25th INTERNATIONAL LABOUR PROCESS CONFERENCE

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

5 – 7 APRIL 2011

Re-segmentation in the printing industry and its effect on the gender pay gap

Tricia Dawson

Westminster Business School

University of Westminster

This is a work in progress – not to be quoted without author’s permission

Re-segmentation in the printing industry and its effect on the gender pay gap

‘Progress on equal pay is stalling, and at a time when more women face losing their jobs more than ever before’ (Fawcett Society, 2010). This statement is based on a national figure for median hourly earnings of 15.5% (ONS, 2010). Weekly earnings, which actually reflect more accurately how much pay people take home, revealed a considerably wider gap. Currently the median hourly pay gap in the printing industry stands at 21% while the weekly median pay gap is 25.8% (ONS, 2010). At the time this research was conducted, the pay gap in printing stood at 35.6% of male median weekly earnings while the hourly gap was 49.8% (NES, 2002)1. This paper considers one mechanism that is implicated in embedding a pay gap that saw men taking home at least a third more than women workers in the industry. Segmentation and its link to occupational segregation in the printing industry provide one method of analysing the pay gap.

In examining the divisions in the workforce and their link to the gender pay gap, the intersectionality of class and gender is a key issue (Hill Collins, 1990). Linked to a consideration of power resources available to the main parties to the employment relationship it enables a consideration of how women’s invisibility in the workplace contributes to the maintenance of the status quo. In this regard, the paper considers how changes in existing segments have reinforced the pay gap and are returning the industry to a situation where women are literally invisible. Furthermore it was beginning to become apparent at the point where this research was conducted that new segments were appearing in the workforce, especially in relation to ‘men’s work’. The paper will argue that these developments have contributed to the demise of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union and a weakening of employees’ bargaining power. In relation to women’s position in the industry it has prevented women from moving into higher-paid jobs, despite changes in new technology and has undermined any attempts to challenge the status quo in jobs and pay.

Segmentation and Occupational Segregation

Segmentation has long been identified with damaging divisions in the workforce (Edwards, Reich and Gordon, 1973). With the continuous strengthening of international trade over approximately the last thirty years, the drive for greater productivity from fewer people has intensified. This has even affected the public sector, despite the difficulties of substitution (e.g. Thornley, 1996).

Gordon’s (1972) work on job stratification and its role in encouraging disadvantaged groups to accept poor wages and conditions, while undermining their ability to develop class-consciousness, aimed to explain how these divisions became embedded. The result was

1 These statistics are only indicative because it is not possible to get women’s pay figures for the period excluding publishing and because the SIC DE22 (now C18) also includes recorded media. The ASHE figures for 2002 also show a much smaller gap on median earnings than the NES figures and this may reflect the dominance of recorded media. Although at the point of switching from NES to ASHE an explanation was requested from ONS they could not provide one. However, these are the only statistics available and provide the best estimate.

that advantaged workers would came to see disadvantaged workers as a threat (ibid:80). Women’s use as a reserve that can substitute for men at lower rates of pay was another aspect of this argument. However, a weakness in the segmentation argument was that it relied on a conception of discrimination as a pre-existing state but failed to theorise where these divisions arose; it also suggested that in earlier periods the workforce was more homogenised, contradicting the idea of pre-existing divisions (Walby, 1986). Furthermore, Gordon’s work assumes a homogenous disadvantaged group but work emanating from dual labour-market theory reveals a more complex picture. Moreover this argument cannot account for the development of particular jobs as ‘women’s work’, especially where, objectively, this work is not really unskilled (Beechey, 1986; Phillips and Taylor, 1980). Additionally, segmentation does not only benefit employers, it benefits men. This may provide some indication of why trade unions chose closure, rather than solidarity, as the basis of their strategy (Barrett, 1980). As to women’s use as a substitute for men’s labour, the existence of occupational segregation prevents this, while the resulting rigidities in the labour-market prevent the easy disposal of female labour (Collinson et al, 1990; Dickens, 2005), although changes in the labour process may facilitate such disposal, as may the creation of new segments.

An alternative argument was proposed in relation to the use of technological developments to both control and cheapen labour (Braverman, 1974). While this idea has its weaknesses (see Walby, 1988 and Beechey, 1986), it still has value when considering the transition away from craft work. However, Braverman saw the continuous break down of jobs into smaller components as occurring in industries not formerly covered by craft guilds (ibid:41). It could be argued that this exception is no longer necessary. However, one justified criticism is that it ignores the process of segmentation through union closure which ‘fragments and splinters a putative working class’ (Crompton and Sanderson, 1990). Historically, exclusion of women from the old craft guilds was carried into industrialisation in trade union organisation (Hartmann, 1979; Munro, 1999) and was further complicated by overlapping strategies of inclusion, exclusion and segregation (Witz, 1992:20-30) rather than a movement from exclusion to segregation (Walby, 1986:228).

