Unions buck the trend as Women's representation in UK public life goes into reverse

Trade unions are in danger of becoming ‘irrelevant’ and ‘cannot connect to a whole swath of the workforce that thinks they died out with the ark’ former Labour Cabinet Minister and ex-CWU General Secretary Alan Johnson recently told Progress.
   Strange then, that trade unions are one of the few areas of public life in Britain where women’s representation in leadership is growing. A new report Sex and Power 2013 compiled by the Counting Women coalition, finds a ‘shocking absence of women from UK public life. The number of women in senior levels of the judiciary, education, the arts, finance, the civil service and government is plummeting’