The Working Woman's Permanent Conference organized a round table discussion and a workshop in Alexandria Governorate on Thursday and Friday (30-31/10/2014) to complete the series of round table discussions and workshops which aim to activate the working woman's role in trade union work through discussing all the problems and hindrances which confront them while they perform their work on one hand and inside the trade union on the other hand. These activities are held in the framework of the Permanent Conference's action plan for 2014 which aim at supporting and empowering working women to perform trade union work and enable them to overcome all the challenges which hinder them at work through recognizing the major problems, try to discover their causes and methods to overcome them.

It is worthy noting that all of the 20 women participants in the round table were members or leaders of independent trade union (Nursing, Al Ameriya Spinning and Weaving Co., the Egyptian Co. for Maritime Navigation, Teachers, the Library of Alexandria, Faragalla Co., Al Shifa Hospital, Real Estate Taxes, the press and Social Workers in addition to some workers from the Public Business Sector, the private sector and the government sector).

The round table dealt with (Mechanisms to Activate the Working Women's Role in Trade Union Work) through three main pivots:

 

The First Pivot: The importance of trade union work for the working woman;

The Second Pivot: The problems which confront working women inside the trade union (the existing problems and the expected challenges in the future);

The Third Pivot: Mechanisms for activating the working woman's role in trade union work.

 

The discussion started with a short presentation on the role and importance of trade unions regarding all the rights related to work including social, economic and cultural rights, the role of the working woman in trade union work: how did this role develop since the beginning of trade unionism and the hindrances which prevents the effective participation of women in trade union work in spite of their active participation in all protests and strikes which call for their rights. In spite of this effort, the working women are faced by many problems. In this regard, the participants related the problems which face them in trade union work and inside the trade unions. These problems are summed up as follows:

• Discrimination against women was on the top of these problems in trade union work and inside the trade unions. These are some of the different forms of discrimination:
  • Participants emphasized that women are kept far away from decision making positions in their establishments. "Men think they are better but they put us in the front lines when there are problems".

 

• Discrimination from managers. "The branch manager is against me simply because I am a woman".
• Discrimination from women colleagues against women. "Our colleagues may oppress us when they feel we are performing our role in a different manner or that we are different from them".
• Discrimination in medical care. "Men's families get medical service but women's families do not get it".
• The intentional defame of women trade unionists as reported by some participants.
• Fatigue and overstrain because the working woman plays more than one role as a worker and responsible for house affairs and child raising.
• Some sorts of discrimination affect men and women equally.
• Inadequate health service provided by health insurance system. There are several services that the system does not provide.
• Temporary labour contracts is a problem that faces both men and women.
• Several participants indicated that both male and female workers who joined independent unions face oppression. But women are oppressed twice: for being independent trade unionists and for being women.
• One of the participants said that her husband does not give her sufficient space to perform her public service. Other participants were encouraged to say that the husband feels jealousy when the wife exceeds him in work or in public service.

 

Participants reported that the main causes of the above mentioned problems are as follows:

• Lack of awareness of women's rights and how to attain them.
• Habits and traditions which put women in a lower rank (women are second class citizens).
• Legal and legislative defects which deprive the rights of workers I general and the rights of working women in particular.
• Some participants reported that women themselves are the reason of these problems (they are responsible for all their problems. If they want to do something, they will do it. But they do not want to change their position).
• The prevalent masculine culture (men are jealous when women 'as a wife or a colleague' succeeds. Husbands are very jealous when their wives achieve something).

 

Participants emphasized that being subject to the above mentioned problems leads to more problems represented in:

• Psychological pressure.
• Inability to work sometimes.
• Some women refrain from participation in public affairs.

 

(But in spite of all this we are resisting and will continue to resist), one of the participants said in concluding her speech about these problems.

• It is worth noting that the problems related by these participants came in the framework of elaborating the importance of the trade union for the working women and consequently the importance of their active participation in trade union work. Women can call for their rights through their trade union which adopts her causes. Consequently they tackled the problems which face women trade unionists and affect their performance in trade union work:

1.      The double discrimination against women in independent trade unions is one of the major problems. Men occupy the decision making positions in a number of independent trade unions. They scorn women sometimes because they have reached leadership positions.

