* * * SANTA FE The SAC-Sindicato de Amas de Casa de Santa Fe (Housewives Trade Union of SF) is co-ordinating the Strike nationally. They have called together a coalition of grassroots women from the ‘barrios’, women’s groups, environmentalists, academics and women from all three main trade unions. The Multisectorial de Mujeres para la Acción (Women for Action Coalition) will be launched on 8 March with a press conference at the Centre of SAC. They’re expecting 200 women who will march with drums, cymbals, pots, pans and brooms through the city centre dressed as firefighters, nurses, teachers . . . with placards saying: ‘I’m a housewife and a doctor’, ‘I’m a housewife and a teacher’, etc. To the demand of wages for caring work they have added ‘pensions without contributions for workers without wages.’ The biggest union of state employees is issuing a flyer for 8 March in support of unwaged women workers and of the GWS – they are calling for a symbolic strike of 5-10 muinutes in all state offices (about 30,000 women). All women trade unionist have agreed to go on strike.

* * * BUENOS AIRES Fundacion Mujeres en Igualdad (Foundation Women in Equality) is joining the Strike with an extended picnic in Plaza Roberto Arlt. CDEM of San Fernando and others will join them.  Also they will distribute flyers to people attending other Women’s Day events and send messages to the press and e-mails to their Argentine and Mercosur networks.

* * * ROSARIO The SAC there has been working for the Strike with trade union women across political party lines who call themselves Multisectorial de Mujeres Asimismo. They had a dinner for women journalists to try and get interviews about the Strike. The main Strike event will take place in a ‘barrio’ (neighbourhood) where there is strong support for SAC, with women from different organisations speaking out about the Strike demands and why they are striking. Artistic groups will also participate.

* * * SAN CARLOS DE BARILOCHE editor of the women’s supplement Malén – young woman in the Indigenous Mapuche language – of the newspaper El Cordillerano de San Carlos de Bariloche is getting the Strike demands and leaflet translated into Mapuche and circulating them. (The Mapuche people live in the Andes in Argentina and Chile and have been taking on multinationals and the Chilean government over the exploitation of their lands.) Author of book on women’s unwaged work as mothers and housewives, joins the campaign for Wages for Housework to be paid by the State not by husbands.

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