Beyond Glass Ceilings and Brick Walls - International Labour ...

Workers Rights and Unionization
None of the 10 women interviewed as case studies or the 66 questionnaires
were members of trade unions. Previous research (Wijayatilake and Zakeriya
2000: Kandasamy 2002) of the estate sector conveys high male domination
in trade unions, with exceedingly little scope for women’s leadership. Women’s
committees in trade unions (where established) only provides limited space
for women to make representations with regard to women’s problems.
In the plantation sector, trade unions have occasionally been seen to
play a facilitating role (and even resorted to strikes) on issues involving
sexual harassment (Wijayatilake and Zakeriya 2000).
However, the extent to which trade unions have fought for women’s
rights or prioritized women’s issues is unclear.
Certain companies featured in the book such as the nursing agency seem
to deliberately discourage employees fraternizing with one another. As the
service is a home-based one, the nurses were hardly given the opportunity
to meet one another. At the same time, the head office was seen to discourage
employees from remaining in the premises beyond strict office hours. The
interviewee felt that this was because “the company did not want the
employees to organize themselves and demand their rights or to solve their
problems”.
As noted earlier, a majority of enterprises in the Free Trade Zones too do not
allow unionization. Recently, however, the Free Trade Zones Workers Union
covering all three FTZs was formed and has received some recognition, though
individual union branches are yet to be accepted. The FTZWU has a majority of
women workers on the Executive Committee and as members (http://
www.cleanclothes.org/urgent/01-09-23.htm).
Gender and Micropolitics of Work Cultures
The previous section dealt with the ‘superstructures’ at the workplace; in the
form of the perceptible work structures, mechanisms and practices that form
the wider contract between employers and the workers. This section concentrates
on the intangible workings of organizational ‘subculture’ at the workplace, which
propagate a general atmosphere of discrimination, insensitivity and injustice. In
other words, it converges on the indistinct ‘substructure’ and gender micropolitics
of work organizations that are created by gender-biased assumptions, patriarchal
ideologies and androcentric work ethics.
Specific references are made to the consequences of gendered perceptions,
language, morality etc., within work organizations, which have insidiously
become part of the overall organizational culture. These can be seen to
impact negatively on women’s and men’s working (and personal) lives while
perpetuating further gender inequity/equality.
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