Open World Conference

On February 21, 2002, on the eve of the International Conference Against Deregulation and For Labor Rights For All, a one-day International Women's Conference to Reclaim ILO Convention 103 and for the Defense of Working Women's Rights was held in Berlin, Germany.

For a full day, more than 40 people --mostly women -- addressed the plenary session of the Women's Conference, providing both testimonies regarding the horrendous plight facing working women in the face of the onslaught by global capitalism as well as testimonies of resistance and fightback.

The Conference Presiding Committee was made up by the following people:

- For the Germany Organizing Committee: Carla Boullboule and Cornelia Matzke

- For the San Francisco Open World Conference Continuations Committee: Nancy Wohlforth

- For the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International: Daniel Gluckstein

- For the ILC Working Women's Commission: Marie-Claude Schidlower

- From Pakistan: Rubina Jamil

- From Algeria: Louisa Hanoune

- From South Africa/Azania: Makoma Lekalakala

- From Brazil: Misa Boito

- From Spain: Meseguer Maria Jose;

At the conclusion of the Conference, the Presiding Committee pledged to compile all the presentations in a book to be distributed in five languages. (You will be informed as soon as this book is ready.) They also circulated an Appeal for International Women's Day (March 8) that was signed by many, if not most, of the delegates at the Women's Conference.

We are reprinting below the Appeal and Signatories from the Women's Conference.

For further information about the conference or how you can get involved with its follow-up activities, please contact:

- WORKING WOMEN - SAN FRANCISCO OPEN WORLD CONFERENCE CONTINUATION'S COMMITTEE, Attention: Nancy Wohlforth
c/o S.F. Labor Council, 1188 Franklin St. # 203, San Francisco, CA 94109 - USA
Tel: 415-641-8616 Fax: 415-440-9297
email: ilcinfo@earthlink.net

- WORKING WOMEN - CONFERENCE AGAINST DEREGULATION, GERMAN COMMITTEE, Attention: Carla Boullboule, Knesebeckstr. 98, 10623, Berlin.
Fax : 30 313 16 62 :
email : GotthardKrupp@t-online.de

- WORKING WOMEN - INTERNATIONAL LIAISON COMMITTEE FOR A WORKERS' INTERNATIONAL, Attention: Marie-Claude Schidlower
Entente internationale des travailleurs - c/o Parti des travailleurs, 87, rue du Fg-St-Denis 75010 Paris - France.
Tel : (331) - 48 01 88 28 - fax : (331) 48 01 88 36 -
email: ilc.entente.ft@wanadoo.fr

********************

Appeal from the Conference to Reclaim ILO Convention 103 and for the Defense of Working Women's Rights

(Berlin, Germany -- February 21, 2002)

Trade union and working class women from 25 countries met in Berlin, Germany, on February 21, 2002, in an International Conference to discuss what is at stake for women the world over as the march of global capitalism is accelerated through war, cutbacks in all social services, attacks on basic civil rights, the destruction of maternity rights -- and through the widespread growth of child labor, the destruction and murder of trade unionists and the destruction of the environment.

The theme of the Conference held that women have always been in the forefront of the struggle against wars, for peace, democracy and social and economic justice. Our very survival and the survival of our children requires nothing less than the building of an international movement of women joined together around the following common principles that hold true in every country. We recognize at the same time that the conditions in each country will call for many different demands and forms of struggle depending upon each country's situation.

Therefore, to begin to build a true international movement, the Berlin gathering proposes that in countries throughout the world on International Women's Day (March 8, 2002) demonstrations and activities be held to announce our existence as a movement built around the following common principles:

1) We stand against war and for peace and democracy.

a) No war in Afghanistan or any other target of the United States in its "long-term" war on a global scale.

b) Continue in the anti-war tradition of our sisters going back to World War I.

c) Restore the historic tradition of the labor movement to be in the forefront of resisting the barbarism of war.

d) War never advances humanity but always brings loss of life, security, civil rights and hard-won gains.

