Workplace sexism: TUC appoints a woman as General Secretary

[scottycelt]

"in today's selectively sexist and ageist world": what does the first part of that sentence mean if it doesn't mean she got the job because she was a woman?

It merely points out the absurdity of someone like Ms Brooks claiming to be a victim of 'sexism' when she actually got the job in the first place!!.

I didn't omit any of your post. And i gave a link so that the rest of conversation could be accessed by clicking on it. What's wrong with that? I accept that you only thought she became editor of a tabloid newspaper because she was a woman and because she was young-ish. Is that OK?

No, it's not 'OK', for the simple reason that you said that and I certainly didn't!

I have no idea how Ms Brooks got her job and I strongly suspect you don't as well. However, she was certainly being somewhat 'selective' in her cries of sexism. That was what I was referring to and nothing else.

It's all there in black and white so why continue to pretend otherwise?

[handsomefortune]

omg, i can see that this thread may end up revolving around the merry go round of 'jordan is a feminist and those who doubt this theory are sexist'.....(again).....and other permutations such as 'jordan only got the job because she's a gorgeous and cunning woman'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_O%27Grady

hopefully, my 'ring any bells' in brackets responds to amateur's emphasis on any speculative comparison between the beeb and the tuc. possibly, if the beeb was attempting to maintain or increase 'membership' (rather than 'making do' with 3 billions worth of license fees per anum) it too might place a woman in charge to 'face the music'? as it is, although it sees itself as a commercial 'competitor' with other media outlets....the beeb is evasive as to why it doesn't have to serve its listeners, and why 3 billion isn't exactly 'competed' for, as it has a monopoly in the license fee)....which one day risks tripping it up unfortunately. perhaps there are parallels here with the tuc, also a thoroughly worthwhile org, which also sometimes risks making itself unpopular with a good portion of its membership?

incidentally, imv bea campbell can 'participate' too, as a renowned supporter of collectivity, she recognises the importance of sympathisers contributing support, including in the form of ££s.

In October 2009, (campbell)l was announced as the Green Party Parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn stating "We put at the absolute centre of our policies, the sustainability of social relationships and the need for a fundamentally fair society. We stand for social justice, respect and equality between the genders and the generations. And we don’t think that slicing public services to ribbons can be the way forward for British society.

incidentally, (of her generation) i usually find bea campbell a pleasure to listen to on my radio, (in a way that anne leslie is not, though she is a hoot, if a bit squiffy). communicating in the media is not as easy as it might appear, and maybe frances o'grady will rapidly improve, and shouldn't be judged on initial appearances....the problem being that 'first impressions' are crucial, so not much scope for error. plus people need psb and the tuc more than ever in difficult times, so they listen very closely, not least as both orgs are indicators of a sort.

And as for looking outside the organisation - surely not?

i shudder to think who the tuc might look for 'outside'...but r1 dj, chris moyles, is looking for a job apparently!

[amateur51]

incidentally, (of her generation) i usually find bea campbell a pleasure to listen to on my radio, (in a way that anne leslie is not, though she is a hoot, if a bit squiffy). communicating in the media is not as easy as it might appear, and maybe frances o'grady will rapidly improve, and shouldn't be judged on initial appearances....the problem being that 'first impressions' are crucial, so not much scope for error. plus people need psb and the tuc more than ever in difficult times, so they listen very closely, not least as both orgs are indicators of a sort.

And as for looking outside the organisation - surely not?

i shudder to think who the tuc might look for 'outside'...but r1 dj, chris moyles, is looking for a job apparently!

I was referring to BBC there handsome but yes it woukd apply to TUC too.

[ahinton]

ahinton, perhaps if you're going to misconstrue so many points there's hardly any ontopic discussion left?

But I'm not and I haven't, so let's ignore than and unpack the rest of your response apart to give it due consideration.

firms
? since there aren't many of these around, and not just a couple of people are losing a means to support themselves, where might large numbers of newly unemployed work..... other than 'a firm'? i find the mindset your post reflects the small time firm, and anticipates much lower levels of unemployment frankly.

