Women’s Wednesdays
in Whitehall
The weekly picket outside the Prime Minister’s home in Downing Street, London, where
we keep up the pressure for the Strike demands and build towards Global Strike 2001
Today, as autumn winds blew our placards about, we heard about the Government’s new offensive to drive single mothers out to work. Mothers spoke about their refusal to be pushed into low-paid exhausting jobs for less money than benefits. This latest initiative is fronted by Margaret Hodge MP who only a month ago was warning the Government that "work cannot be seen as a sufficient route out of poverty for many people".
We also heard how many nurses are moonlighting (doing second jobs) in order to survive low NHS salaries and that under these circumstances it is not surprising that nurses have the highest suicide rate in the country. Payment for all caring work would have the immediate effect of raising nurses pay -- caring would be seen as the crucial work that it is.
Our chant Tony Bliar seemed appropriate in view of a report published today that supermarkets are NOT ripping us off! Press coverage showed that no-one believed it especially when the evidence in front of our eyes tells a different story. Also, no account was taken of the situation of asylum seekers’ who are forced to buy in supermarkets where goods cost more because their benefits are paid in vouchers instead of cash and then are refused change if they don't spend the entire voucher -- definitely a rip-off.
Speakers protested against Ken Livingstone’s appointment of an ex-CIA man to head London's public transport system – on a £1 million salary! Neither fatcats nor congestion charges will give us the transport system we need which is accessible to low-income people and people with disabilities, reliable, frequent and safe.
There was great excitement at the news that women in organisations in Benin, Chad, France, Romania and Russia have written saying they are joining the Strike 2001. More news is coming in every day.
There was a report of a small but lively protest against the newly elected Mexican President, Vincente Fox, ex-executive of Coca Cola and the man responsible for the continuing (and increasing) Mexican military occupation of Chiapas. Women from the International Wages for Housework Campaign, interviewed by the media said that they were there in support of women in Chiapas and against the murder and starvation of whole communities including indigenous people by the military. Women spoke about how rape is used by the military to attack women and undermine the whole community and how women in Chiapas are on the frontline of the effort to push the military out. Women internationally who are part of the Global Women’s Strike are calling for a redistribution of the £800 million spent on the military world-wide into women’s hands. The money spent on funding the Mexican military should go instead to women in Chiapas whose caring work is keeping communities together in the face of brutality and murder. Women in Chiapas, like women everywhere are demanding land, cooking stoves, fridges, and washing machines to cut down on their workload.
And today there were two 'firsts' - we played the strike song
by Redjenn on full volume over the megaphone to the delight of passers-by and many people
stopped to read the Strike demands writ large on a beautiful new banner.
4 October 2000
Picketers were joined this week by Dave Church and Karen Rouke, father and sister of
19-year-old Gary who was killed with 95 others at the Hillsborough Football Stadium
disaster in 1989. For over a decade Dave and his wife Maureen relentlessly pursued a legal
case to establish what exactly had happened to their son. Sadly Maureen passed away last
year but Mr Church is continuing with his fight with the support of his daughter. He spoke
with great fury about the Labour government’s betrayal -- for years, whilst in
opposition they promised the bereaved families an inquiry which would scrutinise the
tragedy. Once in power, Jack Straw appointed Justice Stuart Smith, a notorious right-wing
judge, who despite compelling evidence to the contrary, concluded that no action should be
taken against those responsible. Mr Church listed some of the more blatant injustices such
as the coroners ruling that the crush which killed the 96 ended by 3.15pm (refuted by many
witnesses). This stopped any examination of whether the police actions prevented lives
being saved. Niki Adams, from Legal Action for Women paid tribute to Maureen Church who
was determined to make clear what a tragedy of this kind means to mothers in particular
and spoke publicly about the connection between Hillsborough and others who are also
denied justice. The chant "No Justice, No Peace", resounded round Whitehall.
Other speakers included a Jewish woman from the Women's Centre on the uprising in Israel, in many ways an apartheid state where Arab Israeli citizens long consigned to squatter towns and poverty have been joining forces with their cousins in Palestine and refugee camps. Arab lives count for nothing by the Israeli State and media – they initially announced the death of one Israel citizen, ignoring the deaths of seven Arab Israelis. The speaker announced the appeal date -- 24 October at the High Court in the Strand -- for Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, two young Palestinians who were wrongly convicted of conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Britain and have spent four years in prison. They have fought to uncover crucial evidence which could have established their innocence but was withheld from their trial by the government using Public Interest Immunity Certificates.
A speaker from Wages Due Lesbians said the Tories new plans for tax allowances for married women who stay at home would do nothing for single mothers, lesbian mothers, co-habiting mothers -- and even for women who were married, the money due to them for the work of raising children would be paid instead to their husbands by decreasing their taxes!
Passing schoolchildren and others listened attentively to all the speakers including a woman from India and a woman and man from Guyana who had heard of the Wages for Housework Campaign there.
