Outliving Mum, Women and Unions

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How does it feel to reach the age your Mum was when she died? Jo Morris has talked to 3 women who feel a clock ticking. Their stories are all different but they have one thing in common – none of them have felt able to talk about this before. They didn’t want to worry their loved ones or vocalise difficult thoughts. As the cost of living crisis worsens for families across the country, workers have been voting for industrial action over below-inflation pay offers in what many are describing as the “summer of discontent”. They include transport workers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, postal workers, civil servants, lawyers and British Telecoms engineers. Women are in some of the lowest paid jobs and now make up the majority of trade union members. We speak to Christina McAnea General Secretary of the UK’s largest union - UNISON – and also to Sarah Boston, author of Women Workers and the Trade Unions. We investigate what role women are playing in both the movement and the strikes. Presented by Emma Barnett Producer Beverley Purcell

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts
0:05.3	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.2	Good morning and welcome to the programme.
0:12.3	I hope you had a decent bank holiday if you managed indeed to have a longer weekend,
0:16.4	but perhaps you didn't and work dominated.
0:18.9	Familians work is dominating and whether it pays enough or not is front and centre.
0:23.8	As we come out of what some are calling a summer of discontent,
0:27.0	two of the UK's largest unions are looking to coordinate strike action.
0:31.4	In a moment I'll talk to the leader of this country's largest union,
0:34.3	which is Unison, the first woman incidentally to hold that post about those plans of foot.
0:39.7	Her members include teachers, nurses, carers and police officers, as well as others.
0:45.0	It's also interesting to note that while memberships of unions overall are going down,
0:48.8	that's been the trend for some years now, women do now make up the majority of members.
0:54.8	Polling has been done about how the public feel about more strikes this autumn and into winter,
1:00.1	but I'd like to test the temperature with you today.
1:03.0	Do you support the strikes?
1:04.6	Last week it was Royal Mail workers.
1:06.6	There have been bin strikes in Scotland.
1:08.5	Today in England and Wales,
1:09.6	baristas will shut down the crown courts as they begin indefinite strike action
1:13.6	over government reforms to legal aid payments,
1:15.8	and of course some of you will be extremely familiar with some of the rail strikes.
	...

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