Unity! Women's TUC 2010

Communists at the TUC women’s conference

March 2010

Unity!

Forged in struggle International Women’s Day 1910-2010

by Mary Davis This year, 2010, marks the centenary of International Women’s Day and hence it is especially important.

Within the last 10-15 years many thousands of women worldwide have begun to recognise and to celebrate

International Women’s Day (IWD). It is, however, unfortunate that its origins are not more widely known given that that this year we celebrate its centennial foundation and also that its subsequent history is truly inspirational. Although many claims have been made as to the origins of IWD and the

precise date of the foundation of its foundation, most reputable sources are agreed that 2010 marks its establishment as an international day of sisterhood and solidarity for working women. Hence it is timely to put the record straight if for no other reason than the inheritors of the internationalist tradition laid in the 19th and 20th centuries – working class, trade union and socialist women today – must reclaim our own history and in so doing study it, celebrate it and be inspired by it.

The motivation for IWD came from two sources: the struggle of working class women to form trade unions and the fight for women’s franchise. These two issues united European women with their sisters in the USA. In 1908 hundreds of women workers in the New York needle trades demonstrated in Rutgers Square in Manhattan’s Lower East Side to form their own union and to demand the right to vote. This historic demonstration took place on 8 March. It led, in the following year to the ‘uprising’ of 30,000 women shirtwaist makers which resulted in the first permanent trade unions for women workers in the USA. Meanwhile news of the heroic fight of US women workers reached Europe – in particular it inspired European socialist women who had established, on the initiative of the German socialist feminist, Clara Zetkin (1857-1933), the International Socialist Women’s Conference.

This latter body met for the first time in 1907 in Stuttgart alongside one of the periodic conferences of the Second International (1889-1914). continued on back page

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U n i t y! TUC Women’s Conference 2010

Extending democracy

by Anita Halpin Far too many trade union procedures perpetuate discrimination against women and equality aspirations.

While we would not blame our founding fo refathers (and all too few foremothers) for this, we look fo r encouragement when we attempt to drag structures and procedures into the 21st century.

Over the years, the Communist Party has supported a number of proposals to extend TUC democracy. Most successfully, the right of all the equality conferences, the trades council conference – and soon the youth forum - to each bring forward a motion to the September TUC. This year motion 33 seeks to extend the democratic powers of this women’s conference and extend the rights that will be afforded to those sisters who delegates elect to serve on the TUC Women’s Committee. For some anarchic, arcane or anachronistic reason (choose any of three) there is a tradition that only General Council members who are parachuted onto TUC equality committees are deemed eligible to even seek to stand as chair of any committees.

The proposition this year – and one that we hope will not be opposed is that any sister elected to the Women’s Committee shall no be barred from being nominated, elected and serving as the chair of our committee. It would also be the hope that our sister equality committees might elect to go down this same path during the year. ★ Anita Halpin chairs the Communist Party. She is a lay member of the NUJ national executive council and an elected delegate to conference

What is Women’s Day?

by Alexandra Kollantai Is it re a l ly necessary? Is it not a concession to the women of the bourgeois class, to the feminists and suffragettes? Is it not harmful to the unity of the workers’ movement?

Such questions can still be heard in Russia, though they are no longer heard abroad. Life itself has already supplied a clear and eloquent answer.

‘Women’s Day’ is a link in the long, solid chain of the women’s proletarian movement. The organised army of working women grows with every year.

Twenty years ago the trade unions contained only small groups of working women scattered here and there among the ranks of the workers’ party...

Now English trade unions have over 292,000 women members; in Germany around 200,000 are in the trade union movement and 150,000 in the workers’ party, and in Austria there are 47,000 in the trade unions and almost 20,000 in the party.

Everywhere – in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland – the women of the working class are organising themselves. The women’s socialist army has almost a

million members. A powerful force! A force that the powers of this world must reckon with when it is a question of the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labour and legislation to protect female labour.

There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the ‘old world’ without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the ‘non-class-conscious’ was to damage their cause and hold it back. The greater the number of conscious fighters, the greater the chances of success. What level of consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no ‘ideas’ of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband... The backwardness and lack of rights suffered by women, their subjection and

U n i t y! TUC Women’s Conference 2010 indifference, are of no benefit to the working class, and indeed are directly harmful to it. But how is the woman worker to be drawn into the movement, how is she to be awoken?

