Los Angeles – political rock band Rage Against the Machine are once again making the Strike top item on their website and linking it; grandmother of 8 children will be praying at home on 8 March “that we can win over and above the destructive forces in our world.” - New York City Flushing Greens will distribute Strike leaflets in Spanish, English, Chinese and Korean, “focusing on lack of affordable housing and need for a living wage – two big issues that affect women in our predominately immigrant community.” Clarification: woman mental health system survivor focus of vigil outside Kings County G building is protesting against forced drugging and incarceration. Florida Key West women will have Peace in the Park day -Philadelphia- Jobs for Justice are encouraging their members to attend Strike actions especially to protest the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation. Utah - a couple will organise a demonstration/press conference at the State Capitol Building in Salt Lake City.
Press announcement
Contact:
Crossroads Women’s Center, Philadelphia PA
tel:
215-848-1120; e-mail: Philly@crossroadswomen.net
Website:
http://womenstrike8m.server101.com
3rd Global Women’s Strike March 8: Invest in Caring Not Killing
Women press "for a world which values all women’s work & every life and to end ‘America’s new war’ and all wars"
International Women’s Day, March 8, 2002 will mark the third Global Women’s Strike (GWS) with the theme "Invest in Caring Not Killing. Women charge that "never before has there been so much wealth – yet so many of us with so little." With the Strike women the global carers give their collective No to globalization and militarization. Prioritizing the production of things over caring for people threatens human life and the life of the planet. The Strike calls for a total change of social and economic priorities for the whole society beginning with women. According to the UN, women do 2/3 of the world’s work, and 2/3 of this work is unwaged. Women in the US have added “Welfare Not Warfare” to the theme of the Strike.
International strike demands begin with payment for all caring work – in wages, pensions, land and other resources. Based on that entitlement, we also demand: pay equity internationally * paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks and other benefits * accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy and information * non-polluting energy and technology to shorten our hours and burden of work * protection and asylum from all violence & persecution * freedom of movement (immigration and asylum rights). Our demand that so-called "Third World debt" not be paid: “We owe nothing, they owe us.” is based on acknowledging how hard women work, and for how little reward, around the globe.
For the past two years, women and girls in over 60 countries have gone on Strike to "Stop the World and Change It", often with dramatic results. Women in Uganda last year won some free hospital care for all from the government. Women also report that husbands gave them land and animals – crucial to their financial independence – finally recognising all the work they do, and the power of our international connection. (See the website for personal statements from women in Uganda.) A demonstration of thousands of village women in India confronted local officials. Domestic workers in Peru demanded to be recognized as real workers in labor legislation. Prostitute women in London’s (England) Soho protested eviction from their homes.
So far this year women in the following countries have said they are Striking: Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Belarus, Canada, Colombia, Congo, England, India, Ireland, Italy, France, Ghana, Guyana, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Tanzania, Trinidad & Tobago and Uganda, Uruguay (see list of international highlights at end) and in the US. Taking their lead from grassroots women in Argentina who are protesting the collapsed economy caused by policies of the World Bank working with a corrupt government, striking women in many places are planning "cacerolazos" – pots-and-pans protests – and "escobazos" – a broom protest to sweep out the global killers.
Activities in the US include · Philadelphia: women’s Strike bus will "Follow the Money Trail" to pots-and-pans protests at banks, "welfare-to-work" agencies, drug companies and defense contractors · Los Angeles: women’s march and rally will stop to "call out the thieves" at sites symbolic of the military, multinationals and environmental destruction, as well as at a Welfare Office to oppose "welfare reform". · San Francisco: march will include cacerolazos at the Welfare Department and Federal Building against war-mongering and corporate thievery. · Milwaukee: Welfare Warriors will lead a photo bus tour of "Bloated Big Business". · Utah: Jedi for Women will hold a press conference at the Capitol. · NYC: protesting mental institutions and sweatshops, and celebrations. Street theater, costumes, music, poetry, art and lots of noise will register women’s serious demand to redirect military spending to caring, feeding, healing, learning.
"Democracy Now" with distinguished presenter Amy Goodman (Pacifica Network) will broadcast live Strike coverage, with interviews with women in different countries. (For local broadcast times and stations, or to listen online, go to www.democracynow.org.
The Global Women's Strike is coordinated by the Wages for Housework Campaign. Payday is coordinating men's increasingly widespread support.
