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Additional Material

WOMEN/GENDER NETWORKS

Women activists are highlighting how TNCs use gender discrimination to employ women cheaply. This abuse of women's labour undermines the better terms and conditions that all workers have been able to win. It is an issue for both men and women workers but women often find men workers slow to understand these problems and act.

Women Working Worldwide is a small network based in Britain. It has built contacts among women worker activists all over the world. WWW collaborates with trade unions but believes that networks of women workers are also useful as the majority of women workers in the world are not in unions. Also male-dominated trade unions sometimes neglect issues that are especially important to women workers such as sexual harrassment, safety on transport to work, and gender discrimination in pay, training and promotion.

Homeworking is a particular problem affecting women workers. The international sub-contracting chain goes as far as putting work out to women who do a wide range of industrial tasks such as sewing or assembling components in their own homes. Even very large TNCs benefit from the labour of women exploited through homeworking. Isolated at home, it can be very difficult to organise these women, and they often have worse terms and conditions than other workers.

But there is an international network for homebased workers called Homenet and, working with international trade unions, they achieved a major victory in 1996. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted a Convention and Recommendation on Homeworking. This says that homeworkers must be treated like other workers, including having the right to join organisations of their own choice and being protected from discrimination in employment. It specifically covers rural homeworkers too. Governments must now make sure that their labour laws comply with this Convention.

Issues to think about:

• in what ways do TNCs especially exploit women?
• what are the special issues which women workers face in the global economy?
• do you agree that it is important for women workers to have their own voice as well as being part of general organisations?
• are there special ways in which women can campaign against TNCs?

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