2) We stand against all forms of terrorism.

a) The plunder by force of another country for its own interests.

b) The privatization and "free trade" policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which deprive millions of workers and children of any means to survive while wreaking fear, terror, murder, loss of security, grief and starvation on them.

3) We stand against the privatization of all industries and all forms of social services, as its only motive is profit.

We call for the maintenance and expansion of nationalized services and industries.

4) We stand for an end to deregulation of all industries and services.

a) The only goal of deregulation is to allow the multinational corporations to reap high profits from industries and services previously regulated in the interest of people.

b) Deregulation results in consumers of basic services having to pay higher and higher prices as costs spiral out of control.

c) When deregulated companies fail after running amok, they leave millions of workers out of jobs and without pensions, facing uncertain futures.

d) Enron is only one of many examples of such corporate greed running amok. Its collapse is only the tip of the iceberg in today's global "free" economic market where corporations rule instead of nation-states.

A further illustration of the destruction deregulation causes occurred as Enron bilked almost $10 billion out of the State of California's budget (working people's taxes!) during the 2001 energy crisis.

5) We stand against racism and xenophobia.

a) We condemn racial profiling, especially today toward people of Middle Eastern descent.

b) We condemn the attack on immigrants and the denial of immigrant rights, particularly in the United States, where Latinos and others are imported to do the tremendously hard field and hospitality jobs, pay their taxes but then are rounded up and deported if they try to organize unions or when their jobs are completed. We further condemn the fact that while they are forced to pay taxes, they are denied basic human services such as health care, etc.

c) We condemn the racial quota system and call for a world without borders where ALL WORKERS have the right to seek decent jobs and living conditions.

d) We condemn the xenophobic propaganda which scapegoats immigrants, blaming them for unemployment, etc. This xenophobia only benefits the bosses who use it to pit worker against worker to drive down the wages of everyone while maximizing their own profits.

6) We demand basic human rights to preserve and improve our quality of life and we stand in defense of our hard-won civil rights, social protection systems and the education of our children -- and we oppose their dismantling.

a) No Child Labor

Last January 19, a French session of the International Tribunal Against Child Labor and Forced Labor was held. The jury pronounced its judgement:

"Child labor is a genuine scourge spreading worldwide. It is developing as a horrible epidemic all over the globe. It is organized in the most barbarous forms, even for 6-year-old children in many countries. According to the ILO 1998 report, 250 million children between the ages of 6 and 14 are working throughout the world. The ILO Bureau underlined that in 1998, in Africa, over 80 million children were at work, and that this could reach 100 million in 2015 if the present situation continues.

All continents are hit by the scourge of child labor. Although it does not reach the appalling figures reached in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, child labor still concerns million of children in North America and Europe. For instance, one-fourth of all children are working outside school in Great Britain.

The French government has legalized child labor in the name of a European directive and has thus modified the Labor Code to repeal a century-old law. What is the meaning, then, of the government's hollow speeches concerning this tragedy of child labor in the rest of the world?

Child labor is a crime. No child labor!
Ratification and implementation of the ILO Convention 138 banning child labor in all countries, and repeal of all the measures contradicting it.
A child's place is in school -- not in the factories, sweatshops or offices.

b) Full-time employment for all workers at a living wage. Equal pay for equal work. Ratification and implementation of the national labor laws, labor codes and of ILO Convention 100 on "equal wages for men and women."

c) Right to decent, affordable housing for all.

d) Universal health care for all.

No privatization of the health care and social protection systems which will lead to the destruction of the right to health care and allow insurance companies to trade off health care for profits.

e) Full maternity rights for working women is an inalienable right.We have organized an international campaign for the defense of ILO Convention 103 to protect maternity rights for working women. ILO Convention 103 has been "reformed." Has this "reform" led to a better protection of maternity rights?

- In Brazil, a draft law is putting into question the Constitution, which protects maternity rights for women at work. Trade unionists, Members of Parliament, leaders of the Workers Party (PT) and tens of thousands of women are campaigning against this draft law.

- In Great Britain, a campaign has been launched on the basis of a letter to MPs in opposition to a draft law that would exclude from maternity rights millions of women. This campaign demands that the ILO Convention 103 be turned into a law in Great Britain.

