ABSTRACT
The dilemma for women unionists was how to make their representations on behalf of women workers heard in the industrial workplace. Women trade union leaders used the slogan ’the rate for the job’ in their campaign for equal pay in the 1960s because they believed it ensured that there were no misunderstandings about what they wanted for industrial women. By urging that industrial women be considered as 'workers’ the same as men, women trade union leaders hoped to bring about a change in the deeply entrenched attitudes which helped perpetuate the notion that women were only of secondary value as workers. The chapter demonstrates how the 'public' differences, that are the particular worker skills and attributes women could have, were forgotten in an environment which based worker value on a male standard. By assuming what seemed to be a gender-neutral position women leaders propounded the view that women in paid employment should be considered as 'workers’ rather than ’women’.
