Global women's strike 2000

Off Our Backs, Mar 2000 by McCrank, Adele, Gowens, Pat

Global Women's Strike 2000

On March 8, 2000, International Women's Day, hundreds of thousands of women from over 200 organizations in 30 countries are taking part in a Global Women's Strike to begin the new millennium demanding that all governments include unwaged work in their economies. This Global Women's Strike was called for by the National Women's Council of Ireland and made global by International Wages for Housework.

Women's unwaged work: motherwork, care of elderly and disabled, housework, farming, fire-wood-gathering, work in churches and schools, community organization, art work, human rights work, etc., contributes at least $11 trillion to the world's economy. Society would not survive without it, yet it is unpaid and unappreciated. Women doing paid work earn only 50-70% of what men earn. Women do 2/3 of all the world's work for only 5% of the world's income, leaving most women overworked and poor.

Unwaged workers want their work counted and paid. Most unpaid workers are women. Women across the globe want: wages for caring work, pay equity for all, paid maternity leave, breast-feeding breaks, affordable and accessible housing and transportation, protection against male violence, accessible clean drinking water, and the abolition of "Third World debt."

A recent national study showed that women caring for ill or disabled family members in the USA contribute over $200 billion a year in unwaged work. This is the first study of its kind. Using data from five national databanks, researchers Arno, Memmott, and Levine calculated that 25.8 million Americans spend an average of 18 hours a week caring for ailing relatives. If that care was paid for, it would increase health care costs nationwide by $196 billion a year. The $200 billion contributed by unwaged workers is much greater than the entire home health care industry ($32 billion) and the nursing home industry ($83 billion).

Strike Actions Around the Globe

In Ireland, Women in Media of Galway, with the National Women's Council of Ireland, are organizing a petition drive for a national, paid, public holiday every year on February 1, St. Bridget's Day, to honor unwaged workers. The petition states: "This holiday would be an official recognition by government of the enormous contribution women have made to the wealth and health of the nation with all the unwaged work that they have done in the home, on the land, in business, in the arts, in the voluntary/community sector, and for civil liberties and human rights -- together with their caring work in general -- and all the low waged work they have done in the past and are still doing." Senator David Norris has agreed to sponsor the bill. Singers, writers and Miss Ireland support the bill. All Irish women are urged to stop work on March 8, not just wages workers.

International Wages for Housework in Philadelphia is launching a Pay Equity Petition Campaign on March 8. The Petition demands that the USA stop objecting to pay equity for women -- equal pay for work of equal value -- in national policy and in international agreements [Beijing Platform for Action, CEDA W (Convention to End Discrimination Against Women), and ILO Equal Remuneration Convention]. They want the US to ratify and implement provisions in international conventions entitling women to pay and benefits they have earned. The US is the only wealthy country where women get no paid maternity benefits or leave. The US even opposes international agreements calling for paid breastfeeding breaks for workers. The Petition points out the "underpaying women is a massive subsidy to employers that is both sexist and racist. By opposing pay equity in international forums, the US government encourages multinational corporations to underpay women everywhere in the global economy." Wages for women in the US have dropped from 76% of white men's earnings to 73% for white women, 62% for black women and 53% for Latina women.

Global Jingles and Songs

In Barcelona, Spain, women on the European and Latin American Network of Pirate Radios (Women Creating Communication Spaces) are circulating a Spanish tape. The tape has a 2-minute jingle and a radio program of interviews of people saying why they support the strike. Trade unions will have a 1-hour stop. Women are coordinating weekly meetings working with church groups, immigrants, lesbians, students, childcare workers, social workers, and university staff. Men are offering donations and asking for information on how to support the strike.

In the Philippines, organizers are publicizing the strike and its objectives on radio, TV, print and the internet, and organizing a speakers' bureau. They're lobbying for a Presidential proclamation making March 8, International Women's Day, a paid holiday. They're making March 8 "No Housework Day" and organizing women's parties and picnics so women enjoy themselves and send the message that they had enough of overwork and need time for themselves. They also named March 8 a "No Shopping Day" to protest the way the consumer and health industries have made profits and taken over the lives of women.