world’s children without education are girls, and two-thirds of the world’s illiterate are women.

Obstacles to Women’s Union Participation:

• Need for more education and skills development.
• Lack of necessary support network.
• Union agenda does not reflect input from women.
• Family responsibilities.
• Lack of women role models; negative stereotypes about active women.
• Need to develop more self-confidence.
• Not asked to participate.
• Atmosphere at meetings/events not conducive to mutual respect.
• Fear of being only woman or person of colour participating.

Harassment and Discrimination:

• According to the 2004 Canadian Human Rights Commission, one in six complaints to the Commission are filed on grounds of sex. One in seven complaints involves harassment in the workplace.
• 6.5 per cent of workers report having experienced sexual harassment or discrimination at work.
• 9 per cent of workers report having experienced racial harassment or discrimination at work.
• Girls in high school are four times more likely than boys to report being discriminated against on the basis of gender.
• 51 per cent of women report at least one instance of physical or sexual assault over their lifetime. 39 per cent of women have been sexually assaulted over their lifetime.
• Globally, the sex trade generates about $7 billion per year. Every year, 4 million women and girls are bought and sold into marriage, prostitution and slavery.

Women and Violence:

• Women are four times more likely to be killed by their spouse than men.
• 75 per cent of victims in reported criminal harassment cases are women.
• The 448 shelters in Canada for abused women and children house almost 100,000 people for at least some period of time during the year.
• Globally, 80 per cent of the world’s refugees and displaced persons are women. The proportion of victims of armed conflict that are women and children rose drastically over the 20th century (from five per cent in WWI, to 50 per cent in WWII, and nearly 80 per cent in the 1990s).

MAYBE

Women and Union Representation:

• Women now make up about 20 per cent of the Steelworkers membership.
• Women in positions of power in Steelworkers:

• The United Steelworkers has developed an Affirmative Action Guide to Local Union Elections. This resource guide is sent to locals to encourage and support workers from under-represented groups to run in elections.

  Moving Forward:
    What Women of Steel Can Do To Build Power

1. Start a women’s committee in your local.
2. Invite a speaker to run anti-harassment and violence prevention workshops.
3. Negotiate anti-harassment training and policies.
4. Recruit more women into courses. Sign up in pairs.
5. Survey your membership about obstacles to participation.
6. Support women to seek nomination and election to leadership positions.
7. Lobby for public services and shelters for victims of violence.
8. Reach out to community and global partners.
9. Negotiate contributions to Steelworker Humanity Fund.

  Building Power Focus #4 - Political and Legislative Activism

Workers’ rights are under attack by conservative politicians, their corporate allies and right-wing think tanks. Governments are undermining social standards through underfunding, privatization and deregulation.

The crisis is taking place in health care, education, and pensions. Bankruptcy protection laws are being abused in order to undo the gains of collective bargaining, and enforcement of minimum standards is being ignored or downloaded onto unions.

All of that should be enough to spur union members into action to ensure that we are not disadvantaged by the direction of business and government.

So, Are We There Yet?

YES

Progressive Legislation and Rights:

• Decriminalization of birth control in 1969.
• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982), including equality provisions which have become powerful tools for the women’s movement to challenge and change discriminatory legislation in a number of areas including pay equity, employment opportunity, family law, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, pregnancy discrimination, fair pensions and violence against women.
• Supreme Court removed abortion from the Criminal Code in 1988.
• Equal pay for equal work (between 1951 and 1975 across Canada).
• Equal pay for work of equal value in Manitoba (1985), Ontario (1988) and Quebec (1996).
• Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriages (2004) and adopted legislation (2005).
• Women’s rights protected internationally by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international conventions (such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and Convention on the Rights of the Child).

Women of Steel Political Activism:

• Increasing number of women active in lobbying and organizing.
• Hundreds of Women of Steel mobilized for the 2000 World March of Women.
• Involved in issues such as child care, violence prevention, human rights, same-sex rights, immigration, welfare, post-secondary education, medicare, social housing, security, pay equity, pensions, labour law reform, steel trade, and the Westray Bill.

