Women's Views on News

The clothes on our backs: Garment workers fight for higher wages

Reuters reports today on clashes between police and garment workers (who are mostly women) in Bangladesh during a second day of protests for higher wages. Over 100 people were injured today when garment workers attacked factories and vehicles during the continuing protests. Police fired rubber bullets and used teargas and batons against workers blocking roads in the capital Dhaka's suburbs.

Authorities have been quick to condemn the protesters, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina quoted as saying, "Who will benefit if the (garment) industry is destroyed? The workers should not involve themselves in any activity that might put their own source of bread at risk."

An accompanying report in Today online states that the garment workers involved produce clothing for labels that will be all too familiar on our local high streets, including Walmart (who own Asda) and Marks and Spencer. So whilst this may seem like an international issue, one might say the roots of the dissent stretch as far as our very own wardrobes...

If work is the answer for women, what was the question?

Nina Power keeps the red flag flying with her article (originally published in the Guardian) about women and work over at the Monthly Review. The article is inspired by the new trade-union backed campaign 'Right to Work', which aims to "build resistance to unemployment, cuts and austerity" being imposed by the new coalition government.

Power asks the question: "In the middle of a recession in which jobs are being slashed with alacrity, should we be clinging on to employment at any cost, or should we instead be reconsidering what it means to work at all?"

The issue of women and our relationship to work has always been at the heart of the feminist movement, especially for socialist feminists, and I remember my own teenage shock at realising that women's unpaid (and now low paid) labour was the fundamental basis for our capitalist economy, not to mention my futile in-house campaigns against my family on how women's work should be paid work ("You'll not get any argument from me, love," my mother told me, after patiently listening to another of my diatribes whilst getting on with the ironing).

"The mass entry of women into the workforce has corresponded with an overall stagnation or diminution of wages," argues Power. "It is as if employers have taken the very worst aspects of women's work in the past -- poorly paid, precarious, without benefits -- and applied it to almost everyone, except those at the very top, who remain overwhelmingly male and incomprehensibly rich."

In the throes of the current economic crisis, with society arguably more unequal than it has ever been, and with everyone waiting with bated breath to see just how bad the Coalition's cuts are about to make our lives, perhaps its never been more important to ask these questions about the importance of work. What's more frightening to me is that alternatives to a life dominated by work, or the quality of life controlled by the lack of it, have never seemed so remote from the public consciousness.

I posted a while back here on WVON about Claudia Medina's documentary on alternatives to growth. But how high on the agenda of the average woman on the street are debates around alternatives to work right now? And how do we expand the terms of our debate beyond the current agenda of cuts, cuts, cuts? Answers in the comments box, please.

TUC in Ghana trains women for leadership positions

The Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) is working in collaboration with Realizing Rights, a human rights organization based in the United States, to organise a two-day residential workshop for working women in the Central Region, in Cape Coast.

The workshop, attended by 25 women from the various districts of the region, is aimed at deepening their knowledge and understanding of gender issues as well as encouraging women activists to take up leadership roles in the decision-making process.

The Managing Director of Realizing Rights, Heather Grady, who opened the workshop on Tuesday said 300 women nationwide had so far benefited and that the Volta Region, the last region, would have its turn next week.

She commended the participants for responding enthusiastically and that Ghana and Liberia are the only African countries benefiting from the workshop, which focuses on women's empowerment.

She said even though the organization ends its project in December this year, she hopes beneficiaries of the workshop will take up the mantel to spread and educate their fellow women on what they have learnt at their workplaces and in their communities.

More on this from Ghana News: Accra Mail.

The 'edgy' candidate making a bid for Unite's top job

The Guardian's Hélène Mulholland talks to Gail Cartmail, Assistant General Secretary (AGS) at Unite the union, who is standing for the union's top job. 

Not one to be deterred by working in a male dominated environment, Cartmail once led a print union chapel in east London made up entirely of men. She also earned plaudits from colleagues for standing her ground in front of police at the News International printers' dispute in Wapping. Cartmail is now embarking on a new challenge by seeking to become the first woman leader of the largest trade union in the country.

The struggle to get women to stand up for leadership contests is well known - just look at the recent contest for the labour leadership. Things aren't much better In the trade union movement, where less than a third of unions have women general secretaries, with none heading the biggest four.

