Volume 9, No.4 - October 2000

United and Strong

Gender

By Jenny Grice, NUMSA Educational Officer

In a union that prides itself on its progressive gender policy, that says that 'women must be encouraged to hold jobs traditionally held by men', Numsa's own pay roll statistics tell a different story. Men are represented at the higher-paying, more prestigious organising levels of the union while women are concentrated in the lower-paying end as administrators.

The potential career path for organisers is clearly mapped out - local organiser - regional secretary - general secretary, with pay increasing at every notch. On the administrative side, the career path is limited to promotion to regional administrator with marginal increases in pay.

"There's a big masculine thing (about organising)," says Patricia Appollis, Saccawu's national gender co-ordinator. "(There's this feeling) that you have to sit for long hours late at night (in meetings), you have to be hard, you have to have skills, you have to thump the table, swear at management. We have to change that perception if we want to see more women becoming organisers."

And already women administrators in Numsa are doing exactly that - they are taking up organising jobs. Ex-administrators Liza Makalela at Numsa's Pretoria's local and Margaret Motswene in Secunda's local are two of Numsa's four women local organisers out of just less than 150 organisers across the country.

Numsa did not go out of its way to encourage these women into these positions. These women did it themselves! "I'd had enough of being an administrator," says Liza. "You have to take instructions from the organisers, sometimes not done in a very nice way. I didn't want to take instructions from these organisers, these males. That pushed me to say that these guys are no better than me and I applied to be an organiser.

" For Margaret, one good organiser and a number of bad organisers were her inspiration. The good one, because "he forced me to address workers, he gave me the courage to call workers' general meetings, he empowered me"; the bad ones because workers started to complain about them and demanded to see "Margaret, the administrator" instead! But there are difficulties that come with the job.

"In some cases workers don't mention it, but I can see that they are not happy (with what I am saying about their case) and I have to call male comrades to come and confirm what I have said. Fortunately it is not happening all the time. At the end of the day, the people that I represent are satisfied.

" Even getting up and dressing in the morning had initial challenges for Margaret! "I would open my wardrobe, both doors open - 'if I wear this, they'll look at my legs, this, then they'll look at my breasts'. As time went on, I said 'No, I don't have the freedom to wear what I want anymore.' Now, it's only some meetings where I consider what I am going to wear.

" Organisers are required to work 'unfixed hours'. Many women fear that these hours will put a strain on their work and family. Both Liza and Margaret are mothers, Liza's children are almost grown up, Margaret has had 3 children since she started working with Numsa, 2 of whom are living with her. Neither Liza nor Margaret is married. Although both have partners, neither of them live with their partners.

"It's all about having the right partner," says Liza. "I wouldn't put up with a man that would expect me to be a housewife." And it's about sharing your experiences with your children. "When I started organising nine years ago, I explained my first arbitration case to my children. Now when I get arbitration awards, I go through them with my children, they seem to be proud of me." Having such small children sometimes means Margaret has to take them with her to workers' meetings.

"But I am trying to lead by example, I want to show other women so they think 'she's bringing her child, so there is no problem if I bring my own.'

" Liza believes that as an organiser "You can organise and manage your hours so that you don't finish too late." "When I was an organiser (in Saccawu)," Patricia Appollis remembers, "I had to manage my time and make sure I had time for my family. I would also say up-front, during a mediation for example - 'I have to leave at 5pm because I have to pick up my children'. It's a question of how you can change the job so that it becomes more gender sensitive.

" Many women carry the fear that they are inferior to men. This feeling has been nurtured by male members in their own families - their fathers, brothers or even husbands who looked down on them and disregarded their position. Liza and Margaret did not have this problem. Both grew up in households headed by women.

"My father loved his girls a lot," remembers Liza, "but he died early on. We never felt discrimination because we were girls." Margaret's mother was not married - "my family was just women, my granny, my mother and my sister - no brothers, no uncles! I just grew up - I only started to hear about this 'difference' (between men and women) when I came to Numsa." Without this emotional baggage, both Liza and Margaret actively involved themselves in Numsa's women's structures and through meetings and workshops learnt about factory problems from female workers and that "it was wrong that men should be the decision makers and leaders.

" Margaret made sure that when there was a workshop for organisers, she attended. "The office bearers would say - 'Maggie you can't attend'. But I'd come with my things to the meeting. If the organiser from my local wasn't there, I would say I was attending on behalf of the organiser; if the organiser was there, I would say I was attending on behalf of gender. After a while in each and every workshop they made a space for me." Successes Both Liza and Margaret believe that being a woman gives them an advantage with employers. "They respect women," says Margaret.

"When you arrive at the meeting even if you are coming to fight a dismissal, they respect you because you are a woman. We are not so harsh as men and we can bring something to the table." And what about the workers, what do they think about these new 'gentle' organisers? "When I heard that Margaret was going to be employed," says Philip Mashilo, secretary of the Secunda Local Office Bearers, "I thought 'no, a woman can't do this job. It is tough because you are always on the way, with no time to rest with the family.' But now we have seen that she can do it and she is doing it better than the male organisers.