Occupational segregation has been a key concept in examining discrimination. Both vertical and horizontal segregation ensure women remain in lower-paid occupations (Beechey, 1986:91). It also appears to be a universal feature of all economies and is resistant to change (Barrett, 1980:184-6; Crompton, 1997; Hakim, 1979). While evidence for occupational segregation is found in all sectors, it should be noted that it does not necessarily follow that segmentation and segregation will mirror each other, although this may happen.

Wajcman (2000) makes the case for feminist theorising in industrial relations; in particular she identified the gendered vested interests in the control of the labour process. Others made the intersection of sex and class explicit. The ‘sex dichotomy cuts across all classes and strata’ (Acker, 1973:178) and there are ‘no ungendered class relations, and conversely, there are no gender relations without a class dimension at some level’ (Pollert, 1996:646). The task, then, is to understand the ‘joint dynamic ... of class and gender structuring within the historical process as a whole’ (Connell, 1983:46, original italics). As such the intention of this research is to reveal the ‘lived experience, which shows gender and class to be

processual and dynamic ... [considering] what can appear to be contradictory processes ... breaking down traditional binarisms ... [but without slipping into] a post-modernist ‘anything goes’ standpoint’ (Holgate et al 2006:325). Such an analysis requires the consideration of the intersectionality of class and gender. ‘Intersectionality’ is a broad term intended to foster ‘a fundamental paradigmatic shift that rejects additive approaches to oppression’ (Collins, 1990:222), instead seeing ‘race, class and gender as interlocking systems of oppression’ (ibid:225), and thus, encouraging inclusiveness in relation to other oppressions such as age, religion and sexual orientation.

There are a number of key issues that need to be considered in relation to the intersectionality of class and gender. The first of these is skill. It has long been held that the designation of skill is sex-specific (Phillips and Taylor, 1980). Nowhere is this more evident than in craft-based industries where a combination of seniority and experience established a worker’s claim to be skilled (Cunnison and Stageman, 1995). Turner acknowledged this indirectly, admitting that skill was about the control of labour and whether groups of workers were powerful enough to retain this delineation for their own benefit (1962:111, 114, 19304). One effect of controlling the definition of skill may be to render those defined as unskilled invisible (Thornley, 2002:3, 8).

The state of technology is closely linked with skill. For instance, one method of exclusion is to define women as unskilled (Cockburn 1994) supported by a ‘technological ideology ... [that] brings greater reward for those ... with the greatest technical competence’ (Hacker, 1990:124 and justifies their control and authority over those who do not match up (Barrett, 1980:167). This may apply to skilled workers and managers equally. The effect of this is exacerbated by technology’s role in defining masculinity (Cockburn, 1994:77). Furthermore, Gallie’s contention that there has been a polarisation of skills (1991:349) suggests a possible threat in that re-segmentation may operate to reduce the skilled elite to nothing but a small subset of those originally designated skilled. And, of course, re-segregation has been demonstrated as a useful tool to reinforce the gendered status quo after technological change (Cockburn, 1988:32; Rubery and Fagan 1995a:212; Rubery and Fagan, 1995b:218).

The acquisition of skills through training has made the sexual division of labour ‘a powerful system of social constraint’ (Connell, 1987:100), lack of access to it denying women job opportunities. Training is necessary to provide a skill base but firms generally wish to avoid the costs of training. This can be done where there are, for instance, industry-level training bodies that provide a pool of skilled labour, especially where employers fear poaching. But the danger is in bestowing bargaining power on a group of workers (Rubery, 1994:51). The expectation of such gendered access to training also provides an example of ‘men’s sense of owning the organisation’ (Cockburn, 1991:46). In this regard, it has been noted that formal training tends to be related to unionisation (Craig et al, 1984:64), although even here there can be ‘a failure of training institutions’ (Grimshaw et al, 2001:29). Additionally, industries where unions are well organised and occupational segregation persists may affect ‘the employment policies used for different job clusters’ (Rubery, 1994:55). The internal labour market (ILM) also plays a role in securing better conditions for some groups of workers. Loveridge and Mok (1979) added complexity to the idea of ILMs and external labour markets (ELMs) through forms of primary and secondary labour-markets, whereby industry-specific skills, with standardised wages, conform to the idea of a primary external labour-market and elements of job security, and relatively superior wages for secondary market workers conform to a secondary ILM.

Employers may also harbour worries about not getting value for money from training women. There is evidence that employers are reluctant to train women for fear they will leave to have children (Craig et al, 1984:83). However, employers were more than willing to benefit from skills women obtained in general education, as long as they could obtain them cheaply (ibid:83). Part of the justification appears to be the belief that women expend little effort in achieving such competence. In this regard, some research links short training periods with low pay (Dex et al, 1994:51). Furthermore, recent developments in training, such as NVQs, have not reduced the undervaluation of women’s work because they have not been sufficiently linked to collective-bargaining strategy (Keep and Rainbird, 1998:533). Additionally, the lack of access to training can have a self-reinforcing effect on occupational segregation whereby ‘low pay and status of women employees ... [can be] taken as an indicator of low skill and job content’ (Burchell et al, 1994:181). Underlying this is the general failure of UK management to invest in training (Dickens, 2005:189).