For up-to-the minute Strike news in English and Spanish, plus leaflets in 18 languages, visit http://womenstrike8m.server101.com. Also available: 40-second Webcast and 27-minute video of Strike 2000 on VHS (in English, Spanish subtitles). The Strike website has news from around the globe with photos and reports of last year's stike: http://womenstrike8m.server101.com
In the US, contact Global Women’s Strike Committees in Philadelphia 215-848-1120; Los Angeles 323-292-7405; San Francisco 415-626-4114. Outside the US, contact the Strike Committee in London, England: 0207-482-2496. E-mail to womenstrike8m@server101.com
INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
ARGENTINA: The Sindicato de Amas de Casa (Housewives Union) in Santa Fe is holding daily women’s assemblies in the poorest neighborhoods as part of the popular uprising. Coordinating GWS actions, the "Escobazo" (the Sweep) will press their demands to deal with the Argentinean crisis.
ENGLAND: London Strike Committee is organizing a Whistle-Stop Tour and "Cacerolazo" (pots and pans protest) to Sweep Out the Global Killers: Shell, Ministry of Defence, Institute of Directors, finishing at the World Bank.
GUYANA: Red Thread multi-racial women’s group holding a "Cacerolazo" (pots & pans protest) in Linden bringing together Indigenous, Indo and Afro-Guyanese women, together calling for an end to exorbitant prices for electricity, phones and water, and for affordable land and housing materials for single mothers.
IRELAND: Women in Media & Entertainment holding a 10-hour vigil outside a church in Galway to exchange music, poetry, and other "creative contributions".
NEW ZEALAND: Auckland International Women’s Day Group holding a "Value Women’s Work" rally and march, demanding equal pay, support for National Caregivers Day, free childcare, support for nurses and against the oppressive conditions of immigrants and refugees.
PERU: Aymara Centre ‘Pacha Aru’ co-ordinating activities in Aymara and Quechua communities in the Andes; working closely with the Domestic Workers Centre which is pulling together a network of grassroots women’s groups and trade unions in Lima and the rest of the country.
SPAIN: WFH Campaign co-ordinating national events, including "occupation" by women of Barcelona’s main Plaza San Jaime, demanding welfare benefits for all women, including immigrants; several branches of National Union Confederacion General del Trabajo (CGT) supporting Strike actions; Basque country feminist collective calling a one-hour stoppage.
UNITED STATES: events in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Boston, Los Angeles, Wisconsin – opposing war-mongering and corporate thievery, and ending welfare "reform" which is cutting mothers’ money, forcing them to take any job anywhere at any wage.
Los
Angeles
Under the banner "Invest in Caring
Not Killing: Welfare Not Warfare," women –- including welfare
mothers, grandmothers, immigrant women, lesbian women, and women with
disabilities, as well as men supporters -- will take to the streets with
puppets, street theatre, music, and banners, highlighting all the demands
of the Global Women’s Strike, in a march down Wilshire Boulevard, a
major Los Angeles thoroughfare. The march will begin at Immanuel
Presbyterian Church (3300 Wilshire Blvd.) at 11:30 am. We will have a
cacerolazo, bringing pots and pans to bang on in support of our sisters in
Argentina, when we stop along the way to "call out the thieves"
at the Bank of America, the welfare office, the Housing Authority of the
City of LA, the Social Security Administration, the Mexican Consulate, a
McDonald’s, and a police station.
We will speak out to expose how these institutions devalue our work and our lives and how they support militarization and corporate globalization. We will also press local demands for living wages and benefits that have been put forth by welfare mothers, grandmothers, immigrants, ex-prisoners, sweatshop workers, domestic workers, people with disabilities, older women, and part-time workers. The march will end with a rally in MacArthur Park, where we’ll demand for women everywhere all the wealth that has been drained from us to pay for the wars that are killing us. In the evening, Alexandria House, a transitional residence for women and children, will host a celebration to recognize and honor women’s work and women's lives.
Endorsers thus far include Alexandria House, Communities Actively Living Independent & Free, IHSS Recipients and Providers Sharing, Mothers and Daughters Against Drug Abuse, Mazur Lesbian Archives, Quality Homecare Coalition, SoCal Raging Grannies, Sunset Hall, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. A teacher striking on 8 March wants to show the Strike video to students so they know why she’ll be absent.
