Strategies to support equality bargaining inside unions: Representational democracy and representational justice

Union initiatives on representational democracy in collective bargaining

In elaborating that social dialogue (under which rubric the International Labour Organization (ILO) includes CB) is ‘an essential tool for advancing gender equality in the world of work’, the ILO points not only to the importance of ‘introducing a gender perspective … so as to reflect the changing nature of labour markets and patterns in the world of work’ but also to ‘increasing the participation … of women in the process. … It is through participation that women and men can achieve decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity’ (International Labour Organization, 2009: 161). Equitable participation is what this paper refers to as RD.

In their study of European unions, Braithwaite and Byrne (1995) found women concentrated ‘in certain committees and departments: women’s, social policy, training, and health and safety. Conversely, women are rare as committee members and department officials in the significant areas of economic and wages policy, collective bargaining and finance.’ Braithwaite and Byrne (1995) called for ‘desegregation’ in order to achieve a better representation of women and concluded that this goal is ‘just as important an objective as increasing the overall proportions of women in decision-making’ (p. 52). CB may well be the union area most in need of desegregation, not only because of the limited participation of women and members of other equality-seeking groups, but also because ‘unions’ collective bargaining structures and the persons who participate in negotiations … emerge as the source and seat of internal union power,’ a comment made in 1992 which remains true today (Cook et al., 1992: 80).

Despite the critical significance of CB to union power, and the widespread recognition of the importance of including women on bargaining teams, comprehensive data on women’s participation in CB are surprisingly limited. Although the European trade unions and central union bodies, particularly the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), have committed to collecting data on women’s representation in unions in the interests of transparency and mainstreaming, their reports do not include extensive or consistent information on CB. This paper brings together the scattered data which do exist and highlights the discrepancy between the recognition of the problem of women’s absence on CB teams and interventions to address it. It does not introduce new data on women’s participation in CB (although certainly a worthy and important project).

In a study now 10 years old, the ILO reported that some individual unions are recognizing the importance of involving their women members in the negotiation process.

Some have established quotas for women’s participation, either by fixing a percentage (ranging from 33% to 50%), or in numerical terms (at least one or two women must be included in the team). … For other unions, the proportion of women included in the collective bargaining teams must reflect the proportion of women members of the union. A few unions include women in collective bargaining only when there are issues raised of particular concern to women. (ILO, 2002a: 34)

The 2003 report of the ETUC includes data on centralized CB. Of the 20 confederations who reported involvement in centralized bargaining, the fact that 30% of these confederations (six in total) were unable to estimate the percentage of women on their negotiating teams is significant. For the remainder, the average proportion of women was approximately 35%; the proportion ranged from 0% (CSC-Belgium) to 71% (ACDenmark). The composition of the majority of these teams did not reflect the female membership rate. In comparison to previous ETUC surveys (conducted from 1993), the percentage of women on these teams had increased in some confederations and decreased in others. The Report concluded that ‘the results are mixed’ (ETUC, 2003: 63–64).

Unfortunately, in the 2007 (authored by Sechi) and 2010 reports, data on CB were not included. In fact, in the many reports which document union committee participation by gender, CB committees are rarely included. For example, none of the five detailed TUC Equality Audits includes specific information on the composition of bargaining teams, nor does the first equity survey Advancing Equity by the Numbers done by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC, 2011).

Despite the paucity of data, the ETUC Charter on Gender Mainstreaming in Trade Unions (2007) recognizes that ‘mainstreaming gender equality in collective bargaining remains a major challenge.’ The first of several measures identified to this end was ‘explicitly inviting, supporting and training women to participate in collective bargaining committees and negotiating teams.’ ² An ETUC report (2011) on improving gender balance in trade unions emphasized the ‘importance of achieving gender balance in collective bargaining teams.’ It argued that

gender balanced collective bargaining teams are a matter of social democracy and a basic value of the trade union movement; the involvement of women and men and at all levels of collective bargaining enables new perspectives to be integrated into the bargaining agenda, by drawing on women’s experiences, opinions, knowledge and skills; [and] gender balanced collective bargaining teams also enable new styles and new approaches to collective bargaining methods. (p. 3)

Interrogating the potential of representational democracy

Three issues emerge about women’s participation on CB teams: first, whether women make a difference in terms of outcomes; second, whether more women on a bargaining team constitute a critical mass which increases the power of their voice; and third, whether gender composition impacts on bargaining processes and outcomes.