‘Employers policies on recruitment, retention, and training all imply selection and selectivity’ (Rubery, 1994:53) and ‘employers are never sex-blind (Cockburn, 1991:24). So even where women have gained similar levels of qualifications and experience to men, occupational segregation may not decrease (McEwen Scott, 1994:159) because employers still fail to recruit women in areas that are non-traditional. Informal mechanisms and networks, e.g. word-of-mouth recruitment, can affect ‘the social composition of the workforce’ (Grieco and Whipp, 1986:120; Burchell et al, 1994:302). Employers often prefer such recruitment methods for their cheapness compared to advertising (Dickens, 2005:190). A half-way house between formal and informal recruitment methods is the unions’ ability to operate as an employment agency (PPITB, 1982:23), which again may tend to replicate the existing gender structure of the workforce.

Employers can also adjust their policies to take account of the degree of employees’ freedom to move to new employers. For instance, where there is a transferable skills

agreement ‘to abide by a common pay system’ this may limit movement because there are few advantages for the employee in moving (Rubery, 1994:52). Where there is a secondary ILM, as discussed above, there may also be limited movement of even relatively disadvantaged women, contrary to evidence that has been noted in other research (Burchell et al, 1994:309). However, even women in this segment may be vulnerable in industries where trade unions are well-organised and men predominate, as it has been noticed that, in these circumstances, they may be likely to suffer job loss to a greater degree (Walby, 1986:170).

An important tool for developing an understanding of discrimination in the labour process is the analysis of power relations. An understanding of ‘embedded structural power imbalances and the socially constructed nature of experience’ (Briskin, 2006:361) can be examined through a consideration of the power resources available to the parties as these are the mechanism by which power is utilised (Lukes, 2005). It should be remembered that it is men’s social power that is problematic rather than men as a simplified category (Mitchell, 1976; Connell, 1985).

The shifting boundaries of power affect who benefits from segmentation and to what extent in different periods. Employer benefits are well documented but there is also scope to consider the benefits to other parties of both inter- and intra-gender segmentation. Utilising a model of power resources enables this to be achieved in conjunction with an analysis of women’s invisibility in the workplace. The following analysis utilises Lukes’ third dimension of power which concerns the effects of inaction, of averting opposition or even preventing grievances arising. This is often accompanied by a ‘naturalising’ process that makes the status quo appear inevitable (2005:28). This concept also allows for the recognition of ‘collective forces and social arrangements’ (ibid:26) in the pursuit of group interests through asymmetrical power relations. These underlying ideas are given form through an adapted version of Bradley’s model of power resources (1999:34-6) that was constructed to allow analysis of the intersection of class and gender. It is modified to replace domestic power, which is not covered in the research here, by legal power. The nine resources operate as follows: technical power (knowledge of work processes), positional power (hierarchical position), collective power (formation of groups with common interests), personal power (personal characteristics and know-how, often used to maintain or obtain positional power); legal power (utilising the law to challenge the status quo), physical power (ability to undertake heavy work), sexual power (linked to sexual harassment), symbolic power (ability to interpret aspects of work organisation and pay systems), economic power (access to a variety of rewards).

Utilising these tools provides a means to understand the maintenance of segmentation and segregation in the printing industry from its inception. The argument is that segmentation is a method of embedding women’s invisibility that allows them to be treated as largely irrelevant to work organisation and bargaining processes.

The printing industry study

As with Ledwith (2006), the research strategy was framed within both feminist and labourist research approaches. The aim was that the research would be both with and for women

and trade unions (ibid:380). Underlying these considerations was the basic recognition that much social science research has fallen into the trap of asking questions from the perspective of what is problematic for men (Harding, 1987:6). While it is true that men and women share many workplace problems ‘it is indisputable that gender has an important impact on the experience of work’ (Holgate et al, 2006:310) but this is not immediately obvious in industrial relations research. This was largely true of printing industry research, too, with the exception of the studies of the unions conducted by Ledwith et al (1985), Ledwith (1991), Colgan and Ledwith (1996) and Ledwith and Colgan (2002). These studies have provided invaluable material but concentrate primarily on union dynamics rather than broader industry developments and employer strategies. The research followed an inductive method that has been identified as being especially useful in understanding the development of institutions in socioeconomic and historical context and informing policy development (Strauss and Whitfield, 1998:9). Such an approach allowed for the development of ‘grounded’ theory.

