Forty years after the implementation of the Equal Pay Act, gender pay discrimination continues unabated. At the commencement of this research, the researcher was equality policy adviser (EPA) to the Graphical , Paper and Media Union (GPMU), with responsibility for equalities nationally. This research was driven by the need to understand the totality of barriers to achieving equal pay in the British printing industry. The union had worked hard on many policy areas that contribute to challenging the pay gap âmaternity, paternity , parental leave and pay; harassment and bullying (under the banner of Dignity at Work); childcare ; and equal opportunities. Training courses had been run with women members, union local negotiators and male workplace representatives to try to increase gender awareness. Greater publicity was given to these issues in union communications, at conference fringe meetings and in conference debates. Radical structural change ensured women were included at national level in all decision-making bodies of the union. None of this had made a marked difference to womenâs access to jobs or their access to equal pay. It was time to tackle equal pay directly. In a union that had an 83 per cent male membership, it was hard to see how to build momentum for this crucial policy area or how solidarity could be called for when it seemed that few thought there was an equal pay issue; it was more about access to Class 1 jobs, not about pay.
It was in these circumstances that it seemed necessary to investigate the totality of barriers that affected womenâs access to pay and jobsâmaybe this would throw light on points of leverage that could be developed into a meaningful campaign that might begin to shift barriers that had existed since the printing industryâs inception in the fifteenth century. This research was designed to examine the persistence of these barriers. It commenced in 2000 and the first phase was completed in 2007, during which time the GPMU ceased to exist as an independent union, merging with Amicus in 2004, then Unite in 2007. Subsequently, the author, as a professional academic, updated the research to take account of events leading up to, and after, the great financial crash (GFC) of 2008. While the GPMU supported and helped fund the original research, the second phase was unsupported and conducted as time allowed between 2014 and 2017. This second phase revisited some of the union officials who were originally interviewed but also included women activists, who were excluded in the original research for lack of time. This provided an opportunity to fill a gap in the research and to allow for reflection on the GPMUâs approach to equalities that has afforded a useful corrective to the original research and a more balanced account. Time has also allowed the researcher to reflect on and refine the original approach and understanding of the barriers identified.
During the two decades before the original research, manufacturing industry had altered considerably. Employment had greatly diminished, shifting to the service sector, trade unions were contained and industrial action diminished drastically. In printing , there was also significant technological change affecting the labour process. Despite these changes, there does not appear to have been any corresponding change in the position of women in these jobs, even by 2017. The aims and objectives of this research were, thus, to determine the causes of the gender pay gap in the printing industry, why it is so resistant to change and under what conditions change may be effected.
While the ultimate aim of this research is to uncover the unequal rewards women receive from paid employment, there is also an appreciation that
[m]oney is only one form of gender power relations in the workplace and in the labour market ⊠[there is also, for instance] equality of opportunity to pursue careers, or to participate fully in trade unions. (Wajcman 2000: 187)
As such, this book considers the historical development of womenâs work in the printing industry, followed by an analysis of work organisation, employment policies and trade union democracy in contributing to unequal pay. This culminates in a discussion of the pay structure and the contribution of pay determination processes in embedding unequal pay outcomes. It should be noted, however, that while a national agreement controlled the pay structure at the time of the original research, this agreement foundered in 2010 and no longer exists. Employers are free to impose pay in many companies, although where chapel (workplace branch) organisation remains strong management prerogative may still be contained.
The researcherâs own experience and the focus of earlier research affected the choice of sector. In particular Cockburn had published a highly regarded study of newspaper compositors and their response to radical technological change in Cockburn (1983). This account dealt mainly with men because it focused on a sector from which women were, traditionally, excluded: newspaper production. It provided a sensitive and detailed analysis of menâs relationship to new technology and to women, highlighting the importance of masculine ideology. However, it remains the case that womenâs responses were only marginally important in that research. Within the print unions, the researcher recalls hostility after the publication of Cockburnâs book. In the second phase of research, the researcher questioned a woman official who had been around at that time, someone who would identify as a socialist feminist (R2[4]). She, too, felt some hostility because, it seems, union officials felt the study did not do enough justice to class relations in the industry. This research attempts to avoid that pitfall.
Conversely, this research is focused on the sector of the industry where women were most often foundâthe general printing industry. This sector covers âpackaging, advertising materials, security printing, business forms, books, periodicals, magazines, stationery and cataloguesâ (Gennard and Bain 1995: 22â23). The labour process is still recognisable from 200 years ago, comprising a basic division between pre-press (production of material for printing), printing (the actual process of printing onto various materials) and the bindery (all activities required to produce a finished product). Despite technological change, print production still maintains this basic division, which is highly gendered. Women had entered pre-press areas at various points (with limited success, see Chap. 5), whereas they were excluded before changes in technology made their typing skills useful for employers. Re-segmentation has been the issue here, maintaining degrees of gender segregation that affect pay. Women continue to be found in the largest numbers in binderies , although their jobs have greatly reduced in number. Here they are segregated into jobs regarded as unskilled and commanding the lowest pay rates. Meanwhile, in the press rooms where the printing is carried out, women have barely made their presence felt, even today.
Work organisation processes are crucially linked to bargaining processes in this sector. Multi-employer bargaining had dominated general printing , in contrast to many other sectors (Roe 2003). The national agreement for the sector had considerable importance, not just for those directly party to it but also non-union and non-federated companies. This meant that even where the union was absent or had minimal membership, or where companies were not members of the employersâ association, the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF), they often benchmarked wages and conditions against the agreement. This was important because the national agreement significantly influenced the allocation of people to both jobs and pay grades (Craig et al. 1984). Womenâs pay was institutionalised by such arrangements. This is no longer the case, and all workersâ wages and conditions were adversely affected, especially following the GFC . Traditionally, there was also an expectation of second-tier bargaining , which was waning even at the time of the original research. But there is some recent evidence that strong chapels are beginning to recoup some of their lost benefits. These chapels are likely to be entirely male, so the pay gap could begin to widen again. This book attempted to tease out these processes to identify their gendered effects.
This account also needs to be seen in the context of the decline of traditional printing as a major industrial sector in Britain. Economic restructuring and, in particular, increased international competition were affecting the industry, even during the original research, but the subsequent eco...