I didn't suggest that they would work other than in a firm although, since you've asked, some of them might start their own businesses instead; whilst I realise only too well how hard that is today, many people have done it before on becoming unemployed, some of them helping to fund it from redundancy pay.

evidence suggests large numbers of newly unemployed find temp jobs in eg marketing, shops, picking and packing warehouses etc which have many outlets, ....rather than being 'firms'. simultaneously, workers themselves have to negotiate a culture which discourages union membership, or any form of collective activity - other than hard work, often in poor conditions, on a minimum wage. is there anything the tuc can actually do about this? therefore, small firms have little to do with this.

I was not referring specifically to "small firms" or indeed firms of any particular size, but I do agree with your points here and I also accept that it's hard to see how unionisation presents itself as a likely option for those who find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to work in the kinds of "jobs" that you mention, particularly given that unionisation is largely dependent upon employee members who have more permanent jobs.

Abandoning House of Lords reform again?
but why 'joke'? or conflate with this issue, which clearly benefits the 'father' and his lords, as per the structure of the hols? it's absolutely no surprise that the lords aren't overseen by a 'mother' obviously.

OK, forgive and forget the joke, if you will; at least you recognised that it was one! Who knows, though? There's been a female speaker in HoC, so a woman in charge of HoL at some future date is not entirely inconceivable, surely?

i'd also be impressed to see a woman do what everyone should ideally offer to do in hard times, despite the appalling example of 'the usual suspects': to take a pay cut where wages/pensions exceed the national average by a specific agreed amount. all money saved might be put to a practical collective purpose, the tuc treasury might well be able to work out how this new 'participation' might operate beyond a concept of the weak being helped by the strong. which just might make collective membership seem more urgent to struggling employees.
to quote myself - i'm introducing the idea that in difficult times, a woman leading by example might just work? that prior, a succession of male appointments in the upper echelons of the tuc, leaves o'grady with immense challenges. the appointment is possibly a hollow victory for equality! yet this doesn't seem of relevance despite the thread title, and my central point.

OK, I see now from which direction your point was coming (which I confess to having failed to do first time around), but I still say that very few people of either sex will be able to afford a substantial pay cut and even those who can and opt for one will reduce their tax burden (which will thereby punish others) and have a vanishingly small effect on less well off employees.

perhaps o'grady might stress the levels of her own awareness of the current crisis a lot more convincingly? perhaps it might benefit her, and the organisation she leads, to make some personal gesture in the form of leading by example?

That's not for me to say but, supposing she did (and I do not know what her salary is in any case), what would you expect TUC to do with the money thereby saved by her agreeing to reduce her salary to the national average one?

evidently, like many large orgs, the tuc has a bureaucratic layer, of which a proportion might also choose to lead by example, and do something practically useful with any money contributed to a fund? all actions (rather than rhetoric) might contribute to the basic concept of the value of 'membership', and 'strength in numbers' under pinning the union movement. perhaps a 'pay cut' isn't the right terminology..as maybe a wage decrease should be a 'contribution' (other than the ones govt collects via ni or tax).... a comparable situation is perhaps echoed in the history relating to the minors' strike, where contributions helped people survive very tough times.

I get your drift here, but the amounts concerned would be so small as to have little noticeable beneficial effect on anyone and a negative effect on HM Treasury and DWP who would as a direct consequence of it receive less revenue in tax and NIC respectively.

the financially fit assisting those suffering ill fortunes is topical - and is often met with cynicism. imv it's precisely this reaction which actively prevents change, and specific problems are often masked by 'charity'. imv this cynicism also allows banks etc to carry on with a dimwitted form of 'logic' revolving around supposed 'merit' - which bob diamond's bonuses surely prove as a tissue of lies. yet, everyone maintains the 'merit' theory as fact, until it turns out that bob has possibly been criminal...rather than being respected on the basis of any 'merit' whatsoever. criticism logically extends to other large orgs, such as the public sector unfortunately. which means that those employees who are considered of 'low merit' as reflected in their low salaries, may well receive no sympathy for cuts/job loss...even though they possibly worked a darn sight harder than those on huge salaries, or those did little real work, but are crucially willing to promote a corporate style, despite being funded by the tax payer. (ring any bells)?

