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FEMALE workers are being trapped by in-work poverty, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said yesterday.
She was delivering the inaugural Mary Macarthur lecture in Rowley Regis in the West Midlands.
Ms Macarthur was a trade union activist and Suffragette who lived from 1880 to 1921.
“Here in Rowley Regis over two-fifths of female workers earn less than the living the wage,” said Ms O’Grady.
“Try telling them the recovery is fair, when they are struggling to make ends meet and pay the bills.
She called for a revival of the spirit of the chainmakers — Staffordshire women workers who staged a 10-week strike in 1910 — to tackle today’s problems.
“In this new era of zero-hours contracts and casualisation, collective bargaining has never been more important,” she said.
“Without a better deal for women and stronger unions, millions of low-paid workers will continue to be left behind.”
