sue ledwith - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by sue ledwith
The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2015
Links between gender politics and leadership in trade unions and how these impact collective barg... more Links between gender politics and leadership in trade unions and how these impact collective bargaining gender agendas are explored in this study of trade unionism in Brazil and South Africa. What the International Trade Union Confederation and others refer to as ‘unexplained’ gender pay gaps are discussed in relation to the absence of women in the collective bargaining process. This examination draws on research in both countries and concludes that gender leadership gaps and gender pay gaps are related.
Revista da ABET, 2019
O capitalismo neoliberal globalizado e o consequente aumento do trabalho precário têm chamado a a... more O capitalismo neoliberal globalizado e o consequente aumento do trabalho precário têm chamado a atenção para o trabalho das mulheres, particularmente das mulheres migrantes. As mulheres enfrentam uma situação de precariedade e vulnerabilidade, exigindo maior proteção por meio da solidariedade coletiva e da organização sindical. Entretanto, os sindicatos majoritariamente ocupados por homens consideram que as mulheres – sobretudo migrantes – são de difícil acesso e organização. Na realidade, é a rigidez dos sindicatos burocratizados e masculinizados e sua insuficiente flexibilidade que impede a construção de respostas às necessidades e formas de trabalho de 50% da força de trabalho. Portanto, cabe às próprias mulheres encontrar outras formas de organização e, ao mesmo tempo, pressionar os sindicatos tradicionais a responder às suas demandas. O sindicalismo do movimento social, especialmente no Sul global, mostra como isso pode ser feito. E em nível local, há exemplos crescentes de mul...
Revue française de civilisation britannique, 2009
List of Tables and Figures Foreword: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Acknowledgements Notes on the Con... more List of Tables and Figures Foreword: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Women and the City S.Ledwith, J.Darke, & R.Woods Gender, Crime and Community B.Campbell Five Voices from South Side Chicago: Health Care Experiences for Elderly African-American Women S.Harper Homeless Women and Health Advocacy in Inner City Liverpool S.Graham-Jones & S.Reilly Concentration, Marginalization and Exclusion: Women's Housing Needs and the City R.Woods The Family Friendly Workplace? British and European Perspectives L.Doherty, S.Manfredi & H.Rollin Women, Transport and Cities: an Overview and an Agenda for Research C.Coleman The Gap Between the Spires: Single Women and Homelessness in Oxford, 1890s and 1990s C.Morrell & K.Kuehne Regen(d)eration: Women and Urban Policy in the UK S.Brownill Servicing the City: Women's Employment in Oxford S.Kartara & H.Simpson Women and Popular Music Making in Urban Spaces M.Bayton Organizing Rural Women Migrants in Beijing C.Milwertz Frustrated Housewives or Unemployed Workers: The Case of Domestic Returners H.Russell The Future of Women E.Wilson Index
In the face of globalised neoliberal capitalism and the allied rise in precarious working, there ... more In the face of globalised neoliberal capitalism and the allied rise in precarious working, there comes an increased focus on the position of women at work, including migrant women. Women have long been familiar with the conditions of precarity, and their vulnerability calls for increased protection through collective solidarity and trade union organising. Yet they are just the workers that traditional ‘pale, male, stale’ unions designate as difficult to reach and uneconomic to organise. In reality it is the rigidity of bureaucratic masculinised labour unions which are insufficiently flexible and cannot or will not respond to the needs and work patterns of 50% of the workforce. So, it falls to women themselves to find other ways of organising while at the same time pressing traditional unions to respond to their demands. Social movement unionism, especially in the global South shows how this can be done. And at local level, there are increasing examples of women organising in their c...
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
In this chapter we enter into dual lives of migrant women both at home and as paid workers in dom... more In this chapter we enter into dual lives of migrant women both at home and as paid workers in domestic and care work. We try to discover how much marital status and religious belief, patriarchal and religious cultural codes shaped the identities of women in marriage, in the family and home, when doing housework, in prioritising male promotion and job prospects. We also discuss whether such codes spill over to the unmarried and the atheists. The chapter also exposes the perceptions of women of ‘male superiority’ via their narratives of their gendered roles in these dual lives.
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
This chapter as the introductory part of a comparative research study attempts to enter into mult... more This chapter as the introductory part of a comparative research study attempts to enter into multiple worlds of migrant women who work as domestic workers in three cities: London, Berlin and Istanbul. Focusing specifically on female forms of migration is required to address the issue of domestic work which is the largest employer of migrant women. Although there is a substantial literature on migration and gender, migrating women’s agency or the factors which may have impacts on the agency of migrating women is under-researched. As female domestic workers mostly work for private households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered, and excluded from the scope of labour legislation, this study especially maps out the inter-relations between migration, domestic work, gender, patriarchy and religions by synthesising different theoretical approaches.
Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership, 2012
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
This chapter examines the possibility of organising of migrant women domestic workers in Labour U... more This chapter examines the possibility of organising of migrant women domestic workers in Labour Unions in the three countries in the research: the UK, Germany and Turkey by demonstrating barriers to organising migrant women within Unions. These include religious and patriarchal codes which discourage these women to join trade unions. Beyond the structural inabilities of trade unions to approach and recruit domestic workers, the study also looks at how women themselves perceive trade unions, why they do or do not join and whether or not they take part in May Day and other celebrations.
Industrial Relations Journal, 2006
In this chapter, we compare the regimes of migration and social protections provided for migrant ... more In this chapter, we compare the regimes of migration and social protections provided for migrant domestic workers in the UK, Germany and Turkey. The findings here show the difficulties of the working lives of the 120 women in three cities, with a special focus on undocumented migrant women in Istanbul. However, regimes in host countries were not the sole culprit, especially in the face of patriarchal, religious and gendered codes that impacted on the women’s lives. Their narratives also show how the women were squeezed within a triangle of private agencies, employers/house owners and State funding (in the UK and Germany).
Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has... more Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has not changed the informal and precarious nature of domestic jobs in many countries. In this chapter we discuss domestic workers’ mobilisation including communities of coping and social movement models. By accepting that this is not easy, our findings also point out obstacles such as patriarchal relations where kinsmen wield their gender power to prevent women’s participation, and religious codes can preclude women’s solidarity. It also discusses the problems which include solidarities based on diaspora, identity, race and ethnicity, politics and religion, which become exclusive, ignoring or shutting out gender or class-based organising.
Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, 2003
The main focus of this chapter is the multiple and complex identities of migrant women domestic w... more The main focus of this chapter is the multiple and complex identities of migrant women domestic workers in London, Berlin and Istanbul. Being women of colour, being women of ethnic struggle or diaspora politics or being immigrant and lastly being domestic workers are at the same time the different faces of discrimination and determinants of the difficulties faced by these women were in their everyday lives. The chapter also discusses how the social construction of identity involves all of these categories in a range of forms of discrimination.
Die gedruckte Ausg. ist im Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munchen, Mering (www.Hampp-Verlag.de) erschienen.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2021
Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2019
The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2015
Links between gender politics and leadership in trade unions and how these impact collective barg... more Links between gender politics and leadership in trade unions and how these impact collective bargaining gender agendas are explored in this study of trade unionism in Brazil and South Africa. What the International Trade Union Confederation and others refer to as ‘unexplained’ gender pay gaps are discussed in relation to the absence of women in the collective bargaining process. This examination draws on research in both countries and concludes that gender leadership gaps and gender pay gaps are related.
Revista da ABET, 2019
O capitalismo neoliberal globalizado e o consequente aumento do trabalho precário têm chamado a a... more O capitalismo neoliberal globalizado e o consequente aumento do trabalho precário têm chamado a atenção para o trabalho das mulheres, particularmente das mulheres migrantes. As mulheres enfrentam uma situação de precariedade e vulnerabilidade, exigindo maior proteção por meio da solidariedade coletiva e da organização sindical. Entretanto, os sindicatos majoritariamente ocupados por homens consideram que as mulheres – sobretudo migrantes – são de difícil acesso e organização. Na realidade, é a rigidez dos sindicatos burocratizados e masculinizados e sua insuficiente flexibilidade que impede a construção de respostas às necessidades e formas de trabalho de 50% da força de trabalho. Portanto, cabe às próprias mulheres encontrar outras formas de organização e, ao mesmo tempo, pressionar os sindicatos tradicionais a responder às suas demandas. O sindicalismo do movimento social, especialmente no Sul global, mostra como isso pode ser feito. E em nível local, há exemplos crescentes de mul...