The researcher was, at the time of the research, Equality Policy Adviser (EPA) in the GPMU and had responsibility nationally for developing and implementing policy on all equalities. The intention was that the research would consider the causes of the gender pay gap and the reasons that it was still so resistant to change, despite changes in work processes. In order to illuminate these questions a study of general printing was undertaken to allow a research design that facilitated the involvement of men and women, as well as employers and paid union officials. This was unlike Cockburn’s (1983) study of the newspaper industry where research was necessarily confined almost totally to men because women were excluded from this sector.

Full access to materials and people was provided. The union also funded the study but did not seek to interfere in any way with its completion; the only stipulation was that the research must not interfere with the researcher’s duties as EPA. This may be a function of the researcher being a trusted employee of the organisation, although this topic was still sensitive within the internal politics of the union. Given the researcher’s closeness to the organisation it was felt that the more techniques utilised the less would be the danger of bias affecting the results. Neither was there a choice made between an academic or policy-making approach (Strauss and Whitfield, 1998) as it was intended that both would be facilitated.

The study includes methods that are generally recognised as common to the discipline (ibid:15). The methods used, in addition to the obvious role of observer participation, were a national survey, interviews with a proportion of respondents to the survey, interviews with employers, their representatives and trade union officials. While the survey could only provide a snapshot of the situation current at that time and cannot confirm causal relationships (Marsh, 1984:89) it did provide a framework for the qualitative data and enabled some indicative data on the pay gap to be obtained. The interviews provided more flexibility and a more in-depth consideration of perceptions and workplace processes (Whipp, 1998) and, notwithstanding the problems of memory, they can also help trace developments over time (Healy, 1997:222).

The survey was conducted using random, stratified sampling (Judd et al, 1991: 204-9). A large number of questionnaires were sent out because previous experience suggested a low rate of return. In the event 15.5% were returned, a higher rate than most internal GPMU surveys and not far adrift of the only other comparable survey, conducted by a researcher from Warwick University – but not on an equality subject. Equal numbers of men and women were surveyed, although women were only 17% of membership at the time. Again, previous experience suggested that very few surveys from women would be returned if proportionate numbers were sent out and this would defeat the object of the survey. It should be noted that while the survey and interviews were restricted to union members, the union had in excess of 60% density in the sector at that time.2

The contribution made by the interviews here was vital in developing theory, going deeper into the barriers to eliminating discrimination and also allowing assessment of where the interviewees were ‘coming from’, i.e. their backgrounds. This provided a rich source of evidence for men’s and employers’ resistance to change despite the success of women’s campaigning. Crucial issues of process, such as collective bargaining and work organisation, were teased out. In particular, it was the main method of giving women a voice in identifying their own problems and of relating these to the attitudes exhibited by men in the workplace. In the event 49 of the intended 50 semi-structured interviews were conducted, face-to-face in the case of union officers and employers and by telephone for members.

Another important method used in the study was a wide variety of documentary analysis, which was crucial in teasing out the early developments of segmentation in printing. Just as important were the documents from the last thirty years, which highlighted the period of greatest technological change and also attempts at union renewal that included better representation for disadvantaged groups. There are numerous problems with both primary and secondary materials and, in relation to this study, it should be borne in mind that official histories are often commissioned and this may affect the position adopted (McNeill, 1990). However, documents may also operate as ‘guides for action ... [and where they are] the outcome of collective decision making through negotiation or consultation, they become important tools in the practice of industrial relations’ (Healy, 1997:209).

Finally, some account needs to be given of the participant observation integral to the study in order to allow consideration of positionality and allow readers to interpret the results of the study in light of issues such as ‘personal influence, identity and power’ (Holgate et al, 2006:322). At the time of the study, the researcher had been working for the print unions for over twenty years. This provided clear advantages in terms of depth of understanding of the sector, trust in the interviewing process – interviewees were confident there were no ‘hidden agendas’ and being able to ‘inject some judgement about employer and Federation claims that allowed for a balanced view of the gap between rhetoric and reality’ (Roe, 2003:10-11). As another researcher in this industry has found, ‘interviewees seemed more relaxed and less ‘suspicious of researchers’ who ‘know the industry’’ (ibid:11). This facilitated discussion rather than being a barrier, as they knew the researcher understood what they were saying. Additionally, day-to-day contact with colleagues during normal

2 This figure has been established using the GPMU membership data, BPIF (employer’s federation) data and official statistics as the time of undertaking the fieldwork.

working conversations often provided further insights that have helped expand on the formally acquired material, assisting with contextualisation.

Traditional segmentation in the printing industry

Occupational segregation is an important factor in identifying discrimination. This is first traced before the manifestation of segmentation and its relationship to segregation is discussed. The division of craft labour was established and maintained from the introduction of printing to Britain in the late fifteenth century (Delafons, 1965: 13-17). The economic power of the guild regulated pay, prices and, to some degree, labour at a politically sensitive time. The masters gained the benefits of guaranteed prices and cheap labour from abusing the apprenticeship system (Child, 1967; Delafons, 1965:’26).