Constituency committees

Women’s committees are widely institutionalized in trade unions, at many levels and in most countries. In fact, over the past 40 years, constituency organizing inside unions, also called separate or self-organizing, has brought together members of equality-seeking groups – women, people of colour, Aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples – to increase their skills, self-confidence and political power. An extensive literature documents and explores the contributions of this organizing: changes in union policies and discourses; impacts on democratization and ways of working (Parker, 2003); expansion of the leadership and activist pools (Braithwaite and Byrne, 1995; Briskin, 1999; Colgan and Ledwith, 2000; Healy and Kirton, 2000; Pocock, 1995); the emergence of women leaders of colour (Das Gupta, 2007; Dickerson, 2006); improved leadership accountability (Dickerson, 2006); the building of alliances with marginalized communities outside unions (Chen and Wong, 1998; Dickerson, 2006; Edelson, 2009; Kishi, Ahn et al., 2002); the transformation of union relationships with social movements (Briskin, 2002; Kainer, 2009); and the development of policy initiatives and the enlargement of the CB agenda (Briskin, 2006a; Hunt and Rayside, 2007).

In Canada, the various identity-specific committees and caucuses are now beginning to invent new political and organizational ways to work collectively and collaboratively across various marginalized constituencies – what I have called cross-constituency organizing (Briskin, 2008). Such organizing offers vehicles to develop institutional and political practices which take account of multiple, sometimes competing, identities (intersectionality), and help prevent intersectional disempowerment (Crenshaw, 1991). It also promotes a culture of alliances, enhances inclusive solidarity, advances the union equality project, deepens democracy and helps to revitalize unions.

Research suggests that constituency committees can play an important role in CB. In a 2009 piece on employee network groups for women, African Americans and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) sector in the USA, similar to constituency committees but located in workplaces rather than unions, Scully (2009) points to cases ‘in which employee groups were able to negotiate effective alliances across their own differences’ (p. 74). She also notes the way in which such employee network groups affected positive outcomes around workplace equality issues.

Sturm (2009) finds that the ‘negotiation literature and practice has paid little attention to the question of how to reshape the context within which negotiations proceed’ (p. 92), a concern which also informs this article on internal union strategies. Sturm highlights the role of what she calls ‘constituencies of accountability’ which are not dissimilar in purpose to constituency committees: ‘One strategy for introducing accountability has been to create task forces and working groups that have a role in monitoring or evaluating the progress of initiatives … [They] put new constituencies at the table to redesign processes’ (p. 104). Williamson’s (2012) study of successful CPSU bargaining for family leave provisions highlighted the importance of collective mobilization, feminist leadership and internal democratic structures which facilitated the dissemination of feminist ideas. The fact that constituency organizing provides support on all three measures underscores its potential to provide support to the CB process.

Links between constituency structures and collective bargaining

Inside unions, what has been the link between constituency and cross-constituency structures and CB? In the first instance, many have identified the weakness of the connection. In an early UK study, Colling and Dickens (1990: 40) found that ‘equal opportunity structures and activity and negotiation structures and activity tend … to operate in isolation.’ This finding was confirmed by Dickens (1998: xiii) in her study of unions in the EU: ‘[W]ithin unions, structures facilitating the mobilization of women and the articulation of their concerns do not necessarily have institutionalized links with bargaining.’