Social-Democracy abroad did not find the correct solution immediately. Workers’ organisations were open to women workers, but only a few entered. Why? Because the working class at first did not realise that the woman worker is the most legally and socially deprived member of that class, that she has been browbeaten, intimidated, persecuted down the centuries, and that in order to stimulate her mind and heart, a special approach is needed, words understandable to her as a woman. The workers did not immediately appreciate that in this world of lack of rights and exploitation, the woman is oppressed not only as a seller of her labour, but also as a mother, as a woman... However. when the workers’ socialist party understood this, it boldly took up the defence of women on both counts as a hired worker and as a woman, a mother.

Socialists in every country began to demand special protection for female labour, insurance for mother and child, political rights for women and the defence of women’s interests.

The more clearly the workers’ party perceived this second objective vis-a-vis women workers, the more willingly women joined the party, the more they appreciated that the party is their true champion, that the working class is struggling also for their urgent and exclusively female needs.

Working women themselves, organised and conscious, have done a great deal to elucidate this objective. Now the main burden of the work to attract more working women into the socialist movement lies with the women. The parties in every country have their own special women’s committees,

secretariats and bureaus. These women’s committees conduct work among the still largely non-politically conscious female population. arouse the consciousness of working women and organise them. They also examine those questions and demands that affect women most closely: protection and provision for expectant and nursing mothers, the legislative regulation of female labour, the campaign against prostitution and infant mortality, the demand for political rights for women, the improvement of housing, the campaign against the rising cost of living, etc.

Thus, as members of the party, women workers are fighting for the common class cause, while at the same time outlining and putting forward those needs and demands that most nearly affect themselves as women, housewives and mothers. The party supports these demands and fights for them... The requirements of working women are part and parcel of the common workers’ cause!

On ‘Women’s Day’ the organised demonstrate against their lack of rights. But, some will say, why this singling out of women workers? Why special ‘Women’s Days’, special leaflets for working women, meetings and conferences of workingclass women? Is this not, in the final analysis, a concession to the feminists and bourgeois suffragettes?

Only those who do not understand the radical difference between the movement of socialist women and bourgeois suffragettes can think this way. What is the aim of the feminists? Their aim is to achieve the same advantages, the same power, the same rights within capitalist society as those possessed now by their husbands, fathers and brothers.

What is the aim of the women w o r kers? Their aim is to abolish all privileges deriving from birth or wealth. For the woman worker

it is a matter of indifference who is the ‘master’ a man or a woman. Together with the whole of her class, she can ease her position as a worker.

‘The organised army of working women grows with every year’ Feminists demand equal rights always and everywhere.

Women workers reply: we demand rights for every citizen, man and woman, but we are not prepared to forget that we are not only workers and citizens, but also mothers! And as mothers, as women who give birth to the future, we demand special concern for ourselves and our children, special protection from the state and society. The feminists are striving to acquire political rights. However, here too our paths separate.

For bourgeois women, political rights are simply a means allowing them to make their way more conveniently and more securely in a world founded on the exploitation of the working people. For women workers, political rights are a step along the rocky and difficult path that leads to the desired kingdom of labour.

The paths pursued by women workers and bourgeois suffragettes have long since separated. There is too great a difference between the objectives that life has put

before them. There is too great a contradiction between the interests of the woman worker and the lady proprietress, between the servant and her mistress... There are not and cannot be any points of contact, conciliation or convergence between them. Therefore working men should not fear separate Women’s Days, nor special conferences of women workers, nor their special press.

Every special, distinct form of work among the women of the working class is simply a means of arousing the consciousness of the woman worker and drawing her into the ranks of those fighting for a better future...

Women’s Days and the slow, meticulous work undertaken to arouse the self-consciousness of the woman worker are serving the cause not of the division but of the unification of the working class.

Let a joyous sense of serving the common class cause and of fighting simultaneously for their own female emancipation inspire women workers to join in the celebration of Women’s Day. Alexandra Kollontai pictured above was a key leader of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and a pioneering theorist of women’s liberation.

This article ‘Women’s Day’ is from Alexandra Kollontai: Selected Articles and Speeches, published in Moscow 1984 by Progress Publishers ★

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U n i t y! TUC Women’s Conference 2010

continued from front page Three years later in 1910 the Copenhagen Conference of the Second International Clara Zetkin proposed the following motion: ‘…..the Socialist women of all countries will hold each year a Women’s Day, whose foremost purpose it must be to aid the attainment of women’s suffrage.