2.      Lack of experience in trade union work.

3.      The number of unionized women is low in comparison with their number in the labour force. This may be due to their fear of losing their jobs if they join unions.

4.      The low number or absence of women in leadership positions is due to the general culture in the society which think that the actual role of the working women is not to represent workers and defend their rights to improve their working conditions and resist discrimination.

5.      The adversarial culture against women was spread by Islamist groups throughout the past four decades.

 

The Third Pivot: Mechanisms for activating the working woman's role in trade union work:

• Activate the trade unions' role in nomination and election of women workers after preparing them for trade union work, adopt and apply the equal chance principle and determine shares for elected women in leading positions and ensure appropriate representation at all levels.
• Act for changing the masculine culture in trade union work in order to open the floor for women's participation on equal footing in leadership positions.
• Put the issues which concern women regarding employment, work hours and wages on top of the trade unions priorities while negotiating with employers from the private and the public sectors.
• Build strong alliances between trade unions, women organizations and the other civil society organizations to exchange information and make programmes for enhancing the working women rights.
• The need for raising awareness and education campaigns for the society and for women in particular to highlight the importance of women's participation in trade unions as members and leaders which will lead to material and moral benefits.
• Merge the trade union dimension in the mechanisms of daily work.
• Participants expressed their need to build their capacities in order to know all their rights and defend them. They emphasized the need to accumulate knowledge through training packages for the same group with the objective of building strong trade union cadres especially in the following fields for example:

1.      Strategic planning for the groups to be formed in order to help them organize themselves.

2.      Knowledge of all the ILO conventions and other conventions related to the working women.

3.      Knowledge of the labour and insurance laws and critical reading of these laws.

4.      Skills for managing campaigns, negotiations and collective bargaining.

5.      Crisis management ability.

6.      Communication skills.

7.      Networking with all the categories interested in working women issues.

 

The round table discussion achieved the following outputs:

Clarification of the trade union role and its importance as one of the organizational forms which participate essentially in workers self organization and consequently their ability to express their demands. Thus, emphasis was put on the importance of the working women's participation in trade union work.

 

Clarification the existing conditions and problems inside trade unions through the role of women trade unionists inside the union: does it achieve the objective? Is there a need for more efforts so that women can have decent work and fair life without discrimination or injustice? The participants discussed the expected or the supposed role of the women trade unionists.

 

Second: In continuation of the round table and in the same framework of the Working Woman Permanent Conference a workshop entitled "Discrimination and its impacts on Working Women Rights" was held on Friday 31/10/2014 and dealt with three main pivots:

 

The First Pivot:

-          The concept and definition of discrimination and consequently the definition of discrimination against women.

-          The definition of discrimination against women in international conventions and in CEDAW.

 

The Second Pivot:

-          Forms of discrimination as one of the types of violence against women in society and in work.

-          Effects of discrimination on the working woman's performance and her role in the family.

The Third Pivot:

-          Mechanisms to overcome discrimination from the working women perspective.

 

•  Presentation of some case studies on discrimination forms in their work and families and whether or not they have overcome them in both cases.
• Work groups to discuss discrimination forms in work, union and family and intervention mechanisms in order to overcome them. Presentation of the work group results.

 

The first session was a general introduction for the concept of discrimination and its definition according to international conventions and to CEDAW in particular. It presented discrimination since the appearance of this term (as discrimination against woman) at the United Nations Charter in 1945. In its first article the charter stipulated the respect of human rights regardless to sex, language or religion and that there is no difference between males and females. Then the term was repeated in a number of instruments and it means complete equality between men and women. The most important of these instruments is the Declaration to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women in 1967. Feminist activities increased in the UN during that period and its programmes became more global until the declaration of 1975 the International Year for Women and the convention of the first international conference on women in Mexico. In the same year the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985) was declared. During that decade the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

 

The question which posed itself was on the position of women in the labour market in shade of the previous framework and the provisions of the international conventions on women and the ILO standards for women. The answer to this question was a complete presentation for all the international conventions concerned with women employment issued by the ILO and the Arab Labour Organization.