At the same time, the recognition of the need to enhance and formalize the structural and political links between equality structures and CB is widespread. In its 2002 series on Promoting Gender Equality: A Resource Kit for Unions, the ILO (2002b) stressed the importance of providing ‘specific opportunities for women workers to make their voices heard’ (p. 14). The report emphasized the role of gender equality on women’s committees, departments or units in the formulation of demands; the ability of such structures to formally submit demands for negotiations and the importance of special meetings of women representatives from all departments or units. In fact, a list of factors likely to influence the success or failure of bargaining for equality included ‘links between equality structures in employer or union organizations on the one hand and negotiation structures on the other’ (p. 27).

Some unions have moved in the direction of formalizing such links, although the qualitative and quantitative data are somewhat limited. The ILO (2002a: 34) indicated that some unions ‘stipulate that certain office-bearers (notably, the head of the equality committee, the director of the equality/women’s department or a female executive member) must be included in collective bargaining teams.’ The 2003 ETUC report documents the extent to which women’s departments have statutory roles in CB, including voting rights. Of the 18 confederations (out of the 31 surveyed) who answered this question, nine Women’s Departments had representation on CB teams (four of which had voting rights) and nine did not (pp. 46, 56). The 2007 report explored whether Women’s Committees had links with trade union bodies in charge of CB, and whether they had voting rights on these bodies (p. 32). Of the 61 Confederations surveyed, 52 had women’s committees and 38 of these had links with CB bodies (73%), although only 12 (32%) were entitled to voting rights. The second ETUC Equality Plan (adopted in 2003) called on ETUC members to prepare ‘negotiations and/or negotiating guidelines in cooperation with equality officers’; disappointingly, this issue is not explicitly addressed in the 2007 ETUC Charter on Gender Mainstreaming. The 2012 Equality Audit of the TUC in the UK reported that 64% of reporting unions identified equality priorities on the basis of recommendations from equality bodies in the union (p. 11). It noted that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has a policy in place whereby all negotiators need to consult with Equality Officers on any agreement that may impact on equality (p. 13).

Evidence suggests that linkages between equality structures and CB have played important roles in facilitating and encouraging bargaining for equality. In an early study of public sector unions in Québec, Nichols-Heppner (1984) concluded that establishing women’s committees is a more effective strategy than seeking greater electoral representation, and that such committees ‘evoke more organizational responsiveness from unions’ and are ‘the strongest determinant of the negotiation of collective agreement provisions favorable to women unionists’ (p. 294). In Dickens’ (2000: 205) research on attitudes of male negotiators, she found that men may bargain for equality when mandated to do so by their organization; where they have personal commitment to equality; where such commitment is engendered through constructing shared interests in equality; and where training has helped overcome ignorance of women’s concerns and equality issues. Interestingly, she identified a number of cases where ‘male negotiators who were bargaining for equality were in unions with internal equality structures which fed into the collective bargaining process directly.’

The significance of links between women’s committees and CB success is also demonstrated in a study on pay equity bargaining in Canada. Provincial government pay equity policies require the negotiation of pay equity in unionized workplaces. Based on case studies of bargaining in the public service in Ontario and in health care in Newfoundland, Hart (2002) concluded that the unions most effective in such bargaining supplemented their conventional negotiating techniques with gender analysis and pay equity expertise. Of particular interest is the fact that such ‘tools were developed primarily through negotiators’ formal links with internal equality structures and their knowledge of equality policies, together with women’s networking inside and outside the labour movement’ (Hart, 2002: 609). In a UK study of 585 officers engaged either in organizing or bargaining on behalf of union members, Heery (2006) identified the ‘distance between negotiating and equality structures within unions’ as ‘an abiding theme.’ At the same time, he found that ‘the role of equality and women’s officers in encouraging officers to pursue the question of equal pay is particularly noticeable.’ He concluded: ‘The study points to a fairly strong link between negotiator exposure to influence from specialist equality officers and committees and involvement in bargaining on equal pay’ (Heery, 2006: 538).