Revue française de civilisation britannique, 2009
List of Tables and Figures Foreword: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Acknowledgements Notes on the Con... more List of Tables and Figures Foreword: Baroness Helena Kennedy QC Acknowledgements Notes on the Contributors Women and the City S.Ledwith, J.Darke, & R.Woods Gender, Crime and Community B.Campbell Five Voices from South Side Chicago: Health Care Experiences for Elderly African-American Women S.Harper Homeless Women and Health Advocacy in Inner City Liverpool S.Graham-Jones & S.Reilly Concentration, Marginalization and Exclusion: Women's Housing Needs and the City R.Woods The Family Friendly Workplace? British and European Perspectives L.Doherty, S.Manfredi & H.Rollin Women, Transport and Cities: an Overview and an Agenda for Research C.Coleman The Gap Between the Spires: Single Women and Homelessness in Oxford, 1890s and 1990s C.Morrell & K.Kuehne Regen(d)eration: Women and Urban Policy in the UK S.Brownill Servicing the City: Women's Employment in Oxford S.Kartara & H.Simpson Women and Popular Music Making in Urban Spaces M.Bayton Organizing Rural Women Migrants in Beijing C.Milwertz Frustrated Housewives or Unemployed Workers: The Case of Domestic Returners H.Russell The Future of Women E.Wilson Index
In the face of globalised neoliberal capitalism and the allied rise in precarious working, there ... more In the face of globalised neoliberal capitalism and the allied rise in precarious working, there comes an increased focus on the position of women at work, including migrant women. Women have long been familiar with the conditions of precarity, and their vulnerability calls for increased protection through collective solidarity and trade union organising. Yet they are just the workers that traditional ‘pale, male, stale’ unions designate as difficult to reach and uneconomic to organise. In reality it is the rigidity of bureaucratic masculinised labour unions which are insufficiently flexible and cannot or will not respond to the needs and work patterns of 50% of the workforce. So, it falls to women themselves to find other ways of organising while at the same time pressing traditional unions to respond to their demands. Social movement unionism, especially in the global South shows how this can be done. And at local level, there are increasing examples of women organising in their c...
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
In this chapter we enter into dual lives of migrant women both at home and as paid workers in dom... more In this chapter we enter into dual lives of migrant women both at home and as paid workers in domestic and care work. We try to discover how much marital status and religious belief, patriarchal and religious cultural codes shaped the identities of women in marriage, in the family and home, when doing housework, in prioritising male promotion and job prospects. We also discuss whether such codes spill over to the unmarried and the atheists. The chapter also exposes the perceptions of women of ‘male superiority’ via their narratives of their gendered roles in these dual lives.
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
This chapter as the introductory part of a comparative research study attempts to enter into mult... more This chapter as the introductory part of a comparative research study attempts to enter into multiple worlds of migrant women who work as domestic workers in three cities: London, Berlin and Istanbul. Focusing specifically on female forms of migration is required to address the issue of domestic work which is the largest employer of migrant women. Although there is a substantial literature on migration and gender, migrating women’s agency or the factors which may have impacts on the agency of migrating women is under-researched. As female domestic workers mostly work for private households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered, and excluded from the scope of labour legislation, this study especially maps out the inter-relations between migration, domestic work, gender, patriarchy and religions by synthesising different theoretical approaches.
Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership, 2012
Migration and Domestic Work, 2017
This chapter examines the possibility of organising of migrant women domestic workers in Labour U... more This chapter examines the possibility of organising of migrant women domestic workers in Labour Unions in the three countries in the research: the UK, Germany and Turkey by demonstrating barriers to organising migrant women within Unions. These include religious and patriarchal codes which discourage these women to join trade unions. Beyond the structural inabilities of trade unions to approach and recruit domestic workers, the study also looks at how women themselves perceive trade unions, why they do or do not join and whether or not they take part in May Day and other celebrations.
Industrial Relations Journal, 2006
In this chapter, we compare the regimes of migration and social protections provided for migrant ... more In this chapter, we compare the regimes of migration and social protections provided for migrant domestic workers in the UK, Germany and Turkey. The findings here show the difficulties of the working lives of the 120 women in three cities, with a special focus on undocumented migrant women in Istanbul. However, regimes in host countries were not the sole culprit, especially in the face of patriarchal, religious and gendered codes that impacted on the women’s lives. Their narratives also show how the women were squeezed within a triangle of private agencies, employers/house owners and State funding (in the UK and Germany).
Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has... more Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has not changed the informal and precarious nature of domestic jobs in many countries. In this chapter we discuss domestic workers’ mobilisation including communities of coping and social movement models. By accepting that this is not easy, our findings also point out obstacles such as patriarchal relations where kinsmen wield their gender power to prevent women’s participation, and religious codes can preclude women’s solidarity. It also discusses the problems which include solidarities based on diaspora, identity, race and ethnicity, politics and religion, which become exclusive, ignoring or shutting out gender or class-based organising.
Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, 2003
The main focus of this chapter is the multiple and complex identities of migrant women domestic w... more The main focus of this chapter is the multiple and complex identities of migrant women domestic workers in London, Berlin and Istanbul. Being women of colour, being women of ethnic struggle or diaspora politics or being immigrant and lastly being domestic workers are at the same time the different faces of discrimination and determinants of the difficulties faced by these women were in their everyday lives. The chapter also discusses how the social construction of identity involves all of these categories in a range of forms of discrimination.
Die gedruckte Ausg. ist im Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munchen, Mering (www.Hampp-Verlag.de) erschienen.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2021
Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2019