Industrial Relations zyxwvutsr Journal ISSN zyxwvutsrqp 0019-8692 S3.00 ‘A cracking a profile of job for women officers Edmund Heerv and zyx This article focuses on the women who a woman’- trade union John Kelly constitute less than 20% of the total number of full-time trade union officers-it examines the distribution of women zyxwv FTOs across the trade union movement, their experiences o f working in a male-dominated occupation and the ways in which they adapt to the pressures and demands of their situation. As Equal Opportunities have moved closer to the centre of social policy, so the experi- ence of women who have successfully entered and work within male-dominated occupations has emerged as a theme of social inquiry. zyxwvuts A series of studies of women civil servants, doctors, lawyers, scientists, man- agers and technicians has documented the difficulties facing women who work with men[l]. The aim of this article is to extend this literature by considering the experiences of women working within one small, but very significant, male-dominated occu- pation, full-time trade union work. The arti- cle presents information on the working experiences of women full-time trade union officers (FTOs), who work as paid officials within British unions organising and nego- tiating on behalf of trade union members. It is not concerned with women working as trade union researchers or in other specialist positions for whom direct involvement in collective bargaining may not be a central feature of the job. zyxwvut 0 Edmund Heery is Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations at Kingston Polytechnic and John Kelly is Lecturer in Industrial Relations at The London School of Economics. Three concerns are paramount. The first is with paths of entry into trade union work and the degree to which the small minority of women FTOs have followed different routes to those of their male colleagues. The second is the extent to which trade union work constitutes a ’discriminatory environ- ment’[2] for women so that they are handi- capped relative to men in the performance of their work and the development of their careers, or are systematically excluded from some types of work and directed towards others which are considered to be more ‘appropriate’ for women. The third concern is with the coping strategies and patterns of adaptation of women FTOs to the pressures of working within a male-dominated occu- pation. We examine how women FTOs man- age their relationships at work with col- leagues, superiors, members and employers and how they combine domestic life with work in an exceedingly demanding or ’greedy’ occupation[3]. In examining the experiences of women FTOs we are also concerned to delineate the barriers to greater female participation in trade union work. If women do follow par- ticular paths to FTO positions, or experience discrimination or find difficulty adapting zy to 192 Industrial Relations journal