Trade Unions, Gender and Claims under Irish Employment Equality Legislation

This article examines trade union activity in representing claimants at Equality Officer investigations under the Republic of Ireland's Employment Equality Act, 1977. This is set in the context of traditional trade union support for gender segregation in employment and the observation that trade union decision-making bodies still tend to be heavily male dominated. Use of the Act by trade unions is shown to have been mainly reactive rather than strategic. Evidence is presented that, while some individual union officials actively supported claims, this was not necessarily typical. It is argued that this represented a lost opportunity by trade unions to push the equality agenda forward and is consistent with continuation of the patriarchal trade union tradition. The article concludes by arguing that significant change to this approach is unlikely, given current gendered patterns of trade union governance.