- In Sweden, the labor movement won considerable rights for women. These rights are being threatened. An appeal states the following: "We are worried by the stand adopted by the Social Democrat government and the trade unions concerning the reform of the ILO Convention 103. Our rights are greatly threatened. More and more, employers ask women if they intend to have children. When pregnant, they are at risk of being laid off. When they return to work after a maternity leave, they have been replaced and are offered lesser wages."

- In India, ILO Convention 103 measures are but a dream. But if the rights existing in the countries that have ratified ILO Convention 103 are destroyed, how could they be obtained in other countries such as India?

We therefore call for:

- Full maternity rights, a total ban on layoffs during pregnancy; maternity leave; guarantee to resume work after paid maternity leave.

- Restoration of the gains codified by ILO Convention 103.

- Restoration of all maternity rights in the countries where they have been jeopardized.

f) Pension: A right, not a privilege.

- Pensions are earned through years of labor and must not be put at risk through privatization, which turns over the money to multinational corporations to increase their profits.

- In the United States, investment of pension funds must be safe, free from speculation and wild fluctuation of international stock markets.

- We call for the preservation of fully funded national pension systems. National pension systems based upon the distribution of deferred wages and solidarity between workers and retirees must be maintained!

7) Millions of women are forced to do night work.

Night work is noxious for the health and life of women and men alike.
According to the National Cancer Institute of the United States, quoted in the French newspaper Quotidien du Médecin, "[N]ight exposure to artificial light, and especially night work, increases the rate of breast cancer by 14% for each night without sleep. A 60% increase in breast cancers has been demonstrated among women forced to do continuous night work."

The oldest conventions of the ILO ban women's night work in industry. In the name of equality between men and women, the governments of the European Union have restored night work for women in industry. In France, a law restored night work for women in the name of equality between men and women. This law underlines that night work should be exceptional, "unless economic reasons make it necessary." A woman senator proposed, correctly, that night work in industry should be banned for both men and women. The government answered that this was out of the question. The steel industries bosses have imposed an agreement which states that night work is necessary "to maintain industrial competitiveness, to prolong the period of use of equipment and/or because of short delays for delivery."

Is this equality? Hardly. Is this not, rather, the will to impose and generalize night work for women so as to thereby increase the over-exploitation of men as women?

We thereby call for maintaining and ratifying ILO Conventions 4, 41 and 89: Restore the ban on night work for women in industry where it has been repealed.

8) We stand for trade union independence and democracy for all.

We demand basic human rights to protect and increase our quality of life and we stand in defense of our hard-won civil rights, social protection systems and the education of our children. We oppose their dismantling.

9) We rally behind and actively build support for the most oppressed among us. We unite in our sisters' battles for all women and children for basic human and civil rights:

- access to housing
- access to clean water and sanitation
- access to food and clothing
- access to health care
- for unfettered movement in public
- for freedom from violence, including forced body mutilation, physical or sexual violence against women, war violence
- abolition of all discriminatory laws against women
- for effective rights for all women
- for an end to destitution
- for the right to vote for women in all countries.

For an End to Poverty!

Poverty is growing the world over. The debt is smothering peoples. Everywhere, privatization of public services, jeopardizing health care and social protection, is threatening the very basis of civilization.

Deregulated jobs are developing massively.

- In Pakistan, informal jobs are occupied by 80% of the population. Women and children are the main victims of this scourge.

- In India, 89.5% of rural women workers are either agricultural workers or are attached to agriculture-based industry. They are most vulnerable and subjected to exploitation. Many women are working in the informal sector too.

-In Europe, labor codes and collective- bargaining conventions are threatened. In Spain. in the name of equality, they are promoting "feminine employment" through flexibility, part-time jobs and other forms of casual jobs.

We say: Laws, labor codes, minimum wages, maternity leave, social protection, the right to a pension -- all these must be implemented in the so-called informal sector.

