QUALITY OF WORK LIFE OF WOMEN WORKERS: ROLE OF TRADE UNIONS

The present study was designed to explore the issue of representation of legitimate interests of women workers in its entirety and make suggestions to help the policy makers to improve the quality of work life of women workers. The study was carried out in the services and manufacturing (public) sectors, more specifically in Banking, Insurance, PSUs and Hospitals. The study findings reveal that the level of satisfaction of women employees with QWL in their respective organisations was quite high in spite of the overall work life conditions as provided by the company /management being only average (as perceived by them). While the wider issues having implications for the entire workforce were taken care of in their negotiations by the existing union of which they were members the women specific issues were generally ignored (except for in hospitals where the dominant gender was female). Implications of the findings for employers, trade unions, the Government and the women themselves are also discussed.