There are differences between women's work and men's that affect their experience, their consciousness and their struggles. Cuts in public services such as school meals, hospitals, nurseries and nursery classes make it even more difficult for many women to take and keep a full-time job.
Most women are in a worse bargaining position than men.
Large numbers of women work for small firms with a high turnover of labour. Because there are always at any one time large numbers of women moving back into the labour force after a break for having children or other reasons, there is a 'reserve army of labour' keeping women's wages low. Men's weekly earnings are on average 56 per cent higher than women's, and this rises to 67 per cent in manufacturing industry. These figures include overtime and shift pay, which men get more of than women, but even women's hourly earnings are less than 75 per cent of men's, and the proportion has been going down since 1977. What all this adds up to is that while women have especially good reasons to get together and fight for themselves at work, they face special difficulties in doing so.