In August-October 2005, the Women’s Committee in Burkina Faso held three conferences on ‘Women, Health and the Environment’ and this resulted in 150 women joining IUF affiliates, as Assetou explains.

“In July 2005, I went to an IUF sub-regional women’s conference where we drew up union recruitment plans for each country. When I got back to Burkina Faso, I proposed to the other IUF affiliates in our country that we form a committee of women, one from each of the five unions; and they elected me Chairperson.

We asked ourselves: ‘How can we recruit more women? What would interest them the most?’ So we decided to run a series of conferences on ‘Women, Health and the Environment’. We know these are issues that women are concerned about. We think women care more than men about the environment, about keeping it clean, safe and healthy. Even in the workplace, you see women tidying up more. But the environment is not only the workplace. It is also the surrounding nature.

So we held two conferences in the capital city Ouagadougou and one in the city of Bobo. At each, we invited a woman environmental specialist to talk in the morning, and then in the afternoon we posed the question: ‘How can trade unions help find solutions to these problems?’

The reaction from the women was very interesting. Several said things like: ‘I didn’t know unions do this. I thought unions were only against things, saying ‘no’ to whoever is in power’.

It is true that these are not traditional issues for trade unions. But if we had called it a ‘trade union conference’ few women would have come. By bringing women together to discuss issues that greatly concern them, we were much more successful. Altogether, we recruited about 150 new members from just these three conferences.

We are preoccupied, for example, by a horrible invasion of plastic bags, which do not degrade and badly affect cultivation. Some are carcinogenic but workers carry their food in them. Sometimes people use them to light fires, though the fumes are bad for your health. We looked at how to work with women in the informal economy to recycle plastic bags into useful objects and so generate income for them.

Another concern is the cutting down of forests for fuel, which leads to desertification. A specialist gave a talk on how to make better use of wood by improving the heating and cooking equipment in our homes.

We have also been considering how to raise the profile of the menopause as a workplace issue, to include in collective bargaining. Many women do not want to talk about it and can be quite ignorant. They are even shy about going to the doctor about it. Yet it can cause women difficulties at work. So we have made it a theme at our conferences and are circulating leaflets.

We followed up these conferences with a meeting with 40 of the new members to discuss their problems and what they can expect from the unions. And we have been holding more activities around the country on HIV-Aids, workplace health and safety, and women’s participation in public life and the unions. ”

Interviewed by Celia Mather, Lusaka, 4 July 2006

* SYNTETH: Syndicat Nationale des Travailleurs de l’Environnement, Tourisme et Hotels