Aaargh, this is a complex one.
I haven't seen the programme, but wouldn't be the least surprised if this was chosen as a good moment politically to do a hatchet job on the unions.
Agree that unions are vital, not only for low paid workers, but IMO for as many workers as possible. We know that large corporations co-operate/work together, how can we fight back without standing together. Clearly as women and further exploited we need to work together even more.
BUT I am not in the least surprised by Poogles experience. It is important to remember that a lot of unions have very bad history going right back to the early days, when they saw themselves as defending a living family wage going to a man, and often therefore saw working women as competition who would lower wages.
Admittedly going back a fair few years, but I have painful memories of my Mum (who was brought up to be as solid an old Labour, union woman as you can imagine) having massive fights within her union - NALGO as was (so the lower paid of local government clerical workers). A majority of members were women (I think nationally) - but all the union officials in her area were men, and their attitude was that the women were unimportant and working for pin money.