Labour Wrap: Women's Day belongs to labour

Cape Town - This week began with International Women’s Day and it has been celebrated throughout the week, says Terry Bell in his latest labour wrap. 

But, he adds, the claim that the day honours the work of the suffragettes who campaigned for votes for women, is a distortion; that the day rightly belongs to the labour movement and, specifically, to garment workers.

He points out that, in 1930 many campaigners in South Africa who won the vote for white women, did so while supporting the removal of the qualified franchise for black men in the Cape Province.  However, the first celebration of the day was in 1911 and honoured the 1908 strike by women garment workers in New York.

The conference that gave rise to the proclamation of the day also made clear its aim:  human liberation. As one of the delegates noted:  “It matters not who is the ‘master’, a man or a woman.”

Now, more than a century later, Bell notes that the overwhelming majority of garment workers are still women — and that poverty wages and poor working conditions still apply in many parts of the world;  little in fact, has changed for these workers.  The industry is, also in fact, an excellent example of what globalisation means for national economies and for millions of workers.

WATCH:

Bell notes that International Women’s Day was given a substantial boost in 1911 when  123 women and 23 men, garment workers all, were burned to death while locked into a New York shirtwaist factory. However, there was not the same level of reaction when more than 1 000 garment workers perished in the Rana Plaza disaster of 2013.

Agree? Add your voice to the big labour debate or simply ask Terry a labour question.

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