Gill Kirton Analysis

In this essay, I will focus my analysis on Gill Kirton’s “The Influences on Union Joining and Participating in Unions. I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of his writing. I will review his findings and explain if I agree with them. I will comment on whether his article present an important argument, if there is enough evidence to presented to support Kirton’s argument. In Kirton’s essay, he discusses why women join unions and he provides data from a study of women in in two large male – dominated United Kingdom trade unions. He states there are four key influences on women’s union joining and participating. Women are influenced by family, union, work and feminism. I will discuss strengths and weaknesses that I felt about his writing.

He focuses on explaining the reasons why women joined or not. He does provide a lot of examples from other writers about their research about the topic. He is very detailed in providing information about the four key influences that affect women in either joining or not joining a union. He states that the 4 key influences are: family, work, union and feminism. The focus of the research is from 2 major trade unions from the United Kingdom. He states some women are interested in going to a union meeting if it was a women only meeting (Kirton, p.399). I feel the strengths of his paper are as follows: He clearly explains what his paper is about. For instance, he explained that his focus was on discussing what influenced women in joining and participating in unions. He explains that there was a long decline in union membership. He felt that it was important to understand the reasons why women join unions and participate in unions as it is a key research topic within the industrial relations field (Kirton,

This information helps people learning about unions understand the concept better. For instance, he explains what propensity and opportunity is in relation to union joining. From reading his article, it helps me understand that propensity is associated with one’s personal beliefs and values. Also, I am now aware of that an opportunity is the availability of a union to join or participate in (Waddington and Kerr, 2002). A weakness in the paper would be Kirton discusses about feminism and some women might not be comfortable asking for female participation in the unions. I felt the wording is confusing and lotsof complex words. For instance, the quote, ”which could mean that some women might be deterred by an overtly feminist call for participation” (Cockburn, 1991; Colgar/Ledwith, 1996; Cunnison/Stageman, 1995; Healy/Kirton, 2000; Kirton/Healy, 1999;Parker, 2003). Dr. Kirton indicates “Interactive on union joining and participation revolves either explicitly or implicitly around 1) Propensity to unionize/participate 2) opportunity to