But how many truly "financially fit" people are there who could actually afford to take such immediate cuts in their salaries that would bring them down to the national average? And, if they all did this in any case, that national average would fall, so they and others would be expected to take yet another pay cut to bring their salaries in line with that newly reduced national average figure. Where would that stop? The Bob Diamond case, whilst not unique, is hardly typical of what happens in the workplace and so is not, I think, an especially useful illustration of your point here. There will always be underpaid and overpaid people whatever anyone gets paid; the first time I ever heard that was from a trade union branch secretary!

far too many well heeled people are too easily satisfied by sponsoring a goat in africa ....which seems more and more odd when trouble is right under their nose.

With that I could not agree more.

tbf, my post is an ideal....rather than a reality, basically because reality no longer works. imv these commonplace sentiments are precisely what o'grady is up against, as a leader. this simultaneously illustrates a specific point about the tuc's 'miraculous' u turn historically, as far as the gender of its leadership.

Perhaps I'm just being unusually dim-witted this afternoon, but I still cannot see the significance in this position being taken by a woman other than in the Thatcher sense of it being the first time that it's happened in British history.

[scottycelt]

No apologies needed, for I understood that perfectly myself; I just thought that I ought perhaps to separate those things out for the benefit of anyone who might not have done so.

Yes, that does seem a most wise and sensible thing to do around here, ahinton ...

[handsomefortune]

well obviously currently it's unthinkable where the tuc is concerned, but you never know what's ahead amateur............. and obviously there's bob diamond going spare - imagine him on a picket line! (he'd have to work his way up though - and display some actual merit)! unless all that changes and the tuc becomes more like the beeb, chancing it with 'strangers' from the commercial sector).

[ahinton]

My point in posting originally was that it has taken about 200 years for the TUC to manage to appoint a female General Secretary & I resolutely refuse to be believe that this is simply because this is the first time that a woman candidate was also the best candidate.

Well, I for one didn't suggest that it was the reason; I merely said that one could only hope that it was the reason.

The BBC however has been around for a much shorter time so its significant refusal to appointment a woman as DG maintains its proud tradition of failing to employ women who with a little encouragement might become the best of their generation. And as for looking outside the organisation - surely not?!.

Good point!

Harken! :yikes; What is that low rumbling noise? ;erm:

Oh it's just scotty & ahinton roaring at each other across a Paleolithic chasm

It's "hearken", surely, innit? Anyway I ain't never even seen on o' they! And, in any case, I don't ever "roar" at anyone over anything, actually.

Short odds are being offered as to how many posts will be needed for ahinton to turn this thread into one about tax

By whom? Some derivatives trader? Well, whoever accepts them and bets on it will lose, so may I please have a percentage of net profits made from the stakes?

[amateur51]

Perhaps I'm just being unusually dim-witted this afternoon, but I still cannot see the significance in this position being taken by a woman other than in the Thatcher sense of it being the first time that it's happened in British history.

Women make up half the human race, ahinton.

Women earn on average for the same amount of work a significant percentage less than comparable men.

Women are more likely to be part-time workers than men are.

Women seem to understand better issues around families, work-life balance in the 21st century.

Four outstanding reasons to celebrate the arrival of a woman in the top job

[ahinton]

well obviously currently it's unthinkable where the tuc is concerned, but you never know what's ahead amateur............. and obviously there's bob diamond going spare - imagine him on a picket line! (he'd have to work his way up though - and display some actual merit)! unless all that changes and the tuc becomes more like the beeb, chancing it with 'strangers' from the commercial sector).

I'm no authority on picketing procedures, but I had thought that it was necessary for pickets not to be in prison when picketing, so it might just prove be a good deal harder for Mr Diamond to be one than it would for most people; that said, can you just imagine what would happen if he weren't in prison and did join one and work his way up? - the entire shebang would morph into a corrupt bank before you could say Mervyn King!

[ahinton]

Women make up half the human race, ahinton.

Women earn on average for the same amount of work a significant percentage less than comparable men.

Women are more likely to be part-time workers than men are.

Women seem to understand better issues around families, work-life balance in the 21st century.

Four outstanding reasons to celebrate the arrival of a woman in the top job

Your post almost sounds as though you have somehow concluded that I'm not in favour of a woman taking such a job, which is nonsense!

I thought that women actually make up rather more than half the human race, but let's not quibble over a couple of percentage points or whatever it is.