 

The second session dealt with discrimination forms as one of the forms of violence against women in the society and at work and its impacts on women both in public work and in the family. Although women participate in public work in the society and in trade union activities, they are still suffering from severe discrimination . women are still suffering from the social outlook which considers them as incapable of taking any leadership positions in parties, trade unions, federations or any other organizations. This may be because the society looks at women as of less experience than men and that they have less time because of their responsibility towards their families whereas men are free to have full time for public work. Moreover, they doubt women's ability to take public work without any tangible reason. But the opposite is true: we have seen women during the past years and especially during the two recent revolutions in Egypt play a great role and participate effectively in all events.

 

On the other hand, working women participate in all the workers' protests and strikes effectively at all times. They moved from the second line to become in the front line equal to men. They became effective members of trade unions. But  their role stopped at this level because they did not reach decision making positions. They are not introduced as effective trade union and labour leaders. Men are preferred to women in leading positions because men present themselves as stronger and more capable of being leaders. There is no justification for such an assumption. As a consequence, women causes are handled superficially without focusing on their real causes. Women causes are not at the top of the trade union priorities which should include providing them with special training for awareness raising and trade union skills at the suitable time. On the other hand we find that men have more luck in trainings and internal and external travels without any societal or familial restrictions; whereas women remain with less experience and less ability to merge in public service and trade union work. Consequently, their rights remain in the second class albeit their importance not only for women but also for the society as a whole.

 

Damages caused by discrimination against women at work and in the society according to the participants points of view are as follows:

• Discrimination against women led to their considerable absence from trade union work and consequently the absence of the causes and demands of women trade unionists in trade union programmes.
• The absence of women from active participation in trade union work led to the loss of a considerable momentum in the feminist movement in general because the concerns of labour and professional sectors are interconnected with women rights.
• The absence of women from trade union work due to discrimination led to their absence from public and social work which was reflected to a large extent on their absence from discussing the laws which concern their affairs and daily life.
• Women's interests were affected as a result of this absence. Working women became more liable to exploitation in various public and private sectors and to discrimination in employment, wages, promotions and even at the legislation level.
• The negative culture of the society was reflected on the working women's position, deprivation of job opportunities, violation of rights, marginalization and intentional exclusion from all decision making positions.
• Their absence participated as well in the non crystallization of a social lobbying movement to defend the working women's rights. But in spite of all this, all the participants in the workshop have the capability of resistance. They are ready to organize themselves and defend their rights after acquiring certain skills.

 

The third and last session dealt with the working women resistance to all forms of  discrimination.

• It appeared from discussions that discrimination is a big problem for all the participants be it at the work place or inside their independent trade unions. This reproduces the old system which is found both at work and in the general trade unions. It calls for the necessity to include the subject of discrimination in the different trainings provided to them.
• Some participants gave some expressions against women. This is, in fact, the discriminatory language exercised against them which shows that they are not aware of the factors which produce discrimination. It also refers to the role played by the paternal system in putting women in a lower class, it is believed that adding the subject of discrimination and gender to the training packages will be useful if the specificity of the category of trainees is taken into consideration.
• Other than the part related to husbands' jealousy and insufficient space to play a role in public affairs, the participants did not express in a clear manner the problems they face at home. This is because the participants did not have enough knowledge of some gender concepts.
• It appeared from the discussion that the participants have clear vision of their problems but their conception of roots, the actors and the duration of these problems is different. This indicates the dire need for training and a methodology for analytical thinking beside trainings on group work and team work mechanisms.
• The media should deal with the problem of discrimination because it has negative effects on the women's labour force and on the families in particular.
•  Trade unions and federations should fight gender discrimination at work and in their organizational structures through special programmes, capacity building and awareness raising campaigns and should register and monitor cases of discrimination to fight and eliminate them.

 

The Working Women Permanent Conference

5/11/2014