This demand must be handled in conjunction with the entire women’s question according to Socialist precepts. The Women’s Day must have an international character and is to be prepared carefully.’

The motion was carried: 8 March was favoured, although at this stage no formal date was set. Nonetheless IWD was marked by rallies and demonstrations in the US and many European countries in the years leading to World War One, albeit on different days each year (e.g. March 18th in 1911 in Austria-Hungary, Germany Denmark and Switzerland and the last Sunday in February in the US.) Zetkin (editor of Gleicheit or ‘Equality’ along with Sylvia Pankhurst (editor of ‘Women’s Dreadnought’ later ‘Workers Dreadnought’) saw that the struggle for women’s rights and women’s liberation was indissolubly linked to the struggle for socialism. However, this did not mean that they were content to wait for the revolution before campaigning for working women. Both thought that socialism would be impossible to achieve without the active involvement of women. Zetkin wrote: ‘Just as the male worker is subjugated by the capitalist, so is the woman by the man, and she will always remain in subjugation until she is economically independent. Work is the indispensible condition for economic independence’ In 1917 in Russia,

International Women’s Day acquired great significance – it was the flashpoint for the Russian Revolution. On 8 March (Western calendar) women workers in Petrograd held a mass strike and demonstration demanding Peace and Bread.

The strike movement spread from factory to factory and effectively became an insurrection. In 1922, in honour of the women’s role on IWD in 1917, Lenin declared that 8 March should be designated officially as women’s day. Much later it was a national holiday in the Soviet Union and most of the former socialist countries. The cold war may explain why it was that a public holiday celebrated by communists, was largely ignored in the West, despite the fact that in 1975 (International Women’s Year), the United Nations recognised 8 March as International Women’s Day. Today we acknowledge that IWD gives us an opportunity to draw attention to our own struggles for women’s rights (still as yet unfulfilled), to link this with women’s struggles worldwide and to demonstrate international sisterly solidarity with working women everywhere. There is a danger, however, in the welter of ‘fun’ events that have been organised in many cities worldwide, that the socialist feminist origins of IWD are being forgotten.

We must not allow this to happen, and whilst there is nothing wrong with women enjoying themselves, we should also use the occasion to campaign for our current demands, supported by many trade unions, as contained in our ‘Charter for Women’. ★ www.charterforwomen.org.uk/.

Mary Davis is the Communist Party women’s organiser Cover picture ‘Down with kitchen slavery, for a new life!’1931 Soviet poster

www.communist-party.org.uk www.solidnet.org

Workers’ ballots and bosses’ bonuses

by Carolyn Jones As we count down to a general election, one thing seems certain – post-election cuts will fall on the many, not on the few and women will feel the brunt.

The working majority will pay for an economic meltdown created by the privileged few.

Deregulated during the Thatcher years and encouraged under New Labour, bankers and bosses speculated, asset-stripped and exploited until the whole rotten system stumbled and fell. Now, in an effort to rebuild a meaner, leaner international capitalist structure, politicians, media moguls, employers and the judicial system are united in their determination to ensure that the workers pay while the capitalists play.

And play they are. Bosses bonuses and bankers bonanzas are back. £38 million to HSBC bosses; £1.3billion to investment bankers at RBS; 58% rise in profits to British Gas shareholders. This is war.

Class war. And battle lines are being drawn throughout Europe.

In Greece, France, Germany and Spain, thousands are taking to

the streets under a common theme – we will not pay for your crisis. Back off and look elsewhere for savings (war machine) and income (Fair taxes).

Noting and fearing a similar response, British bosses are inceasingly turning to anti union laws to deny democratic decisions of workers. Recent injunctions against First London bus drives, BA cabin crews, EDF Power workers and Milford Haven harbour crews show how the full force of the law is being used to quell worker resistance and undermine union attempts to protect members’ jobs and conditions.

If the law on ballots continues to prevent unions responding to their members then the law must go. That’s why we continue to support calls for a Trade Union Freedom Bill and why we support John McDonnell’s EDM 710 on simplifying the balloting procedure.

But the law will not change until it’s challenged. And the time to challenge is now.★ Carolyn Jones is the Communist Party trade union org a n i ser

Higher and higher (education) Communist University of Britain 30 July – 1 August 2010 London Aces from the 586th Women’s Fighter Regiment Lilya Litvyak, 12 kills, Katya Budanova, 11 kills and Mariya Kuznetsova

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