From the late eighteenth century onwards a more fundamental division of labour between pre-press and printing occurred, splitting a key element of control between craftsmen and ‘crude mechanics’ (Musson, 1954:51). This occurred when printing was mechanised, dividing the job between pre-press and press work. Women remained barred from craftwork and initially there was male resistance to women being employed in the industry at all, enforcing their invisibility. So, the adaptation of guild practices to capitalist production relations strengthened men’s hold over work organisation and women (Child, 1967:60; Hufton, 1995:93). When women did enter the industry in the second half of the nineteenth century there were a number of disputes between employers and men that were significant in establishing the extent of male resistance to female encroachment (Musson, 1954:246; Bundock, 1958:63-65; Gillespie, 1953:204-5; Reynolds, 1989:86-7). These disputes developed a clear demarcation between what was regarded as skilled and male and what could be designated as work suitable for women. Women resisted where possible but were either forced to concede or chose to comply for reasons of class solidarity (Drake, 1920:153; Reynolds, 1989). In general, though, women did not threaten men’s jobs as they were directed into occupations created by a further division in the labour process in the binderies (Duffy, 2000:130). One increasingly important tactic was to use heavy lifting as a reason for women’s exclusion from certain jobs.

Having established the sexual division of labour, it became institutionalised because of the relative stability of the labour process (Zeitlin, 1985:187-8). Even the potential threat posed by women dilutees in the two world wars was successfully controlled (Musson, 1954:36; Howe, 1950:53; Child, 1967:222, 287-8; Walby, 1988:26). Latterly, employers’ employment policies reinforced women’s position in the hierarchy. Recruitment, training and promotion decisions were, and remain, largely in the hands of time-served line managers who have tended to perpetuate the pattern of employment, as was confirmed in both the survey and in interviews. Additionally, line managers have often remained union members. In particular, their reliance on informal networks for recruitment and what was identified as a ‘family effect’ in several interviews have tended to replicate traditional gender roles in the industry. One woman interviewee (officer 4), who had (unusually) come from the production shopfloor, described the ‘family effect’ in terms of the male printer getting his wife a job in the bindery.

There were, however, two important phases of encroachment, where women resisted their restriction to low-paid jobs. The first, in the late nineteenth century, in general printing hardly displaced men and was temporary (Reynolds, 1989); the second was in the late twentieth century and is discussed below.

While the relationship between segregation and segmentation cannot be taken for granted, there has been a tendency for occupational segregation to mirror labour-market segmentation in the printing industry. Historically, various forms of segmentation are evident and are related to the differentiation of crafts and the identification of other groups as semi- and unskilled. It has had some benefits for employers in designating groups of non-craft workers who could be paid less but has served to maintain a large group still designated as craft (70% of the workforce according to the employers). This latter group is almost entirely male.

The earliest form of segmentation in the industry was between printers’ and bookbinders’ guilds and was unproblematic. From industrialisation onwards a variety of printing crafts established separate unions, jealously guarding entry to their trades. This has been the most enduring form of segmentation, lasting until the second half of the twentieth century. Employers took advantage of economic circumstances to divide the workforce at every opportunity (Child, 1967:69-70; Musson, 1954:32, 103, 321; Gordon, 1972:80). But stable technology limited the effectiveness of this strategy. Such divisions as there were seemed to embed the familiar processes of pre-press, press and finishing still apparent today. Machine assistants also started their own union creating a further level of segmentation.

Women were often accused of breaking strikes but their class interests normally led them to support the men, resisting employers’ attempts to use them as cheap labour. In reality women could not be the main threat to the success of strikes because they did not possess key skills and could not realistically substitute for men. The main culprits were other men but it was women who were demonised for their actions. This provided further scope for gendered segmentation. Printers excluded women and bookbinders segregated them. It also meant that men did not sufficiently address the lack of male solidarity that was most dangerous.

The processes of segregation and segmentation are clearly linked in the above account. After the Second World War the shifting balance of power allowed employers to exploit these divisions, as can be seen below.

Labour process developments since 1950

At the time this research was conducted the same basic division of labour by sex was observable, despite changing technology and its effects on the labour process. Women constituted about 33% of the workforce in the printing sector (Labour Market Trends, 2003, Vol.111, No.1). Remarkably there has been little change over at least thirty years, as in 1973 women constituted 33.1% of the sector (TUC, 1973). However, Cockburn indicates a fall in women’s employment from 38% through the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s to only 30.6% in 1980 (1983:159-160), suggesting that maybe the recovery in women’s proportion of the industry

post-1980 was due, in part, to the decline in male employment observed over the same period in official statistics.

Table 1 reveals that the definition of skilled work is largely coterminous with the departmental division of labour. The pre-press and printing departments are composed of almost entirely skilled men and the bindery is split between a number of skilled occupations almost entirely filled by men and a mass of occupations designated unskilled, or possibly semi-skilled, which are filled by women.

