Women's Employment - United Nations Research Institute for Social ...

Women’s employment in the textile manufacturing sectors of Bangladesh and Morocco
Third, their low wages put women workers in a precarious
position. Although the work is important for them, it does not
completely solve their material needs. The uncertainties of their
employment reduces their motivation and this affects their diligence
and punctuality.
9. Forms of solidarity and strategies of resistance
The factory is a system that brings together management (the
head of the firm and his supervisory staff) and the women workers.
They all have different interests, sometimes divergent ones, and they
all use strategies to defend their interests. In industry, workers usually
engage in collective action through trade unions to put forward their
claims. However, there was little evidence of trade union activity in
the factories studied. Only one (male) worker in the sample claimed
union affiliation. While some workers (95) in the sample claimed that
their non-membership was a personal choice, there was a significant
number who responded that they had never been approached by a
union (45) or that they had no knowledge about unions (45). Only a
handful of respondents (five) said that they did not join a union for
fear of sanctions. Nonetheless, workers’ membership in and attitudes
towards unions are clearly shaped by those of management, for which
trade unions are an anathema.
Unions are an obstacle to our work. We prefer to have direct
negotiations with the workers. I have some workers whom I recruited
for lack of anyone better when we started up. I cannot dismiss them
now even if they have learnt nothing and are not productive. I have
inherited a labour force that is not qualified but I keep them on all
the same. (Head of a carpet factory)
As a consequence, it may be that even if workers are members
of a union they will not declare it. However, there was some evidence
to suggest that women workers are distrustful of unions and their
representatives. Various reasons were given by the women workers
for their non-membership in unions. One common view is that unions
are a prerogative of men. This view was echoed by the heads of the
factories. Men are seen to have greater ambitions and more likely to
resort to joint action to press their claims than women, who do not
express their grievances formally and are more likely to attempt to
use personal relations to settle their problems. In addition, the high
turnover rate suggests that women workers will simply move to
another factory or quit their jobs, rather than to try to overcome poor
working conditions. The impact of traditional forms of solidarity
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