Sex workers to join trade union

It promises to be a most fascinating union meeting. In some respects the get together at the GMB's Hendon branch office in a few weeks will be just like any other. There'll be discussion of pay and conditions, of Government refusal to listen to workers' demands, of quorums and resolutions.

And of pimps, prostitutes and phone sex. For the GMB, which was formed through the merger of more than 100 smaller workers' organisations and can date back its antecedents to 1889, is about to swallow up one more: the International Union of Sex Workers. If the vote goes the right way, prostitutes and other allied workers will soon be eligible to become full members of Britain's third biggest union.

The key mover behind this extraordinary development in labour relations is Ana Lopes, perhaps Britain's most unlikely shop steward.

Eloquent, soft spoken - and wearing a T-shirt declaring" Sex Workers of the World Unite" - Ana has been a telephone sex-line operator for six years. "When I first came to London I found it so expensive I had to get a job. Being a sex-line operator is perfect for me. I decide when I go to work and when I stop." As a PhD student at the University of East London, she appreciates its flexibility. "I can take a break altogether from working if I've got exams on. It fits well around my studies."

She is paid around £6 an hour, and says she is happy in her work. But she can see all around her others who do not work in such good circumstances. "The sex industry is filled with women being forced to do things they are not comfortable with."

That is why the International Union of Sex Workers was established in March 2000. Ana runs it along with Monica, a prostitute, and Chris, a sex outreach worker. "The union gives us a voice. An individual sex worker cannot change the laws or their working conditions. A collective of many organised sex workers can do this." Although she must have made this speech many times before, Ana is passionate. She tugs at her fringe and goes on: "We need a union as much as other workers. We want to establish ourselves as legitimate workers in a legitimate industry. We've are fed up with being stigmatised."

At the moment, though, the IUSW has just 70 members - "It's hard for sex workers to join us. We don't even have an office," she complains. Hence the search for mainstream trade union representation. "Sex workers should be allowed to join any general union. Their work is legal and they have a right to be represented."

Originally, the big unions did not want to know. "They didn't want anything to do with us. They think the involvement of sex workers will discredit their union. We were not taken seriously, and considered something to laugh about."

This scepticism runs deep. A spokesperson for the TUC, unaware of the GMB initiative, says: "I'm not sure that the unions would represent people who are working illegally on the black economy and who are not part of the tax system. It would be highly unlikely that a sex workers' union could affiliate with the TUC unless prostitution was legalised."

In fact, the law surrounding prostitution is more confused than that. Selling sex is legal but soliciting for trade is not; and any house containing more than two working girls is an illegal brothel.

This has to change, reckons Ana. "The Metropolitan Police are interested in listening to our demands," she says. "They have been positive about our plans to set up a unionised brothel in London because we would cut out the pimps and managers, and therefore much of the violence." But the police are also cracking down on streetwalkers. "The idea is to clean up the community, but all that happens is that prostitutes are driven to dangerous areas where they have no protection and are vulnerable. The outreach workers can't find them and they are totally reliant on their pimps."

The result was until recently a stalemate. For the past two years Ana has been trapped in this catch-22: without the backing of a union, it was almost impossible to change the laws regarding sex work. Without the legalisation of prostitution, the unions didn't want to know.

Then she approached the GMB. Negotiations with union organiser Lisa Venes have been uncharacteristically smooth. Venes welcomes the merger. "I haven't heard any negativity within the GMB about the sex workers. The illegal aspect of their work is precisely why they need representation. Here is a group of workers with very specific problems and we can help them. We can campaign on their behalf, put pressure on Parliament and hopefully change the laws regarding prostitution."

The proposal is that sex workers would have their own branch within the London region of the GMB. They would have their own secretary and chair, they would send motions to regional council and would nominate a delegate to go to the national congress every two years.

Certainly the union - already home to footballer Henrik Larsson, former House of Commons speaker Betty Boothroyd and 750,000 blue- and white-collar workers - has moved on from the days when it was in the business of swallowing up organisations with names such as The Amalgamated Jewish Tailors, Pressers and Machinists' Trade Union and the National Union of Furniture Trade Operatives.

Hence the open meeting in March, to which every sex worker in town is invited. The merger will be discussed and it will be put to the vote. Ana is optimistic that her colleagues will give it the green light. "I can't think why they would say no. This is a great thing for sex workers, a really great thing."