VIOLENCE against women and low pay were closely intertwined, according to the incoming vice-president of ICTU Ms Inez McCormack.
"Low pay is linked to the lack of value placed on women in our society," she said at the ICTU conference yesterday.for change, by changing themselves and recognising that until power relationships change between men and women, there will be neither equal pay nor peace in the kitchen.
"But my message as a woman to men is 'I want you with us'. We welcome you, but we will not wait."
Ms McCormack is the first woman to be elected vice-president of the ICTU. In 1999 she will become president. The last woman to be elected president of the old Irish Trade Union Congress was the late Helen Chenevix in 1951.
Women came of age in another sense at the ICTU yesterday, when standing orders were suspended to allow a prolonged debate on equality, while issues which normally take precedence, such as trade union recognition, were referred back to later in the conference.
During the debate male trade unionists also criticised the attitudes of men at work and in the home. Until men accepted they have to share the burdens of housework and child-rearing no amount of legislation will end gender discrimination in the workplace, the general secretary of the Civil and Public Service Union, Mr Blair Horan, said.
The biggest cause of pay discrimination in the workplace was that women had to take career breaks to rear their families, Mr Horan said. There was a danger that some measures aimed at combating discrimination, such as greater access to job-sharing, could actually increase discrimination.