" Where other male organisers failed to bring the geographically divided local together, Margaret has gone out of her way to "unite the local and bring it back together," adds Mashilo. Mashilo tells how other workers were also sceptical like himself, but now it is common says Margaret to find an old man "with white hair coming to the office for advice and calling me 'sis Maggie'". Mashilo says he would not hesitate to encourage other locals to employ women as organisers.

"We are busy campaigning in the Union to empower women to take up the higher positions, we are doing this in our local. It is a good thing." Numsa's women organisers are making it on their own, with no special treatment and no special training. But they have had to work hard to prove themselves. Both Liza and Margaret agree that Numsa should do more to encourage women administrators to make the jump. "They need negotiation skills training, skills in how to deal with a strike situation, collective bargaining training," says Liza.

"They should be given more time to visit factories with the organiser and learn on the job, they mustn't just sit behind the desk answering the telephone." But Margaret warns that for administrators to take up organising jobs, requires them to "start taking responsibility now as administrators. When workers come in with problems, they must deal with the problems, they must not tell workers, to 'come back tomorrow' when the organiser is in the office." Already Liza's move into organising has inspired Betty Mabusela, administrator for the past 12 years in Liza's local, to look upwards into organising. "What organisers are doing is part of our job," says Betty.

"It starts here with us, with workers' application forms, we type the union introductions, we take statements from workers. It is easier if you move from being an administrator to an organiser, my CV and application are ready!" Box Liza and Margaret's message: How could more women become organisers · improve functioning of gender committees so that administrators can co-ordinate/attend · allow administrators to attend workshops for organisers · provide training for new organisers · encourage organisers to take administrators with them to factories so they can learn about the organising jobs.

 

By a COSATU Official

Recently I was in a foreign land, attending a five-week course on "Social Security and the role of trade unions".There were about 15 participants from all over Africa; all were either activists or employees of trade unions.

Amongst the participants was a sharp, intelligent, young, attractive lady, who had a marvellous sense of humour and patience of a horse. She had just one fault: "She was pregnant.

" Yes, you ask me, when was pregnancy ever a disaster, a fault? Is the power of reproduction not a miracle, amazing, whereby two beings become one? 23 chromosomes each, from two different individuals fuse to become a complete cell that has a power to multiply and then specialise into arms, fingers, nose etc, such that a completely new, unique individual is the end product?

I would fully agree with you. It is amazing. This ability of women to reproduce and then nurture a human being is a very, very noble one indeed. Why then should women be punished for it? Why then is it viewed as a fault? A lot of people consider it strange to combine pregnancy with education; hence the subtle punishment that always goes with this combination. This true story of uMaNhlanhla would help to understand the subtle punishment women have to go through, just because they can reproduce.

Though the lady was always punctual, added value in class, knew all labour laws of her country almost by heart, could intelligently analyse situations, could help fuse tensions that invariably light up if human beings from different cultures are forced to form a community; not once but many times did I hear from many that she should not have come. Reason, "She is pregnant, she makes me sleep in class.

" The view that she should not have come would come even from the lecturers, whom I would have expected to be more enlightened. Words like "had we known that she was pregnant we would not have allowed her to come; it is too risky," kept pouring from their lips, making her feel unwanted.

But being pregnant is not the only "risky" thing in life; so is driving a car. Getting into a car exposes one to many, many risks. You could be hijacked, raped at gunpoint; a taxi or drunken driver can crash into you. But have we stopped driving? Have we stopped buying cars? No, because we need to move from point A to B.

This economically independent lady also felt she need a baby at that particular time. Should life stop for her until the baby is at university? She needed training and especially as a woman, she needed affirming and the opportunity came then. Was she supposed to turn it down and hope it will be waiting for her two, three years down the line?

I would have understood if she needed to do manual work as part of the training, but all she needed to do was to walk to class. If her doctor had advised her against it and if she also had felt that this was too much for her that would be another story. But the doctor had given her the OK and she was coping just fine.

Even if she had collapsed under the "strain of shuffling a few metres to class", we as fellow participants, as comrades, would have had to support her and make it easier for her, not deny her the opportunity, just because she is pregnant.

Other forms of subtle punishment suffered by this woman, who was delighted with the prospects of a son, included questions like: "You say you are only engaged, not married yet? How could you commit such a sin? How could you do "IT" before marriage? Were you in my country you would have become an outcast. Girls who have low morals, girls like you, are driven out of their homes in my country.

" Strangely enough, she would answer with humour and patience and say: "Am I not glad then that I am not from your country and by the way, what happens to the boys who have deflowered these girls? Are they also cast out of their homes?" The answer would invariably be: "No but you see, it is the girl's fault; she tempts the man.

" The lady whose impending baby I named Nhlanhla, held her head high, continued to produce wonderful work and completed the course. Don't you think women are wonderful beings? Viva mama ka Nhlanhla viva!