Cartmail needs to secure 50 nominations from Unite branches to get on the ballot paper, which is not going to be easy.  According to Cartmail:"The question is, what are people looking for? If they are looking for same old same old, they won't vote for me. I mean why would you, if you think everything's great and you just want white older blokes. I'm edgy. I don't mind mess, but I like to be productive and I like people to work hard, and I know people do work hard if they feel motivated and they know which direction they are going in."

It's a sad state of affairs when a professional and highly respected women is deemed as an 'edgy' candidate or some kind of 'wild card' option for a role well within her capabilities. 

Read more of the article from the Guardian and to follow or support Gail, read her blog.

World's largest trade union organisation elects a woman as general secretary

The International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) yesterday elected Sharan Burrow as its first female General Secretary,  the world’s largest international trade union organisation, founded in Vienna in 2006.

Sharan Burrow will leave her post of President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), that she has held since 2000, to become the first woman at the helm of the ITUC.

“It’s a very proud moment for me, but I hope it will be also a very proud moment for every woman around the globe,” commented Burrow after her election.

“The ITUC is still facing many challenges in the wake of the global financial crisis.  Although we have seen some exceptional results in a small number of countries including Brazil, Argentina, China and Australia, the recovery in jobs has not been universal. Global unemployment and underemployment continued to rise throughout 2009 and during the first half of this year” Burrow added.

ITUC calls for gender equality

The International Trades Union Congress (ITUC), meeting this week in Canada, has passed a motion calling for gender equality, arguing (rightly) that it is a key human rights goal.

The resolution notes with concern the gender differences of women's participation and unemployment rates in global labour markets and that gender discrimination is prevalent throughout the world in access to resources, educational and economic opportunities, political power and leadership positions.

You can read parts of the debate here and the full resolution here. 

Budget attacks the purse harder than the wallet

Unite the union has branded the Con-Dem budget as an ’attack on the purse’ as it will hurt women more then men.

With its sister union the United SteelWorkers (USW) in Canada the unions which have formed the world’s first global union, Workers Uniting, are warning that the plans by the UK government for public sector cuts will hit women the hardest.

While ministers have emphasised the lessons they have learnt from the Canadian cuts in the 1990s, the unions argue that the Canadian experience demonstrates that those hit hardest from the cuts were the most vulnerable, with the burden falling hardest on women.

Gail Cartmail, Unite assistant general secretary who this week met with Canadian public sector workers, said: “The experience of women in Canada during the debt reduction programme engineered by Paul Martin as finance minister resulted in women paying the price for the deep and permanent cuts to social programmes and public services".

To read the press release in full, go to Unite's website.

Poor mothers to lose £1,200 under UK emergency budget

The TUC reports that poor mothers will be some of the hardest hit in yesterday's budget, with several benefits being cut, restricted or frozen, including the Health in Pregnancy Grant, baby element to tax credits, Sure Start maternity grant and child benefit. 

The lowest income families with new babies can now expect to be £1,293 a year worse off, making a mockery of any plans to reduce child poverty. 90% of single parents in Europe are women, and these families already make up a disproportionate number of those living in poverty - these measures can only exacerbate this.

Once again, the gendered effects of these measures are simply not being discussed by the Government. The silence around these issues will not make them any less salient for those families going without every day.

Women, disabled and families are unacknowledged 'budget losers'

The Guardian has a short breakdown of the effect of yesterday's budget on several more vulnerable social groups. These include mothers and disabled people, as well as those living in the north of England, who have a high rate of employment dependency on the public sector. 

Couple this with the Fawcett Society's analysis of the budget (posted on WVON yesterday), and the TUC's report on women and the recession, and a huge silence around the gendered effects of these austerity measures becomes apparent.

Women trade unionists in Zimbabwe continue the fight

It's not easy being a member of a trade union in Zimbabwe, as Miriam Katumba, vice chair of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) can testify. A single mother with five children, she was sacked in 2004 for her trade union activism but continues to work as a women's rights activist. 

She attended a series of civic education workshops run by the ZCTU and supported by the British TUC between January and March this year to try to encourage other women to become active both in the trade union movement and other community organisations. 

Read the full account, which has just become available, on the TUC website here.