I am as aware and dismayed as you are that many women are still paid less than are men doing the same work.

Women are more likely to be part-time workers than men are in part - though not, of course, entirely - because of choice.

Women - or at least the majority of them - may well understand better issues around families and work-life balance in the 21st century, but that doesn't necessarily make it easier for any of them to do top jobs, does it?

Having just listed what you describe as "four outstanding reasons to celebrate the arrival of a woman in the top job", how many did you have to do the same when Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female Prime Minister?

[JohnSkelton]

It merely points out the absurdity of someone like Ms Brooks claiming to be a victim of 'sexism' when she actually got the job in the first place!!.

Does it? Then what is the bit about "selectively sexist" doing here

The most ridiculous comment for me was Brooks complaining of the treatment she has recently received from parts of the media because she is 'a woman' and not 'a grumpy old man'.

She might have pondered that, in today's selectively sexist and ageist world, 'a grumpy old man' wouldn't even have had a snowball-in-hell's chance of ever being in her former post in the first place.

?

You don't say it's nonsense to say today's world is sexist ... you say it is sexist (selectively). And you say that if she'd been a man and old (and grumpy) she wouldn't have got the job. Not, she wouldn't have got the job if she'd been old and grumpy. In any case, she wasn't saying she'd been a victim of sexism or 'sexism' in the job market. She said the coverage of her appearance at the Leveson Inquiry was sexist. It was you who introduced the issue of her being hired as a tabloid editor. As far as I'm concerned for someone who edited newspapers which were / are intrinsically sexist to then complain about sexism in the media is rich. But that's a different matter.

I have no idea how Ms Brooks got her job and I strongly suspect you don't as well.

I haven't claimed to have any idea. The only person to raise the question was you (when you said if she'd been a grumpy old man she wouldn't have stood a snowball's chance in hell of getting the job. In our selectively sexist and ageist world). I'd guess it had something to do with her being a very effective tabloid newspaper editor, given that it's a highly competitive market. Personally I find that a contemptible thing to be, but that's not relevant of course.

It's all there in black and white so why continue to pretend otherwise?

I don't know - why are you continuing to pretend otherwise?

[amateur51]

Women are more likely to be part-time workers than men are in part - though not, of course, entirely - because of choice.

Women - or at least the majority of them - may well understand better issues around families and work-life balance in the 21st century, but that doesn't necessarily make it easier for any of them to do top jobs, does it?

Having just listed what you describe as "four outstanding reasons to celebrate the arrival of a woman in the top job", how many did you have to do the same when Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female Prime Minister?

Re part-time jobs - what sort of 'choice' did you have in mind, ahinton?

My point about work-life balance is that a woman at the top, with an understanding of work-life balance/family issues means that someone who has first-hand experience of these issues will be there to ensure that these issues get on & stay near the top of the agenda

[scottycelt]

Women make up half the human race, ahinton.

Women earn on average for the same amount of work a significant percentage less than comparable men.

Women are more likely to be part-time workers than men are.

Women seem to understand better issues around families, work-life balance in the 21st century.

Four outstanding reasons to celebrate the arrival of a woman in the top job

Amsey, I hate to quickly and cruelly dampen your current celebratory spirit, but do you honestly think that having a woman rather than a mere male at the head of the TUC is going to make one iota of difference in the great scheme of things, especially considering today's relative powerlessness of the TUC?

Okay, a rather silly question, as you obviously do!

[amateur51]

Amsey, I hate to quickly and cruelly dampen your current celebratory spirit, but do you honestly think that having a woman rather than a mere male at the head of the TUC is going to make one iota of difference in the great scheme of things, especially considering today's relative powerlessness of the TUC?

Okay, a rather silly question, as you obviously do!

I'm a lot more hopeful than you are scotty.

But then you never rated women's involvement in the Arab Springs did you.

scottycelt - Curmudgeon Redefined In The 21st Century

[MrGongGong]

My point about work-life balance is that a woman at the top, with an understanding of work-life balance/family issues means that someone who has first-hand experience of these issues will be there to ensure that these issues get on & stay near the top of the agenda

I spent today in a school with PMLD students
sadly Camerons "first hand" experience doesn't seem to have had a humanising effect on him

but we live in hope and this does seem long overdue