PM John Howard and the federal Coalition's anti-union legislation will be disastrous for all workers, but some are likely to fare worse than others. Green Left Weekly spoke to Jenny Kruschel, Victorian assistant secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia (TCFUA), at the June 11 National Union Fightback Conference in Melbourne, about the likely impact of the attacks on women and what can be done to resist them.
"I think the whole of the Howard government's legislation, not just the workplace legislation, is really an anti-women agenda", Kruschel said, citing the example of federal health minister Tony Abbott's attacks on abortion and IVF rights.
A major issue is the demand that "workplaces have got to be flexible", Krushel explained. She referred to the case of a woman organised by the TCFUA in Cranbourne, Melbourne. The company wanted this woman to work overtime, however she was unable to do so in the mornings because her child was picked up on the Frankston freeway. "She offered to work overtime on Friday", but the company "was going to sack her". However she refused to leave her eight-year-old son on the freeway, because "it's dangerous, anything could happen, he could have an accident or he could get abducted".
The dispute was resolved and the worker didn't lose her job, however Kruschel pointed out that "under this new legislation, she would have got the sack". The government's anti-union, anti-worker legislation, among its swathe of attacks, exempts businesses employing less than 100 workers from unfair dismissal laws.
"Women who are not prepared to leave children, who are not prepared to just basically give up their home life, are really going to suffer under this legislation. It's going to impact more on women than men. Women are in lower-skilled jobs and women have to stop work to have children. There's going to be great pressures on them."
Kruschel argued that "women have to come back together as a collective and really fight this legislation". To do this, "women need to organise collectively as women and also involve their unions and their community groups". She added that women have to "start talking" about the government's anti-women agenda, "really being honest about how it's going to impact on their lives". This includes also looking at things like the changes to Medicare. "Fundamentally, who's that going to affect? Women", Kruschel explained, because they bear most of the responsibility for looking after their families.
Kruschel believes that unions must take up the fight in defence of women's rights, but that it is the responsibility of women to take an active role in their union to ensure this.
It's not enough to "just say to unions they've got to change. They're not going to change unless women make them change. We have to say to people you may not be happy with your union, but you've got to get in there and you're responsible for changing your union and for really getting women's rights out there."
Kruschel added that "women have to really participate in the debate" about what their union should be doing, and "become politically active. Because I think at the moment we leave it a lot up to men." She acknowledged that "it's a hard struggle, having come from a union that had all male elected officials, to having changed that where we've now predominantly got women".
The TCFUA will join other unions in Victoria and across Australia on June 30 to protest Howard's attacks on unions. See the ad on page 5 For details.
Kerryn Williams
From Green Left Weekly, June 29, 2005.
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