Riitta Partinen, the Equality Secretary of SAK, Finland's largest central trade union organisation, explains how this slowness is an unforgivable waste of human resources. Trade unions need women just as much as working women need trade unions. Many of the most rapidly growing sectors are dominated by female labour and women also represent the worst exploited and repressed section of the labour force. Women find new strength in themselves Riitta Partinen emphasises that gender inequality within the unions does not originate from intentional behaviour by men or women, but more from tradition and lack of depth in understanding problems and the positive potential which women possess. With respect to women trade union leaders, Partinen is proud to report that firm progress has been made in their self-assurance and in the use of their enormous expertise.
Women are quick to find concrete solutions to the continuously changing problems of working life.
By enlarging the role of women at all levels of the governing hierarchy, the trade union movement could make considerable progress. Riitta Partinen refers to the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference as one of the important eye-opening events. Thousands of women trade union activists, NGO women and feminists found a common ground at this event in identifying problems and in finding solutions to them. The concrete situations in various countries and on different continents vary but the basic set-up is the same everywhere. Women in Finland have had the right to vote and stand for Parliament in general elections since the early 1900s.