The 4th global women's strike join anti-war movement  

Barcelona
     On March 8 women in 64 countries took part in the 3^rd annual Global Women's Strike. (For 93 years women have celebrated March 8 as International Women’s Day.) The Global Womens Strike demands an end to women’s low pay, no pay and overwork.

Women do two thirds of the work in the world for little or no pay. The Global Strike asks governments to recognize and invest in the caring work that women do to keep families and communities alive. Strike demands also include women’s right to clean water, basic healthcare, maternity leave and breastfeeding breaks. The theme this year was  “Invest in Caring (life and welfare), not Killing (military budgets and prisons.)”

London, England

Over 500 women, children and men marched from Parliament Square to a speakout at the US Embassy, with music, poetry, drumming and dancing.  

Barcelona, Spain

We were in Plaza Sant Jaume from noon ‘til midnight. The day started with mothers, housewives, immigrant women, women with disabilities, widows, teachers, lesbian women, sex workers, women involved in the fight for the right to breastfeed, church women, younger women stating their case against the war and military budgets. 

A Venezuelan woman read the declaration of support for the strike from the Venezuelan government.  A statement from domestic workers in the Basque country was read. Pop star Amparanoia explained why she supports the strike.  

An interview with women on strike in London was broadcast  through loudspeakers.  There was an hour of activities for children, and the city council provided free childcare from noon until 10 pm.  The International Women's Day march joined the Strike at the square, making us 4,000 people.  Women started shouting "No a la guerra!  Vaga general"  (No war!  General strike!)  The video compilation of strike actions all over the world in 2000 was shown on a big screen.

A video showing the police violently evicting anti-war squatters in Barcelona was shown.  Squatter women read a statement, saying "Evict war from the world".  Music and dancing went on  until midnight.

from womenstrike8m.server101.com/English/barcelona2003.htm

Ireland:  Shannon, Ennis and Galway

We had a fantastic Strike!  A bus caravan went from Galway to Ennis and then on to Shannon.  Many women with very young children, older women, men, Muslim women and students took part in a speak-out against war sang, played music or read poetry.  Men and boys supported the Strike by preparing a breakfast for all the women and doing childcare.

An African mother, seeking asylum with her three children in Ireland, spoke passionately on the wars, poverty and domestic violence faced by African women.  To women from Iraq spole with great emotion about effects of sanctions and their opposition to war.  

In the main square of Ennis, people from the Strike bus were joined by Clare Women's Network gathered behind a wide orange banner that read 'Women Say No War / Invest In Caring Not Killing'.  Women passing by joined in.

In Shannon we encountered a massive, unnecessary police presence:  detectives, cars, vans, dogs, two police helicopters, police patrolling the arifield perimeter and terminal!  We held a short, colorful, noisy and musical march led by the road-wide Strike banner 'Women Say No War / Invest In Caring Not Killing'.  Chants included "Mothers/sisters/grannies say no more - rape and looting, tanks and war" and "Mothers say, Bush and Blair, How Many Kids Will You Kill Each Day?" and "We want welfare not warfare".

Our speak-out, in front of the airport barricade started with Irish airs played on a tin whistle by Emma Dowling.  More music, poetry and International updates on the Strike followed.  Women spoke directly to the police: "We're asking you all to refuse this work, go off sick, just stop doing it...you can help end the use of Shannon with us.  You know as well as we do that the use of this airport for re-fuelling of US warplanes is illegal under our constitution."

A singer from Clare had everyone singing Bob Marley's "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights...don't give up the fight", changing the last line to: "We'll give George Bush a fight."

Leaving Shannon, the bus stopped to let women place flowers by the airport fence.  The police stopped them.  To add to the hilarity, the Strike bus got stuck in the mud and the police helped get it out, complete with tow truck.  We all got off and had another protest in front of the police protecting The Fence.  It was very lively with drumming, guitar, and songs from Greenham Common converted for Shannon.

from http://www.indymedia.ie/

Nepal             

In Nepal a large crowd of women, children and a few men marched through the streets of downtown Kathmandu, banging on pans and tin plates. Children wore t-shirts and hats with the slogan “Money for kids and moms, not for wars and bombs.” Pushkar Shah, famous cyclist, gave the t-shirts and hats to children of prisoners who where part of Prisoners Assistance-Nepal. Shah has bicycled through 51 countries spreading a message of peace.

