Workshop for capacity building for women organisers

The objective of the workshop was to strengthen women organizers and provide them with legal advocacy. The 25 women leaders who participated were from the states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

The major topics discussed were leadership, organizing skills, human and legal rights for women, equal wages, maternity benefit, domestic violence and sexual harassment at the workplace. Participants shared their experiences of gender discrimination and harassment with legal expert Rama Priya, who advised them on legal aspects and remedies of the Indian Constitution for solving these issues. Delegates also made presentations on ‘formulating strategies to build the strengthen Union’ and ‘how to assure the participation of women in Union decision making’.

It has decided unanimously that along with women workers, wives of male workers will be taken into the consideration and more organizing activities will be carried out in steel- states of India.

Devika Singh, Chairperson of IndustriALL India Women Committee, and S M Fahimuddin Pasha, Education and Program Officer at IndustriALL South Asia Office, assured that additional workshops and training programmes, designed exclusively for women organizers will be conducted in the near future.

Shri. Rajendro Prasad Singha, member of IndustriALL Executive Committe insisted on women representation in the Indian trade union movement. In small steel companies and sponge industries, which count many women among its employees, there has so far been very few initiatives to organize these workers.

"Even though we don’t have an adequate number of women organizers in the steel sector we are putting our efforts to explore the maximum opportunities for  women’, he added.

IndustriALL, together with its Indian affiliates INMF and SMEFI, will continue to support the activities for the welfare of women organizers in the steel sector.