Morning Star Scotland conference

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The remarks came in the second session of the conference, which centred on women workers and the challenges they face amid growing misogyny fuelled by the far right.

Ms O’Connor, speaking in a personal capacity, said: “No-one suffers from the destruction of our public services more than women; they are most likely to use public services, most likely to work in them too; services which these days do no more than provide the bare basics to allow for civilised existence.

“In the right conditions all workers are capable of fighting back and long experience tells me this is particularly true of women workers. 

“This is not some kind of sentimentalised form of identity politics, it’s the experience of the history of our movement.

“History tells us that women workers’ leaders emerge under the most difficult and oppressive conditions and working-class women who spark struggles can lead struggles and win struggles too.”

In the final session, the focus shifted to the challenges faced by young workers in an environment of unemployment, underemployment and precarious work.

Organiser for the Glasgow Unite hospitality and services branch Yana Petticrew paid tribute to the “tenacity” of young reps blooded in disputes like the historic action at Village Hotel in Govan where the average age was 22, but issued a stark warning:

“Currently in the UK we’ve got 4.5 per cent of workers between the age of 16 and 24 in the unions, despite making up 13 per cent of the country’s labour force.

“50 per cent of reps are over the age of 50, so the union movement is going to collapse unless we actually do something about it.”

Pointing to what can be done, however, she said: “For a sector of the union movement that has less than 1 per cent density, we’re seeing mass action, and we’re seeing the development of activists who are going to stay in the movement for the rest of their lives.

“They might move into other unions, other sectors, and if they can take the lessons that they’re learning now into these other unions, into these other sectors, we can only hope that it will rebuild a movement in our image.”

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