WFTU Declaration on the International Working Women’s Day 8 March 2020
03 Mar 2020

WOMEN, WORKING WOMEN

On the occasion of this year’s March 8th anniversary, the World Federation of Trade Union addresses a warm militant greeting to every woman all over the globe, working or unemployed, self-employed, in the city or in the countryside, young mother, student, retiree, refugee or immigrant, life fighters of the everyday.

We all, stand on the side of the women who struggle with the WFTU and the international class-oriented movement, and strongly believe in the necessity of the organization of the women’s fight for real equality and do not limit our militancy and struggles just in one day a year.

2020 is the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the World Federation of Trade Unions’ struggle and action since its founding in 1945. 75 years in which we are constantly fighting for the true equality of women, for a system that will free them from the double repression of their gender and class, for a system without man-to-man exploitation.

In this struggle, men of our class are our allies, with whom we walk side by side in social and political action, claiming a life as we deserve, for us and our families: without wars and refugees, with constant and full-time work, with decent salaries and full insurance rights, with state infrastructures providing free public health, education, social welfare for all.

International Women Day is a symbol of struggle, sanctioned with the suggestion of socialist Clara Zetkin in 1911. It is a day dedicated to the strike of the New York women garment workers in 1857, demanding equal pay with their male colleagues, reduced working hours and human working conditions, and stood up to their employers and their state.

However today, 163 years later, all these are still demanded. Job intensification has increased, flexible forms of work tend to become the norm, in many countries women are still paid less than their male colleagues for the same job.

But not only that. Today, in 2020, with such development in science and technology, women still die during childbirth, due to lack of medical care, they do not go to school because of their gender, become victims of trafficking and are forced into prostitution, are drowning in the sea with their children in their arms, trying to avoid the bombs.

We, as the World Federation of Trade Unions, reject all policies aim to serve the large multinationals in order to continually increase their profits. This is the real reason behind every war, every anti-insurance law, every cut in wages and benefits, the shrinking of the social state. And finally, this is the real causality of inequality of the woman in every expression.

We believe that the best way to honor International Women’s Day is to continue our struggles against these policies and their perpetrators. Until the complete emancipation of every woman in every corner of the planet.

We will not stop until we do it!