BEERG Newsletter - Unions: Women taking control

The French newspaper, Le Figaro reports that the German union, IG Metall, is about to appoint Christiane Benner (photo) as its first woman general secretary, to succeed Jörg Hofmann who will step down at the end of October after two terms. Benner, who started her working life as a bilingual secretary, will be the first woman to lead the 2.1-million-member union, 80% of whose membership are men. She has been deputy general secretary for the past eight years. 

As we noted in the previous story, France’s two biggest confederations are set to be led by women, Sophie Binet at the CGT and Marylise Léon at the CFDT. 

In the UK, the Unite union is headed by Sharon Graham, while Unison is led by Christina McAnea. The Irish trade unionist, Esther Lynch, has just been elected general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). Christy Hoffman heads UNI Global, while Sue Longley is the general secretary of the IUF. Not to mention Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO in the US.

This is some turnaround from only twenty years ago, when it would have been difficult to find any woman in any trade union leadership position. The question for them is whether they will be able to revive the fortunes on the European and US trade union movements which continue to decline.