NO

Women and Political Representation:

• Percentage of women in Parliaments around the world: 11 per cent

Child Care:

• 70 per cent of mothers with children under 6 are in paid workforce.
• One in five families with children has a single mother. (Most two-parent families are also two-income families.)
• One regulated child care space per six children (total of 750,000 spaces in Canada)
• One in five regulated child care spaces is "for-profit".
• Average funding allocation per child care space $3,223; per Canadian child $500.
• Staff-to-child ratios in Canadian child cares: 1 staff for every 3-6 infants in most provinces; 1 staff for every 8-12 five-year-olds in most provinces (1 for 15 in Nova Scotia).
• About 96 per cent of child care workers are women. Average wage in 2000 was $20,600.

Child Poverty:

• Child poverty peaked in early 1990s at 21 per cent. Child poverty has been declining since then, with the exception of 2002, when the rate increased slightly to 15.6 per cent (over 1 million children).
• Canada Child Tax Benefit introduced in 1998 includes a National Child Benefit Supplement to provide additional monthly benefits to low-income families with children.
• Child poverty rates are more than double for children who are Aboriginal, immigrants, or from a visible minority.
• Nearly half of all children in poverty had at least one parent who was employed year-round, and more than half of those parents worked full-time, year-round.

MAYBE

Women and Health

• Canadian fertility rates are down to 1.1.
• Maternal deaths down (rate is half of what it was 20 years ago).
• Canada Health Act (1984) ensures comprehensive public, universal, and accessible health care without user fees.
• One in five girls report smoking.
• One in seven HIV positive individuals are women. 40 per cent of all new cases are teenage girls.
• More women than men live with a disability. Rate among Aboriginal women is double that of national average.
• Globally, 600,000 women die yearly of preventable causes related to pregnancy. 100,000 more die from unsafe abortions. 300 million women in developing countries have no access to contraception.
• Privatization of health care hurts women in three key ways:
  • Undoes the gains of unionized women;
  • Reduced quality of care or more expensive services affects women more;
  • Increases the unpaid work of women.
• Women account for 80 per cent of health care workers, and the sector is highly unionized.
• Two-thirds of home care recipients are women; three-quarters of long-term patients are women.
• Women provide 75 per cent of the unpaid health care in Canada, and would likely provide a majority of the increased need for unpaid work due to health care privatization.

Social Housing:

• The Federal government has promised $1.5 billion annually over next five years for affordable housing. 32,000 new units are planned, although after two years not even a quarter have actually been launched.
• Throughout the 1980s, the government funded between 18,000 and 24,000 units per year. Over the last ten years, the number of affordable homes built each year was under 2,000.
• In 2001, one in five renters spent more than half of their income on housing.
• Families are the fastest growing population needing emergency shelter.

  Moving Forward:
    What Women of Steel Can Do To Build Power

1. Start a women’s committee in your local.
2. Invite a speaker to talk about pressing social issues.
3. Recruit more women into lobbying programs.
4. Organize rallies and join activities in support of progressive legislation.
5. Stop the privatization of health care.
6. Get involved politically and join the NDP.
7. Encourage women to run for elected positions municipally, provincially, and federally.

Information Sources

Campaign 2000 (www.campaign2000.ca ), End Child Poverty in Canada.

Canadian Labour Congress (www.canadianlabour.ca ), Economic Review and Outlook Newsletter, Annual Report Cards (Is Your Work Working for You?), and Research Papers (especially paper #23 by Cindy Wiggins and papers #22, #31 and #33 by Andrew Jackson).

Canadian Race Relations Foundation (www.crr.ca ), article by Cheryl Teelucksingh and Grace-Edward Galabuzi in Directions, Vol. 2, No. 1.

Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (www.criaw-icref.ca ).

Childcare Resource and Research Unit (childcarecanada.org ).

Statistics Canada (www.statcan.ca ), CANSIM tables, Perspectives on Labour and Income.

Status Of Women Canada (www.swc-cfc.gc.ca ), Beijing +10 Fact Sheets, and article on young women and change by Colin Lindsay and Marcia Almey.

Women and Environments International Magazine (www.weimag.com ), Jane Stinson’s article on privatization in issue No. 64/65.

Women of Steel Survey, United Steelworkers, 2001.