Table 1: Departmental divisions by gender

Women Men

Pre-Press

6.1% 15.3%

Printing

4.0% 38.5%

Finishing/bindery 52.8% 23.5%

Other 34.2% 20.6%

Non-response

3.0%

2.1%

Total 100% 100%Source: Survey of GPMU members 2002 (N=1216).

Table 1 clearly indicates the continuing concentration of women in the finishing area (52.8%). Men occupy a similar proportion (i.e. 53.8%) in pre-press and printing where there are small numbers of women. The 24% of men in finishing are mostly in the skilled occupations. The ‘other’ category covers such jobs as office workers, including managers with a print background who kept their union cards. Also included in this group were warehouse and distribution workers, cleaners and labourers. The small number of women in pre-press was taken into these jobs because of their typing skills, employers taking advantage of skill acquired in their general education (Craig et al, 1984:83).

Loveridge and Mok’s (1979) ideas about labour-market segmentation are useful here. Men benefit from most of the primary labour-market characteristics with the exception of promotion opportunities that are generally limited, although those that exist do tend to favour craftsmen (Craig et al, 1984:35; Rubery, 1994) such as, supervisor’s jobs. However, craftsmen have industry-specific skills, transferable to other companies and are more characteristic of the primary external segment. Meanwhile women, while low-paid, have tended to have reasonable job stability, limited training and higher wages than unskilled workers might generally expect, conforming to the idea of a secondary internal segment (Craig et al, 1984:88). Industry restructuring has been upsetting this model, removing women’s and semi-skilled men’s jobs in large numbers. There is some evidence that new segments are being created during this process among the remaining workers.

As stated above, the employers’ federation claims that 70% of the workforce is Class 1 craft workers. Those who were being removed at the time of the research were Classes 2 and 3, semi- and unskilled grades. This would leave almost all remaining workers able to claim, not just the highest level of basic pay but all the extra payments that accrue to Class 1 and significantly boost wages. Evidence from interviews that confirm the effects of restructuring and discussions with officials involved in implementing the national agreement for general

printing suggest that the employer response has been to begin to draw distinctions within the Class 1 grade. One easy way to do this has been to treat the main printer on a machine, the No. 1 minder, as a kind of supervisor or machine manager. This enables the highest pay to be restricted to that operator and to suppress pay for the other members of the machine crew. Removing bodies altogether is even more effective. Employer 5 explained that ‘the job’s a lot easier now. We only have two people manning a 12-colour press. It’s computerised so there’s rarely any mechanical faults’. This is the biggest press available and would normally demand high pay for all members of the crew. A union member (worker 7) had had similar experience with one minder per machine supported by one assistant running between two machines.

The reduction in staff has been achieved by the telescoping of low-skilled jobs into the Class 1 jobs. A member (worker 22) commented that ‘we’re now expected to do the jobs the Natties used to do’. ‘Natties’ were the machine assistants in membership of the former NATSOPA3 union. Technology has facilitated this by developing equipment that attaches to the press does many of the Class 2 and 3 jobs. A number of male Class 1 interviewees described just such a process. Meanwhile the place of women in the bindery has clearly come to seem ‘natural’. Male workers questioned about where women were in their firms either stated that most of them had been removed due to automation or that they were in the bindery. It was very clear that it had never occurred to them it could be any different and they had no explanation for it.

Changes in technology were often cited as a means whereby women could gain access to skilled work. Newspapers provided the only example where this had happened to any extent but segmentation was actually still maintained because women were ‘brought in to do just words and spaces, no display’ (officer 2). In general print there was no need to replace existing workers because ‘the basics are the same but the tools have changed. What was several trades have now telescoped into one’ (worker 23). The work has got faster but fewer people are needed to do it. In contrast, there was an example in newspapers in the late 1980s/early 1990s that was linked to large-scale displacement of men and union derecognition. Subsequently, however, women also lost their jobs, employers utilising a familiar strategy of using low-paid workers to displace the higher-paid before removing the substitutes (Hacker, 1990:60-1).

Employer responses to questions about women’s absence from press rooms and other skilled areas were that women did not apply for these jobs. Those that acknowledged blockages generally blamed male print workers. However, there are a number of features of printing firms that are likely to contribute to the dearth of women outside the bindery. Interviews identified the role of line managers in recruitment while the survey revealed that over 50% of both men and women obtained their jobs through word-of-mouth recruitment, with the other options coming nowhere near these levels. There was a high level of non-response (22.5%) and this may reflect internal promotions, company restructuring or that the union continues its traditional role in supplying labour (PPITB, 1982:23). In printing line managers are mostly time-served printers who have worked their way up. While they do not necessarily have the final say in recruitment, they are frequently consulted about who to hire. Another important issue would most likely involve the incidence of harassment and

3 NATSOPA was the National Society of Operative Printers and Media Personnel

bullying. While interviewees generally declined to identify such problems, the union’s case load and survey results (65% of men and 72% of women selected ‘very important’) indicate that both sexes thought harassment and bullying should be a union priority suggests it may, in fact, be a significant barrier to breaking down occupational segregation.

