ABSTRACT
Various arguments have been put forward to explain the small numbers of women in trade unions. Women’s absence from the labour movement is caused by their position within the relations of domination in the home and family which has traditionally prevented their equal participation in the labour market. Furthermore, when women become workers, it is in the economic interests of employers to reproduce those relations of domination in the workplace, and inequality in the workplace is, in turn, exploited by the unions in order to stop the progress of women in trade union work. The failure of women to get ahead at branch or company level is amplified at sub-national and national levels of trade union organisation. These arguments have been expanded and rehearsed elsewhere (Cook et al. 1992, Cunnison and Stageman 1993).