            Songs, videos and activities for the children followed the march.  An important speaker at the celebration was Margarette D’Arcy, Irish human rights activist. D’Arcy originally called for the Global Woman’s Strike in 2000. D’Arcy was one of 240 delegates from 240 countries who came to Kathmandu for the AMARK conference for community media people. The conference passed a resolution calling for women to be involved in all aspects of the peace process in Nepal. It also proposed that women get financial compensation to reconstruct their lives after 7 years of warfare.

            D’Arcy said, “80% of the people who are harmed by war are women and children and so 80% of people involved in the peace talks should be women. These women should speak up as to what the war has done to them and decide how the government money should be spent.”

Info from Kathmandu Post and 
Space Time Today (Kathmandu)

Uganda

We, Kaabong Women’s Group call for nonviolence, conflict resolution,  food security for women all over the world, access to clean water, valuing women’s caring work, good housing and maternity centers. 

At 7:00 am John Lokiru went around the town of Kaabong with a  loud speaker announcing the Global Women’s Strike.  We gathered at the centre, marched and joined up with women’’s  labour, youth, police, teachers groups and with men, and student groups. Everybody sang, chanted and marched around Kaabong and  back to the town hall.

The Drama Group of KWGO put on free plays, exhibitions, concerts, songs and craftwork for the Global Women’s Strike. 

The theme of the International Women’s Day in Uganda is "Act Now, Say No To Violence Against Women." WE SAY, INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING, STOP THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT.  About 1,500 women, children and men came for the joint event.

We are in the villages as warriors, kraal leader’s wives/daughters, traditional birth attendants, community health educators and mothers. Our voices are loud and clear for our demands. We work endlessly caring for families, bearing children, yet on empty stomachs. Drought has caused a lot of suffering especially to breast feeding mothers, the aged, the disabled and infants. Yet money which would have made our life easier is put in the military budget.  Our survival is not an economic priority, so our survival work is not seen. Sisters Globally, let all of us stand on our feet and be in Action For Peace & Development. 

The Strike was supported  by one Member of Parliament,  Hon. Achilla Rex. He  amused all by serving food to the women and giving water to wash their hands after eating.  Men promised to do the same with their wives and value their work. 

We are  proud to announce that one of our demands was met by the Ugandan Government. It is  abolishing cost sharing in hospitals. BRAVO, BRAVO.  The Struggle Continues.  Power To The Sisters.

Grace Loumo

 

San Francisco

Wages for Housework, one of the organizers of the Global Womens Strike, targeted Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco on March 8.  They sang Welfare Warriors songs and a song they wrote called, “Hello Bechtel.”

Bechtel is a private multinational company that works mainly for governments, oil and energy interests. According to Time magazine, most corporate welfare in the US goes to four companies: Bechtel. Boeing, GE and AT&T. Bechtel’s earnings in 2001 were $13.4 billion.

Bechtel has been profiting from disasters and wars ever since the San Francisco earthquake 1906. They received $100 million in profits from US taxpayers to build ships for World War II. They are one of 24 corporations that have illegally armed Iraq with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. They won a contract with Haliburton to put out oil fires in Iraq and another $700 million contract in Iraq. They are building the Caspian pipeline thru Afghanistan that prompted the recent US war there.

Bechtel has built most of the nuclear power plants in the world at great cost to the taxpayers. First they get paid to pollute with deadly toxic waste and then they get paid to clean up the toxic waste. They profit from nuclear waste management, toxic cleanups and the dismantling of nuclear facilities like 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.

Bechtel polluted the land and water with gold mining in Papua New Guinea. They built a coal slurry pipeline that pumps coal mixed with water from underground aquifers in Black Mesa Arizona to power stations that produce energy for LA and Las Vagas. This caused the Hopi and Navaho people in Black Mesa to have no electricity. Their land and water is so polluted that their sheep die within hours of drinking from creeks.

Since water is soon to be as valuable as oil, Bechtel has begun to push for private  water contracts with poor countries like Bolivia and Ecuador. US tax money subsidized the deal with Ecuador. Now Bechtel wants to privatize the water of Iraq. Approximately 2.2 million people die each year from lack of safe water.

