The biggest postwar breakthrough for the union and labour
movements was for women, who saw significant increases in
workforce numbers and union participation. Unfortunately,
these increases did not put women on a level playing-field
with their male counterparts in either domain — an
inequality that persists to date.
In Quebec, the growing presence of women in the labour
and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s was a
key factor in the fight for social progress: gender and wage
equity, maternity leave, limitations on budget cut-backs -
all are battles in which women played a front-line role.
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During the 1968 Royal Commission on the Status of Women, CUPE made
the following report:
"CUPE does not feel that the labour movement does enough to fight
discrimination against working women. We will readily admit that
there is discrimination against women in all sections of the
labour movement. To hide the fact will only prevent the solving of
the problem.
We do not wish to minimize the good work done by many unions which
try to eliminate wage discrimination and job opportunity on the basis
of sex. Nevertheless, the majority of female union members who fight
for true equality, do so without the wholehearted support of their
fellow trade unions, male and female.
Although our female membership is considerably higher than the general
pattern of unions in Canada, the union of CUPE have only fared slightly
better than women in other unions in attaining positions of leadership.
a) Two executive board members out of a total of 17 are women.
b) With a total of 75 executive officers in all of CUPE Provincial
Divisions across Canada, eight are women.
c) With a technical organizing and education staff of 90, CUPE has just
recently hired its first female representative
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"The women who are on the job site know very well that they will never get
ahead without a union. They know they will still not have equality,
they will not have safety and health, they will not have protections
of any sort."
Shirley Carr, President of the Canadian Labour of Congress.
Excerpt from: Canadian Union Movement in the 1980s: Perspectives
from Union Leaders, Pradeep Kumar and Dennis Ryan, eds. (Queens:
Industrial Relations Centre, 1988).
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Percentage of
Women in Unions
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Statistics from: Who Makes the Decisions?: Women's
Participation in Canadian Unions, Marina C. Boehm (Kingston:
Industrial Relations Centre, 1991).
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