Affiliate Updates
NTUI believes that it is time that the trade union movement addresses the issues of organisation of women workers and their concerns in collective bargaining. There are today many new complexities in women’s employment and organisation, arising in this phase of imperialist globalisation. Trade unions, traditionally, including our own affiliates, have not sufficiently engaged with women’s work, and their organisation as members of the working class. Despite the large numbers of women in the workforce today, they remain invisible and their work is viewed as less skilled and of lower value. This is because of the patriarchy reflected in every structure of the society, including trade unions, where women are accepted in leadership roles, their contributions are hidden, and their concerns do not get due recognition. Most of them even remain outside the trade union organisation. Their under-representation extends to all forms of social and political organisation, including the government at all levels from the legislature to the panchayat. NTUI also recognises that democracy at home, and in all aspects of social interactions is as important as democracy at the workplace.
The Second General Assembly of the NTUI resolved to build campaigns, with women’s organisations for:
- Increase in the minimum wages from being ‘Minimum’ to a ‘Living’ wage, and strive for better enforcement.
- A policy of zero tolerance to violence against women.
- Recognising women’s unpaid and unaccounted for work
- A national Domestic Workers Act for regulation of employment of domestic workers