10) We must defend and win back our collective-bargaining conventions, the right to social protection and pensions

FORWARD TO MARCH 8, 2002,
AN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MOBILIZATION
- AGAINST WAR
- FOR PEACE
- FOR DEMOCRACY
- FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
- FOR FULL EQUALITY FOR ALL WOMEN!

With our contributions to the discussion and the sharing of our experiences, we have begun to establish the real situation of women throughout the world. We make the commitment to publish all these contributions to the discussion in a memorandum for all countries.

We make the commitment to continue struggling against war, for peace, for democracy, for social justice and for the rights of all working women. We make the commitment to set up a Continuations Committee of this International Working Women's Conference.

SIGNATORIES:

Algeria: Kheria Benazouz, Louisa Hanoune

Germany: Carla Boulboulle; Cornelia Matzke; Gisela Bilski; Uta Nader; Eva Gurster; Birgit Buch; Irene Huffne ; Heinke Forst ; Irmtraud Schlosser; Marianne Lebbin; Ilse Krupp; Charlotte Weigt; Andre Maron; Wolfgang Schallock; Christiane Treffert; Lothar Ott; Inge Steineebac ; Jana Seiler; Gaby Hahn; Roswitha Guhn; Maxi Menzel-Hunkel; Justin Hauptmann; Sigrid Philipp; Gotthard Krupp; Ute Grahl; Kerstin Bunz; Silvia Parisius; Anne Berger; Gisela Fast; Detlef Gahr; Beate Sieweke.

Argentina: Andrea Oliva.

South Africa/Azania: Makoma Lekalakala Philippine.

Bangladesh: Shamimara; Tafazzul Hussain; Nargish Akhtar Banu.

Brazil: Misa Boito; Maria Jose Favarao; Christiane Granha; Idailza Beirao.

Cote-d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast): Celine Yassine.

Ecuador: Yolanila Anazco; Cira Valverde; Martha Burbano; Etsa Jara.

Spain: Isabel Cerda Marti; Blas Ortega; Rebecca Prieto Rubio.

United States: Nancy Wohlforth; Ed Rosario; Denice Lombard, Greg Fontana; Robert Irminger; Alan Benjamin, Connie White; Denise d'Anne; Millie Phillips; Christina Zinnen.

France: Franck Servel; Michele Singer; Evelyne Wahrenbourg; Marika Kovacs; Marie-Claude Schidlower; Daniel Gluckstein; Joelle Arnal; Olivier Doriane; Sylvette Chevalier; Coumba Toure; Marie-Jose Alliot; Danielle Moutot; Marie Stagliano; Jean-Louis Chabernaud; Catherine Febvre; Colette Gonin; Yann Perrotte; Hamou Medjkal; Aurelie Jammet; Adrienne Lebreton; Colette Laplanche; Veronique Pepers; Jean-Claude Loew; Michele Simonnin; Marie-Edmonde Brunet; Jeanne Gani; Maite Dayan; Dominique Maillot; Beatrice Sylvain; Nicole Bernard; Marie-Jose Montout; Anne-Marie Bertrand; Clarisse Delalondre.

Great-Britain: Stefan Cholewka; Young-Joo-Ko.

Guatemala: Elpidio Guillen de Leon.

Hungary: Gyongyi Szkeli Feseto.

India: Nambiath Vasudevan; D.-N. Kamble; Sureh Gawali; Maru Patil.

Italy: Laura Sola; Lorenza Carrettoni.

Lebanon: Khadije El-Hussaini.

Madagascar: Raymonde Rakotondrainibako.

Martinique: Jacqueline Petitot.

Mexico: Russel Aguilar Brindis; Amintha Elisabeth Nataren Cordova; Consuelo Esquivel Campos; Ramiro Miceli Maza; Gema Lopez Limon; Josefa Dora Rincon Montero.

Pakistan: Rubina Jamil.

Sri Lanka: Anton Marcus.

Sweden: Annika Gyllfors; Anneli Sjoberg; Edith Humble; Eva Pauli Arkemo.

Switzerland: Simone Girodo; Luc Deley.

Tunisia: Bakta Imour El Cadhi

Ukraine: Irina Tyran.