Another feature of print work that has changed is training. Evidence from the survey reveals just how much employers are relying on older craftsmen who had full apprenticeship training. Forty-four percent of men had City and Guilds qualifications, while two-thirds of women had no qualifications. At the time of the research 50% of women and 36% of men had had less than one month’s training.

There was also evidence emerging at the time of this research of another segment appearing in the industry that was largely unheard of until recently. National officers negotiating with the employers’ federation and some male union members noted the incidence of agency labour in the industry. These workers tend to change frequently. They may be of either sex but interestingly were often male even when taken on to work in the bindery. A more worrying issue related to this is that some interviewees highlighted the racial identity of these workers. One such comment sums up the problem

The company use agency workers, Iraqis coming over, on cheap rates ... there’s guys – Egyptian, Iraqi, Algerian, whatever – they work seven days of 12 hours if they can. It’s a goldmine to what they’ve been used to ... Guy’s from the agency have no training and we’re supposed to tell them what to do but they don’t speak English so you have to give them the menial jobs’ (Worker 21, bindery)

There is a two-fold segmentation here. First, the agency workers appear to be taken on to replace some of the Class 2 and 3 permanent workers, so it is not just technological displacement that is a threat. Then a barrier of race and particularly language is causing hostility to these workers. As worker 3 commented, ‘occasionally, if there is an overtime ban they might go to an agency. Nine times out of ten it’s foreigners, who are useless’. These comments were generally made in response to a question about levels of part-time working. Traditionally, the industry has not provided much work of this kind but another member indicated what he saw as the thinking behind management approaches now, ‘there are no part-time at the moment but there has been in the past. They don’t need it with agency workers – it gives them all the flexibility they need’.

While the race implications were not raised in paid-officer interviews, one senior official did remark that in relation to women being able to access higher-paid jobs,

the instability of the industry and the move towards employing fewer core workers but more agency and part-time staff would militate against it. There seems to be a polarising into high- and low-skilled jobs. Increasingly, men are being employed on low-skilled bindery jobs – the low skilled problem is now increasingly a low-skilled male problem rather than a low-skilled female problem’. (Officer 1)

The union has latterly sought to address this issue by concluding an agreement with the federation on the employment of agency labour. One reason likely to have encouraged

employers to take this route is the cost saving in employing labour outside the national agreement. Employers have claimed for some time that women employees on Class 3 pay are more expensive than similar workers in other industries. However, it is unlikely that they are comparing like with like as comments seem to suggest they only recognise women as undertaking packing duties when, in fact, they are often engaged on numerous different jobs during the course of a shift.

Bargaining processes reinforce segmentation. Many officers and members interviewed explained that where local bargaining still occurred it tended to be by department. As the figures in table 1 show, occupational segregation is mostly by department. This tends to exacerbate women bindery workers’ lack of bargaining power.

One final point to consider is that much of the pre-press work has been removed, either to other countries or customers are producing their own origination which only has to be formatted before printing. These developments, taken together, indicate the extent of change in segmentation, despite the fact that the labour process itself is still broadly recognisable from previous eras. The mechanisms at work and the implications of these changes for women’s position in the industry are discussed below in relation to the role of power resources and the invisibility of women in the industry.

Discussion

Patriarchal gender relations in the early period of printing’s development provided economic, technical and collective power for male workers, with only limited encroachment from masters’ wives. At this stage women were literally invisible. Subsequently, men’s response to women’s large scale entry into the industry during the nineteenth century was to strengthen their economic, technical and collective power resources. This enabled men to ensure that both exclusion and occupational segregation occurred simultaneously in the industry and contained the threat of women’s encroachment.

The social construction of skill was a useful, hidden source of economic and symbolic power for employers in ensuring that the jobs women undertook were low paid. Skilled work was something women did not do (Phillips and Taylor, 1980:86). For men skill was a source of technical power that created and sustained male advantage in ensuring that they filled higher places in the hierarchy than women (Hartmann, 1981a:18) and protected their jobs through restricting the labour supply (Thornley, 1996:161). From the beginning, the identification of masculinity with physical power and skill played a role in ensuring women remained in segregated jobs. Women’s occasional encroachment into skilled work left men potentially only able to claim sovereignty over heavy lifting (Reynolds, 1989:30-34). The contradiction, that heavy lifting is not a skill but a physical attribute, seems to have been conveniently overlooked in the battle for job control (Cockburn, 1983:176-7). It is a little surprising that given women’s substitution for men in typesetting in newspapers in the late 1980s through to the early 1990s men were not more wary of women being used to undermine the high pay rates of men in pressrooms. However, the segmentation between the types of job that men and women did during that phase of encroachment may have provided a false sense of security. It meant that women were still generally invisible and this tended to create among the men a feeling that the differences between pre-press in

newspapers and the press room in general printing were sufficient to prevent women’s encroachment in the latter. The misplaced confidence, it could be argued, has allowed the men to take ‘their eye off the ball’ in relation to other forms of segmentation that are possibly far more dangerous to organised labour. History and current developments suggest that other men have always been a more serious threat and gendered segmentation cannot assist in relation to those developments.

