Women's quotas in brewery union FOR THE FIRST time in Denmark - perhaps even in the whole of Western Europe - women in a trade union have managed to win a sexual quota in the election of the leadership. Likewise, they have managed to win an agreement with the employers that in future equal numbers of men and women will be hired.
The objective is to get an equal number of men and women employed and to get the concept of men's and women's work dropped, which means equal access to all jobs. KARIN PEITERSEN
DENMARK Denmark, there is a need for womenonly unions. Otherwise, women's demands would be overlooked, and women would have difficulty in being represented, as shown by the experiences in unions that have both male and female members.
The brewery workers solved this problem by adopting a quota for women - not only in the leadership of the union but at the level of the factory organization and in the election of shop stewards. At the same time, it was established that in order to change this rule two-thirds of the women voting would have to vote for the change.
On January 1, the men's and women's workplace organizations fused. If more than a third of the members of a workplace organization are women, at least a third of the places in that organization's leadership must go to women. There is to be an equal number of male and female shop stewards. The quota for representation in the leadership also applies to men. If the number of men or women is under a third, but more than 10 per cent, then the minority is to be assured at least one place in the leadership.
All shop stewards are automatically members of the workplace organization leadership, and if the women are under-represented in accordance with the new rules, additional repres entatives are to be elected from the women shop stewards and deputy shop stewards.
The day-to-day leadership of the union consists of four elected officials of whom two are to be of each sex. This is in line with the objective of having an equal number of men and women workers.
The two unions had been dis-
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The union is the Copenhagen brewery workers' union, and the workplaces concerned are two big breweries, Carlsberg and Tuborg, where there are 2,700 workers, of whom 700 are women. Until January of this year, the men and women organized in separate trade unions.
In 1903, the women brewery workers organized. But since they were not accepted by the men, they had to form their own union. The reason given for not accepting women into the existing union was that they pushed down wages and took jobs away from men.
The same reason was given when women factory workers wanted to join the factory workers' union.
So, they had to organize their own Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund (Women's Labor Union). This union still exists. It has 100,000 members, all unskilled workers who work in factories or as cleaners. Women-only union
In contrast to the women brewery workers, the leadership of the Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund is holding on to the principle of a union for women only. They defend this by saying that so long as there is not equality in
cussing fusion for more than 20 years. But, during this time, there had been very big conflicts. In particular, women were very bitter about the fact that it was their jobs that disappeared when automation was introduced into the breweries in the 1950s and 1960s. And the new jobs were taken by men.
In some breweries outside Copenhagen, women disappeared altogether from the production departments. In Aarhus, Denmark's second biggest city, for example, there are only 37 women brewery workers left, and they still have their own union.
However, in Copenhagen, the women managed to get an agreement with the employers and the male workers that if women's jobs were automated, the women workers would be kept on. Moreover, equal pay was introduced, which means that people are paid the rate for the departments they are in and not for the specific jobs they hold.
In this way, women managed to hold their jobs in the breweries, even if today they constitute only a quarter of the workforce. But there is also a possibility now for changing that. The brewery employers calculate that with the natural departures from the workforce and the new hiring, in the year 2007 there will be an equal number of men and women workers.
However, the guarantee that this will happen is not going to be provided by the employers but by the brewery workers themselves. It is their solidarity and activity that will assure not only that women are hired, but also men.
The number of brewery workers has fallen drastically as a result of rationalizations and the introduction of new technology. Shortly after the end of the Easter strikes in 1985, the brewery workers at Carlsberg and Tuborg in Copenhagen went out on a 10-week-long conflict under the slogan "technology must make our work easier, not eliminate us." The demand was for a shorter workweek and jobs for all.
The brewery workers did not win their strike against the bosses, but they did improve the solidarity between men and women, and open up the way for a common union. During the strike, common meetings were held for men and women, and there was a joint union strike committee. The unions organized together around all the strike actions.
Women played a very active role in organizing blockades in front of the breweries and in collecting money for the strikers. The brewery workers are convinced today that a common union will give them new strength, and that they will be better able to take on the bosses. 12
FRANCE Cahiers du féminisme celebrates tenth birthday THE CAHIERS du feminisme is a quarterly socialist-feminist journal published by the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR .- the French section of the Fourth International).