Global women's strike targets big business

Off Our Backs, May/Jun 2002 by Gowens, Pat

activism

Women of Ireland Hop, Step, and Leap Through Galway

In Galway, Ireland, Women in Media and Entertainment took to the streets for ten hours on March 8, from I I am to 9 pm, to gain the nation's respect and pay for women's enormous contributions to the country with their unwaged and low-- wage labor. The day was cold, wet, windy and snowy, but the women marched through Galway, stopping to enter and protest at a bank, a boutique with sweatshop clothes, McDonald's, the Police Department, the Welfare Department and the Cathedral. Along with women around the world, they used brooms to sweep away corporate greed, chanting, "Sweep, sweep the street. Corporate greed beneath our feet, sweep, sweep it all away. Because there is a better way." Pubs along the route provided free tea, coffee, soup, and pasta.

They entered the AIB (Allied Irish Bank) and chanted "AIB over the sea, stole our money and went on a spree." At the police department they demanded an end to the deportation of Roma (Gypsies) and African asylum seekers. They asked for an update on criminal charges they filed previously against Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who they accused of violating the Irish constitution's neutrality clause when he allowed US warplanes to use Irish airports. At the welfare office they demanded that the "minefields of welfare be turned into social fields of harmony." They entered the Catholic Cathedral to say "shame on you" to the bishops and priests who spoke aggressively from the pulpits in support of a bill to jail women for 12 years if they helped a woman in any way to get an abortion. (The bill failed.)

At the end of the march, the activists returned to their "headquarters" for the day, a square in front of a protestant church where the activists had posted an exhibition of women's unwaged an low wage work. Musician Mary Sullivan played gigs. Women danced, read poetry and sang.

For the grand finale at 9pm, the women set twelve straw men on fire and threw their flaming bodies in the river. The straw men represented Bad Water, Bad Housing, Capitalism, Endangered Environment, Privatization, Low Wages, No Wages, etc.

On March 9, Bertie Ahern announced that he would be proposing a bill to provide old age pensions to women who worked in the home and had no paid employment. Currently they must depend on their husbands, or welfare, for support in old age. Ahern's bill would give women who worked in the home their own pension, independent oftheir husbands.

Milwaukee: Bus Tour of Bloated Big Business

The Welfare Warriors sponsored a Photo Bus Tour of Bloated BIG Business to investigate and expose the Corporate Empire that keeps too many Americans (and people around the world) living in poverty. A schoolbus full of tourists descended on eight big businesses in the Milwaukee area. Like in Ireland, the day was cold, wet, windy and snowy. In solidarity with women in Argentina who called for a "Cacerolazo" (pots and pans) protest, the tourists clanged pots and pans while chanting, "Stop the War on the Poor, Say 'No' to Corporate Greed." Businesses targeted included: Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Manpower, Beverly Nursing Homes, Aramark Children's World, Taco Bell, the Federal Army Base, and YWCA's W2 (welfare) agency, YW Works.

The Bloated Big Business Bus Tour exposed the relationship between poor moms who are forced by welfare "deform" to take any job, anywhere, at any wage, and the corporations who benefit from this glut of low-wage labor. Tourists learned that:

* Walgreen's 2001 profit was $885.6 million, with CEO L. Daniel Jorndt earning $2.18 million while Walgreen's workers earn $6.20-$7.50 an hour, mostly part-time hours, with no health benefits.

* Corporate daycares are booming since welfare deform forced moms out of college and into dead-end jobs. Child care workers are the lowest of the low-paid workers. Aramark's (Children's World) 2001 profits were $176.5 million, with CEO Joseph Neubauer earning $8.70 million while workers earn $5.15-$6 an hour and cannot afford health insurance. These mothers would have to work 1,083 years to earn what the CEO earns in one year!

* Nursing assistant work-the hardest of all low-wage work, both physically and emotionally-- pays between $8-$8.60 an hour at Beverly Enterprises Nursing Homes, while CEO David R. Baks earned $2.5 million a year. year.

Manpower profited $124.5 million last year while CEO Jeffrey Joerres earned $2.05 million. Manpower has experienced a boom since 41 % of all AFDC moms forced off welfare by W2 were forced to take temp jobs. And W2 gave Manpower $2,400 Tax Credits for any mom they "employed" for only 280 days or 400 hours! Only 6% of temp workers receive health insurance.

* Taco Bell, owned by Tricon, had a profit of $492 million and CEO David Novak earned $1.68 million. Taco Bell, with $5.2 billion in sales, is one of many fast food restaurants that depends on mothers betrayed by welfare deform. They pay $5.50-$6 an hour and most workers receive part-time hours only. A Taco Bell worker would have to work 233 years to earn the $1.6 million that CEO Novak earns.