It is also worth noting that constituency organizing may be more effective in increasing RD than direct demographic strategies such as designated seats. Women in Decision-making in Trade Unions (Braithwaite and Byrne, 1995), an extensive study of national confederations from 31 countries done for the ETUC, concluded that the existence of women’s committees promotes increased participation of women in union leadership. The study notes: ‘Those confederations with markedly low levels of female representation within the confederation structures have no such committee, suggesting that women’s or equality committees are a necessary part of achieving better female representation’ (p. 17). This conclusion is confirmed by other studies. An Australian study found that resource-intensive initiatives such as women’s committees and officers led to larger proportions of women representatives (Pocock, 1995: 17). A 2011 statistical study of Austrian and German unions analysed determinants of women’s union representation: ‘The more active the women’s structure is in promoting female participation in the decision-making structure of a trade union, the higher is the relative share of women therein’ (Blaschke, 2011: 433). In Dickerson’s (2006) exploration of Black and Latina women’s leadership in the US labour movement, her respondents identified the importance of minority networks as critical: ‘Constituency groups and minority caucuses launch careers of individual minority leaders [and] organize to get minority concerns on the broader labor movement agenda’ (Dickerson, 2006: 300, 306). In the AFL survey of workers of colour who are in leadership positions in AFL affiliated unions, 86% reported that ‘they participated in one or more of the constituency groups’ (AFL, 2005: 10).

Although direct measures such as designated seats or quotas which increase RD are necessary, vehicles for RJ, such as constituency committees, support both descriptive and substantive (process and outcomes) representation. To put it another way, constituency committees are vehicles to enhance the collective voices of women workers and contribute to greater success negotiating equality. They may also facilitate the entry of individual women into leadership, help increase the accountability of elected leaders and thereby improve substantive representation. However, to prevent the marginalization of constituency structures and to ensure their authority and legitimacy, statutory rights of women’s committees to active involvement and voice in CB, and financial and staff resources need to be guaranteed.

In her analysis of South Africa, Vincent concludes that ‘[p]recisely those features of society which lead to the distortion [of numerical representation] in the first place, make it impossible for the presence of women, in the absence of other far-reaching measures, to make much difference at all’ (quoted in Franceschet and Piscopo, 2008: 400). Undoubtedly, without ‘far-reaching’ mechanisms for RJ, RD will not suffice as a vehicle for union women’s collective voice.

Constituency organizing as an opportunity structure and a form of intra-organizational bargaining

Two approaches help situate constituency organizing within debates about CB. First, many scholars have framed discussion of factors which facilitate or inhibit bargaining for equality with reference to opportunity structures (see e.g. Gregory and Milner, 2009; Williamson, 2012). This paper suggests that constituency committees, and particularly statutory links between such committees and CB, offer an opportunity structure which can contribute to the success of bargaining for equality.

Second, constitutionalizing and institutionalizing links between constituency organizing and CB might be understood with reference to the intra-organizational bargaining framework introduced by Walton and McKersie (1965). In their later work, Walton et al. (1994) argued that involving nontraditional internal stakeholders in negotiations is a way to ‘bring a greater diversity of views into the negotiating process.’

[O]ne of the techniques for generating internal support for interparty problem-solving and relationship-building processes is to widen the extent of constituent involvement in them … [I]t may mean involving more people as members of internal committees working on the preparation for bargaining and even on the bargaining team itself … These more inclusive approaches may help minimize complications with the ratification and administration of an agreement, but they also bring a greater diversity of views into the negotiating process. (pp. 313–314)

Although beyond the scope of this article, intra-organizational bargaining might also include attention to negotiating within the bargaining team itself, and the gender scripts which operate in such contexts. Although there is virtually no research on gender scripts in the CB process, extensive research has been done on gender and negotiations in other contexts. Although much of it focuses on dyadic negotiations, for example for salary increases and in managerial contexts, some of it is suggestive for examining the CB process (see Kolb and McGinn (2009) on ‘gendered negotiations,’ and Kray and Thompson (2005)).