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“We want to improve the lives of 300,000 women and sign an improved agreement with ISS,” UNI Property Services’ Christy Hoffman told the UNI Women world committee at their meeting in Nyon, Switzerland.

ISS is the biggest multinational in the cleaning sector and on 9 April trade unions around the world leafleted 20 offices of Goldman Sachs.

The blue chip company is one of the private equity owners of ISS that has had a global agreement with UNI since 2003. The aim is to sign an improved deal that gives UNI affiliates greater access to ISS workers to encourage them to join unions and give them a voice.

ISS employs 400,000 workers - three quarters of them women and many of them migrant workers.

The campaign leaflet – “Progress has a name: over 300,000 names” - highlighted women cleaners and parodied Goldman Sachs’ recent publicity for its scholarship programme for 10,000 women workers.

“We put the spotlight on 300,000 women, low-wage, entry level workers in the barely formal economy,” Christy told UNI Women during their debate on organising that looked at best union practices around the world.



Unions are finding new ways to organise women and new agendas that reflect their needs.

Louise Plaatjies from SASBO South Africa reported on the launch of a domestic workers union there with leafleting of railway stations and taxi ranks to put across the union message. A worker that joins is encouraged to bring ten friends, as unions learn new methods of recruiting vulnerable workers who are almost invisible in private houses. “We have to look for innovative ways to organise, you can’t just go from door to door,” said Louise.

Amicus Unite in the UK has had some success in signing up financial institutions to pay audits to root out the subtle discrimination in job evaluation and work systems that impose new barriers on the progress of women. “Where we have been successful we have seen an increase in membership,” said Agnes Tolmie. “The problem is that women often don’t know that they are being discriminated against but there is still definitely a gap.”



Saeko Honda from commerce union JSD Japan reported on the enormous strides being made by Japanese unions in organising part time and irregular workers (mainly women). About a third of her union’s members are part time and JSD has a target to recruit 15,000 new members by the end of next year - 10,000 of them part timers. “We find a pay gap not just between men and women, but also between full time and part time. That gap is wider in Japan than in other industrialised countries,” said Saeko.

“We need a better work-life balance to help more women get into the professional and managerial grade and to achieve a better balance we need more flexible working systems.” Women in Europe and Japan are getting more access to education and training but this is not cutting the pay lead of men. “Job evaluation is the key,” she told the committee.

Naoko Miyamoto from NWJ Japan reported that unions are winning improvements in the work-life balance of women through putting extra flexibility into leave systems. ‘No overtime’ days ensure staff get home promptly. Take up of parental leave is still low among the men however – “there are still many who consider childcare to be exclusively a woman’s task2.



In the United States the Communication Workers of America is working with ver.di Germany to organise in the German based mobile phone multinational T Mobile, said UNI Women’s president Barbara Easterling.

In the UK Connect’s Denise McGuire reported on success in winning recognition among operations staff in another mobile giant, Vodafone.

Consuelo Ivania Ordonez Ortiz of FESC Nicaragua briefed the committee on plans by her union to step up membership in Intel with a support group to help sub-contract workers.