Avaren Ipsen of Wages for Housework said in her speech at Bechtel headquarters, “We are protesting killing budget priorities here and abroad. The government says there is no money for welfare, schools, healthcare, childcare…but they have bucket loads of money for companies like Bechtel. In the TANF reauthorization bill I see there is a big chunk of money going to marriage propaganda. No money to feed people but plenty of money to teach women that it is better to stay with men who beat them rather than starve.

“ I was orphaned by my deadbeat dad. And because my mom worked more than fulltime, I got robbed of both my parents except for when my mother was on welfare. Why is it moral for tax money to pay for war and weapons of mass destruction, but not moral to pay mothers to care for children? Why are children (such as I once was) not worthy? Why do we refuse to invest in children but find it so logical to give so much tax money to corporations like Bechtel?

“I remember home visits from welfare workers checking to see that my mother was not committing welfare fraud or letting men stay at our house. Anyone here remember home visits? I think that we need to make a home visit at Bechtel to see how our tax money is being spent and to see whom Bechtel is sleeping with. It might not be moral.

“We say, pay mothers, not the military industrial complex!”

Info from Wages for Housework

4th Global Women's Strike, March 8, 2003

Mother Nature Thwarts 'Moms on Strike' Guerrilla Theater

By Maggie McCracken 

Well, what can you say about March in Milwaukee?  I’ll tell you what…cold, cold, and COLD! Not only cold, but snowy and windy, too!  Ah, but Saturday, March 8^th, 2003 was not just ANY Saturday in March! It also happened to be the 4^th Annual Global Womens Strike, where women worldwide go on strike against no pay, low pay and overwork. The theme of this year’s Strike was “Invest in Caring, Not Killing”.

Women went on strike so that our governments will recognize that caring for other human beings is not only work, but essential work that all governments must measure and count in their budgets. The strike also demands an end to economic systems where killing is considered productive WORK and is well-funded, while caring WORK is unwaged, degraded and barely funded.

In solidarity with the women in 80 other countries around the world, Milwaukee’s Welfare Warriors organized a “Moms on Strike” bus tour for Saturday March 8.

Yes, indeed, those Welfare Warriors, those troopers for the babies, those gutsy mamas of purpose, organized yet another action, this time to celebrate the Global Women’s strike and to emphasize that moms need time and money to be able to nurture and care for the children.

To that end, they planned another in their series of successful “bus tours.” The Moms on Strike Bus Tour stopped at Maximus and UMOS, two W2 welfare agencies which put moms to work for ‘no pay’; Walmart, second richest corporation in the world which pays extremely ‘low pay’; and some temporary agencies which embodied both ‘low pay’ and ‘overwork’.

To emphasize the “Caring Not Killing” theme, the Global Strike Bus Tour also protested at Astronautics, a producer of electrical systems for bombers, and at Milwaukee’s Federal Building. Welfare Warriors had prepared a skit to demonstrate how unwaged work and low-wage work keep many moms in permanent poverty, but as they progressed from stop to stop, the weather became increasingly vicious, and it was impossible to perform the guerrilla theater.

From the Federal building, the plan was to march to the Library’s Centennial Hall and join hundreds of other protesters against the war, organized by the Milwaukee Coalition for a Just Peace to celebrate International Women’s Day. But by the time the intrepid tourists were ready for the march to the library, the wind was really howling and the protesters looked like snowpeople. Much persuasion was leveled at Welfare Warriors director Pat Gowens to stay in the bus and NOT make the cold trek, to which she responded, “but we said we were going to march, so we are!” She and a few other stalwart warriors, including a 6 year old little girl, made the freezing trek to the library chanting “Caring, not Killing.” 

Pat Gowens, leads the rally in WW newest song
  The bus tour arrived at the anti-war rally in time for Gowens to give a talk about the strike and the need for anti-war activists to let leaders know how they want their money spend if not in war. She urged them to demand that their money be spent in caring, not killing. Then the rest of the strikers joined her in leading the group of 400 in the Welfare Warriors’ newest song, “We’re Gonna Make a Change” (sung to the tune of “This Little Light of Mine”). 

 “We’re Gonna Make a Change”

No more wars for oil
We’re gonna make a change
No more death and spoils
We’re gonna make a change
Funds for honest toil
We’re gonna make a change
Funds for caring, not for killing, not for war

 
Demands for Global Women's Strike--
Invest in Caring not Killing