PRESS UPDATE 3
Caregivers
of the world unite!
We have nothing to lose but our poverty.
We have a world to win!
Global
Women's Strike,
International Women's Day 8 March 2001
London mothers and other carers are joining with women and
girls in villages, towns and cities in over 60 countries on every continent for the second
Global Women's Strike. From "Raging Grannies" to Rage Against the Machine, the
Strike is sweeping the globe.
LONDON:
From 12 – 1pm, CARAVAN down Whitehall: prostitute
women from Soho, asylum seekers, students, professional women struggling with the double
day, women with disabilities, lesbian women, pensioners, bicyclists . . . with a giant
puppet, masks, push-chairs, wheelchairs, Samba band + Clitoral Mass women cyclists. (Assembling Trafalgar Sq 11.45am)
PLUS Stop the World, Change the tune!
6.30-8pm = Women’s speakout with international news.
8.30 – midnight = Live: Songlines International Choir (50-strong), Frank
Chickens DJs the Raya Crew. Union Chapel, Compton Avenue, N1
HIGHLIGHTS OF STRIKE ACTIVITIES
UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON STUDENTS UNION is officially supporting the Strike,
continuing its ‘proud history of fighting for women’s liberation’, and
paying striking women staff
SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY STUDENTS UNION is giving a day off to women staff;
leafleting the University; showing the Strike video, e-mailing UK universities
DUDLEY hospital workers striking against PFI (Profit From Ilness) will put up
posters and distribute to patients stickers saying "Caring Work Counts" and
"No Profit From IIlness". UNISON and other union branches have sent support and
donations.
BRADFORD Sunrise Radio – women-only presenters and participants
throughout the day will highlight the Strike; Radio Venus broadcast on women’s issues
throughout the day for Bradford Community Radio
OXFORD Strike video showing at IWD event
CANTERBURY University students joining the local Women’s Centre to take
leaflets to women in Cookham Prison
plus NORTH ENGLAND Woman mental health worker organising event with
women in psychiatric hospital
As caregivers, both unwaged and waged, we are
adding our local demands to the global demands of the Strike movement .
A wage for all our work caring for children, families and communities, which
sustains the whole of society and the economy. Mothers in every situation are entitled
to financial recognition so that we have a real choice of caring full-time for our
children and/or taking on work outside the home on our terms. Only then will caring be
valued as society’s central activity.
All mothers must qualify for the Childcare Commission's
recommendation of 'generous financial support' for mothers, making it possible to
look after your children for the first three years, or paying someone else, a real choice.
The Commission said: 'The "free" childcare provided by the previous
generation of women can no longer be taken for granted.' We ask: will single mothers
on Income Support, who are being pushed off benefits, be entitled to the same pay rate for
the same caring work as mothers with a waged job outside the home to return to? Full-time
childcare and waged jobs leave us and our children exhausted, with no time together and as
impoverished as ever. Until caregivers are properly valued and paid , our children will
also be unvalued.
Abolition of all compulsory measures such as the £20 a week benefit
penalty imposed by the Child Support Agency on single mothers who won’t claim
maintenance from absent fathers. It invites domestic violence, forcing women and
children to be back in touch and financially dependent on violent or uncaring men.
Recognition and payment of grandmothers' caring work and the reinstatement of
the pension age at 60. Many grannies spend over 26 hours a week looking after
grandchildren. The pension age must not be abolished, a recipe for denying a pension to
the lowest paid and unwaged, and pressuring us to continue the double day - waged work on
top of housework - till we drop. The pension age must go back to 60 in recognition of
women’s unwaged workload.
Asylum seekers are mothers too. Far from being persecuted and
criminalised, those who us who have fled violence and persecution are entitled to help and
support. Under the draconian voucher and dispersal system, many asylum seekers end up as
sex workers in order to feed, clothe and house our familiesand ourselves. Our caring work
entitles us to full cash benefits and housing. Instead we are arrested, refused legal
help, separated from our children and deported to countries where we again face the rape
and other terrorism we struggled to escape. Many of the prostitute women raided recently
in Soho were from Kosovo and Iraq, and were illegally deported in spite of their asylum
claims.
Pay equity for all caring work outside the home. Women do the lowest
paid work because the same work in the home is taken for granted and never paid. What is
more important than raising children and looking after others? The work of nursery
workers, childminders, nurses, midwives, hospital workers, secretaries, home helps,
cleaners and other care workers, is far more valuable than that of bankers, stockbrokers,
arms dealers, government ministers, oil magnates, scientists experimenting on animals and
other professionals whose work is to be uncaring.
Global
Women’s Strike demands:
- Payment for all caring work -- in wages, pensions, land & other resources
- pay equity for all internationally
- paid maternity leave and breastfeeding breaks
- abolition of 'Third World debt'
- accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy and
information
- non-polluting energy and technology to lessen our workload
- protection and asylum from all violence & persecution
- freedom of movement
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