Gendering collective bargaining: From men's rights to women's issues

This paper explores the involvement of unions in the process of gendering work through a postwar case study of one office union. For 50 years the Office and Technical Employees' Union, Local 378, has negotiated gender hierarchies while engaged in collective bargaining at B.C. Hydro. Collective bargaining strategies favouring the rights of male breadwinners gradually gave way to assumptions about gender neutrality, which were in turn challenged by trade union feminism and the articulation of women's issues. By the 1990s women's issues were construed as the only union issues with gender-specific consequences, yet the ''main business'' of the union continues to reproduce male privilege. This study raises important questions for equity strategies in the workplace.