Women’s conference backed Scotland’s call for all bargaining structures in our union to have gender pay justice right at the front of their minds when they formulate pay claims; and for action across the UK and devolved nations to press governments to bring forward legislation to close the pay gap with meaningful sanctions where employers fail to do this.
The Women’s Committee will also relaunch and re-invigorate the bridge the gap campaign to bring this issue to the forefront of our union’s consciousness in everything we do.
Moving the motion, Kate Ramsden, regional delegate spoke of the endemic problem that work predominantly done by women is neither valued nor paid its worth in our society.
“In fact it is disgracefully undervalued, underpaid and precarious and this trend is worsening.
“This means that women are now bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis, struggling to feed themselves and their families and heat their homes,” slammed Kate.
“There is no doubt that women are exploited and discriminated against in the workplace because we are women. We enter the labour force already disadvantaged because of our role as mothers and carers and we pay the price.”
She pointed out that trade unions, political parties of the left and labour movements have not always been good at prioritising women’s issues.
“Conferences like this one are changing all of that. More and more women are joining unions and more and more union leaders are women,” said Kate but pointed out that with a right wing Tory government, there is much more to be done.
#uwomen23