Over laying these developments is, perhaps, the most fundamental aspect of change for British labour in the last thirty years: the international division of labour. Print did better than most in holding off major change until the 2000s, probably the effect of such strong collective and technical power in a sector dominated by small- and medium-sized companies. But this is the source of segmentation that has removed most typesetting and a considerable proportion of pressroom work from the industry, especially in the years since this research was conducted. It is also linked to the other new forms of segmentation outlined below.

The stability of the labour process assisted in embedding gender relations by maintaining the technical and collective power of the men, even when new segments appeared such as that between compositors and machine minders. Although the labour process has been far less stable in the last thirty years, it is still recognisable as, broadly, the same process. It has seen certain tasks/trades removed as technology has de-segmented the labour process, bringing back together some of its elements. However, the effect has been to prevent women’s progression into higher-paid work through a re-segmentation that either embeds their place in low-paid bindery work or removes them altogether from the process. But employers still need the remaining bindery work done, as well as that previously undertaken by semi-skilled Class 2 men. For an increasing number of employers it appears to be agency labour that is taking this role. The effect is to concentrate positional and technical power in the hands of a decreasing segment of class 1 machine minders while weakening the Class 2 and 3 workers by reducing their numbers drastically and leaving them as largely isolated workers. Women are in danger of becoming literally invisible again.

The rationale for these moves is to subsidise the high pay of the dominant class 1 workers but try to reduce the highest pay to a decreasing segment within class 1. Agency workers entering as a vulnerable new segment are easily disposed of and undermine the terms and conditions of the remaining class 2 and 3 workers. This is assisted by language barriers that mean it is hard to build solidarity or even recruit these workers to the union and so they can be used, for instance, to do overtime on ordinary, rather than enhanced, rates. Men’s collective and technological power is being whittle away.

Employment policies that ensured time-served men were involved in determining who would get the skilled jobs and the family effect replicated the existing workforce. Training has reduced drastically from the days of the apprenticeship but employers still have just enough time-served men available to allow them to ignore skills shortages. This means training offers no possibilities for women hoping to get better jobs. Departmental bargaining embeds segmentation and ensures women do get access to the enhanced payments that the pressroom chapels may negotiate. The significant incidence of harassment and bullying may well have the effect of ensuring women see acquiring jobs in

male dominated areas as too high a price to pay for better terms and conditions (Cockburn, 1988:40). The effect of exclusion, segregation and men’s shared collective, technical, sexual, positional and the symbolic power of masculinity defining work appropriate to men and women was to embed the sexual division of labour. In line with Lukes’ contention that hidden power can ‘naturalise’ processes (2005:28), the asymmetrical power relations that resulted in occupational segregation rendered women largely invisible and rationalised women’s retention in low-paid jobs.

Conclusions

The key power resources that assisted men in holding on to the best paid jobs were the collective and technical power resources established soon after the introduction of printing in to Britain. Thereafter, men sought to use segmentation to their advantage to maintain higher pay. Employers gained from being able to pay considerably less to all those who could be deemed non-craft but especially women. Whenever women sought to break out of their bindery ghetto male workers took industrial action to prevent women acquiring technical power resources. Employers, keen to have industrial peace, acquiesced. In more recent times employers have sought to use their economic and positional powers to create segments that have started to carve away layers of skilled work from the highest-paid rates. These workers may still be class 1 but they do not get access to all the extra payments that provide very high pay for the lucky ones. Meanwhile, segmentation is leading to the removal of women from the industry, making them literally invisible. The new segmentation in the industry thus reveals the intersectionality of gender, race and class in undermining the power of organised workers.

These developments indicate a number of problems being stored up for the future. It is likely that there will be even more severe skills’ shortages than have historically existed; although it is possible that the extent of decline in the sector may sufficiently reduce demand for these skills to remove or reduce this problem, at least for a time. However, it also means a shift from a primary ELM to more firm-specific skills that will be likely to reduce the claim to craft status. It will become easier for employers as collective power resources recede, partly from reduced overall numbers and partly from the divisions created by segmentation, to reduce drastically the number of workers entitled to the best pay. In this scenario there is little likelihood of women entering into the better paid work as many thought they would when technology changed. The focus on women as a prime source of danger may well have contributed to the ease with which employers have reduced the former strength of organised labour in printing and should be a warning that acquiescing in gendered divisions of labour does not ultimately provide safety for any group of workers.

In finality, this account reveals how women have been contained within certain grades and their pay limited. Although they have sought to challenge this their collective power has not been sufficient to change the status quo. The developments in segmentation are exacerbating this situation through returning women to actual invisibility by removing them from the industry and leaving those few remaining women increasingly isolated.References

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