Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Women’s issues are trade union issues
HELEN O’CONNOR sees a worrying trend of women exiting the labour movement in their thousands, and warns that if this tide is not stemmed with proper and effective action, it will only be to the benefit of the capitalist class
VOCAL: A woman on an International Women’s Day march in London, 2022

ACCORDING to government statistics trade union membership grew in 2023 by 89,000 but 83,000 women left the same year. 

This is on top of 129,000 women (mainly private sector) leaving the unions in 2022. The exodus of women in a period when trade unions are growing must be openly discussed, if trade unions are to be at the forefront of building power and influence and advancing the interests of the working class.

Women are 52 per cent of the population, so this exodus of women from the trade unions, the largest democratic organisations of the working class, leaves a question mark over whether women believe unions are relevant to them. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
WHO CARES? Jobs considered ‘women’s work’ are still un
Voices of Scotland / 8 April 2025
8 April 2025
From the ‘motherhood pay penalty’ to low-paid care work, the Morning Star Women’s Readers and Supporters Group in Scotland has been looking at how neoliberalism has been pushing back women’s hard-won gains, writes KATE RAMSDEN
Features / 13 February 2025
13 February 2025
ESTHER, from Nordic Model Now! explains how decriminalisation of prostitution, rendering it just another form of ‘work’, would undermine the Equality Act 2010
Voices of Scotland / 17 December 2024
17 December 2024
From education to care sector struggles, Scotland’s women workers must build up a resistance network on all fronts and drive their unions’ demands for transformative change to victory, writes STEPHANIE MARTIN
Features / 24 November 2024
24 November 2024
GEORGINA ANDREWS and CAROL STAVRIS introduce a new conference on women’s oppression under capitalism to take place in December, with the central theme of ending violence against women and girls