Gordon Black - Women in Trade Unions - One Mum, Many Women
Mum left school at the age of fifteen. Like most of young people at that time, in the late 1940s/50s, she went straight into work. Across the city there were many manufacturing companies taking on. She chose a company which made cards.
Mum was one woman of many women who’ve played an important part in Dundee’s working history. It was what most women from the city did and did well. A reputation earned from the jute industry where the majority of workers were women, was one reason overseas companies were drawn to the city post-war.
Mum joined the union on day one at work. In later years, she always said she’d been in the union from the start and that every worker in a factory “had to be in the union”. Mostly quiet and never given to saying more than a few words, when it came to the union it was just, “You’ve always got the union to back you up”.
Mum was never particularly active in the union. She did have a short spell helping out as a shop steward but at that time union organisation was male dominated and to “make up her money”, she needed to work overtime. Progress in a union was harder for women then.
Mum was never overtly political. For her, paying the bills, getting the kids sorted and “sorting the house” mattered first. She did always vote. “You have to vote,” she’d say. Only rarely did she comment further although in 1979 there was, “Not that bloody woman”. She wasn’t wrong.
Mum did have a time away from her job in manufacturing and the union. In those days, pregnancy and young children mostly meant your job wasn’t kept open for you. For a few years, she worked part-time as a cleaner until childcare arrangements allowed a return to full-time work. She also rejoined the union. The union was part of her family at work.
Mum worked all her days. She eventually retired in her sixties when the factory closed and moved overseas. She occasionally would comment on the union securing better pay, better health and safety, more equal pay. Again, always to the point “It was the union that got us these things.” Unions made a difference then. Unions make a difference today.
Written by Gordon Black, EIS