For
more information, call 323-292-7405 or email 70742.3012@compuserve.com
Click here for information about a Fundraiser, 17 February 2002
New York
City
The Global Sweatshops Coalition’s march on
March 9 is a Strike event! Vamos a la Pena in the Bronx is also hosting a
Strike event on March 9, from 3-8 pm with food, speakers and
entertainment. We invite others to join a psychiatric abuse survivor in
protest on 8 March outside Kings County G building:
"On March 8, I would like to go and stand outside Kings County G building where I was locked up, to do a vigil in solidarity with the women
still inside. Women are treated like slaves inside an institution. I remember they gave us coffee mixed with tea "because some people like
coffee & some people like tea". I remember seeing a beautiful defiant woman straitjacketed & heavily drugged for the crime of refusing to take
the same drug by mouth. I was ashamed that I had not had the courage to refuse as she did.
I have to hold on to my memories and knowledge in order to resist the propaganda that tells me everyday that people in mental institutions
are sick, violent, diseased. We are women just like you.
Some of the women who work in mental institutions are as bad as the men who work there. It was a female nurse who sadistically laughed
and told me "We'll see what you say tomorrow" when I refused drugs the first day.
Free ALL Women." New York, USA
Philadelphia
PA/Camden NJ
Women will be
hopping aboard the Global Women's $trike Bus “following the money
trail” in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Camden New Jersey. Taking our
lead from our sisters in Argentina, who have led noisy "cacerolazos"
in the wake of the collapse of the economy there, we will doing
pots-and-pans protests at Bus Stops in front of banks, government and
private welfare offices, defense contractors, politicians’ offices, and
more to expose and oppose the draining of resources from women and
communities globally and to register women's serious demand to redirect
military spending to caring, feeding, healing, learning everywhere. Street
theater, costumes, music, poetry, and art. Endorsers include Greater
Camden Unity Coalition, Philadelphia Coalition of Labor Union Women,
Philadelphia Jobs with Justice, Philadelphia National Organization for
Women (NOW), and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Hop
aboard!
San
Francisco
In San Francisco women will
march and have cacerolazos from Welfare Dept to the Federal Building
against war-mongering and corporate thievery. Mothers cut off welfare will
speak out against the resulting violence and criminalisation. Women from
the Immokalee farm workers, Florida, will also join them. They’ll carry
brooms, a large puppet, paper dolls representing women’s double day,
entertainment, songs and chants.
Endorsers
include: American Friends Service Committee/SF, Grey Panthers/SF, Middle
East Children’s Alliance, National Center for Lesbian Rights, San
Francisco Women in Black, San Francisco Greens, US PROStitutes Collective,
Wages Due Lesbians and Women for Peace.
In Utah – Jedi for
Women (against welfare "reform") will be taking action.
Report from Utah
On 9 March Welfare Warriors is organising a Photo Bus Tour through Wisconsin to expose the relationship between poor moms forced by welfare "reform" to take any job, anywhere, at any wage, and the corporations who benefit from this glut of low-wage labor.
_____________________________________________
A number of individual women in the US are planning to organise for 8 March and are getting in touch with the Strike organisers there. Global Sweatshop Coalition Steering Committee have invited the Strike to join them in a march on 9 March: "September 11 and its aftermath haven’t made these struggles any less important or necessary. Women workers – from sweatshop workers in South Asia to domestic workers here in New York – are continuing to organize; if anything, the tempo has picked up."
A woman from RealMom@RealMothers.com in the US has offered to get in touch with a number of women from different countries including Brazil, China, Haiti, Liberia, Portugal, Spain to see if they will translate Strike materials.
Member of Bard College Women’s Alliance from Hudson Valley NY State wants to bring van loads of people to Strike in D.C. “Really excited about coming – may have a feminist chorus to lead some songs.” Asked if men are allowed to march, if the demo is peaceful or do the police give you trouble?
A woman student from the Philadelphia area who is trying to start a "young feminist group" at school and works with a number of different groups wants to organise for the Strike.
Flushing Greens will table, leaflet and educate the community about the Global Women’s Strike demands. They will distribute flyers in Spanish, English, Chinese and Korean. They will have a special focus on lack of affordable housing and the need for a living wage -- two big issues that affect women in their predominately immigrant community.
Global
Women's Strike Speech at the A20 (20 April)
anti-war mobilization, Washington DC, USA