March 7, 2008 - No. 36

International Women's Day 2008

Fight to Defeat Canada's Pro-War Government!
Elect an Anti-War Government!

- Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -

• Fight to Defeat Canada's Pro-War Government! Elect an Anti-War Government! - Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
• All Out for International Women's Day 2008! Calendar of Events
• Some Facts on Working and Living Conditions of Women in Canada

United States
• Open Declaration: March 8th Against the War! - GABRIELA Network
• International Women's Day: A Salute to Women's Resistance - International Women's Day '08 Coalition (New York City)

• Petition: Visiting Rights for the Families of the Cuban Five

International Women's Day 2008

Fight to Defeat Canada's Pro-War Government!
Elect an Anti-War Government!

- Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -

On the occasion of International Women's Day 2008, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends its revolutionary greetings to the fighting women across Canada and around the world. Today, the battle to affirm the rights of women and to open society's path to progress in the face of the brutal neo-liberal anti-social offensive and increasing U.S.-led aggressions and war is more urgent than ever.

International Women's Day 2008 is being celebrated at a time Canada's pro-war government is pushing ahead ever faster with its agenda of annexation, fascism and war. Internationally the U.S. drive for world domination is multiplying the problems in every sphere of human endeavour. In this situation, the biggest problem facing women in Canada is their lack of political power so that they can participate in governance and ensure that their rights and the rights of all members of society are provided with a guarantee. Women know that to put an end to the anti-social offensive and build a new society, it is necessary to be effective politically so that the crisis is resolved in favour of the working people, not the parasites and warmongers. However, current arrangements enacted on both federal and provincial levels show the dangerous extent to which the political representatives of the rich are usurping power to put all the assets of society at the disposal of the monopolies. To achieve this, everything is done to marginalize the working people from the political process and suppress their resistance to annexation, imperialist war, the anti-social offensive and the pro-war government.

CPC(M-L) calls on women activists and organizations of women fighting for collective rights to address the need for an effective opposition which can block those in power from this course of fascism and war. Take up the task of political renewal so as to put the working class and people in control! By taking up the necessity of our times to wrest power from the forces of reaction and to renew democracy women play a leading role in building a bright future for all and to guarantee their own emancipation.

On this March 8 let us pledge to defeat Canada's pro-war government and elect an anti-war government which represents the popular will. End the anti-social offensive by changing the direction of the economy to stop paying the rich and increase investments in social programs! End the agenda to annex Canada to the United States of North American Monopolies, dismantle NATO and make Canada a bulwark which upholds international rule of law based on the principles that all nations big or small are equal, non-interference in their internal affairs and no use of force to settle conflicts!

Long Live the Fighting Women the World Over!
Defeat Canada's Pro-War Government!
Elect an Anti-War Government!

All Out for International Women's Day 2008!

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Across Canada women are organizing to mark International Women's Day, March 8, 2008 with meetings, rallies, marches and get togethers. They are saying No to War! in the face of demands of Canada's pro-war government for the Canadian people to defend Canada's participation in the U.S. imperialist wars of aggression and occupation. They are opposing their status as "fair game" at their places of work, violence against women and increasing impoverishment.

The spirit that the strength of the fight of women for their own rights lies in their unity and in fighting for the rights of all permeates all the activities. No one is illegal! women are declaring and they are demanding an end to security certificates, deportations, racial profiling, police brutality and the criminalization of those who defend rights.

Women across Canada are gathering to celebrate and share with women from around the world the experience of their resistance in defending their homelands and sovereignty against imperialist blockades, dictate and occupation. Canadian women stand as one with women from around the world to end the neo-liberal, anti-social offensive which is destroying societies everywhere, degrading Mother Earth, endangering the lives of women, children and the elderly as never before, along with those of all working people.

The history of International Women's Day is itself a testimony to the leading role played by women in the international communist and workers' movement in defending peace and social progress. In 1910, following two major revolts of women textile workers in the U.S. against their exploitation, German communist Clara Zetkin proposed March 8 be designated International Women's Day at a conference convened by the Second Communist International. In this way, March 8 was born out of the struggle of working women for their rights and of the communist and workers' movement for the emancipation of labour to build societies in which women stand second to none.

The very essence of International Women's Day is that the emancipation of women is inexorably linked to the emancipation of the society by the working class. It is based on the recognition that this struggle can only be successful when the mass of women take the leadership themselves to solve the problems confronting their societies. Women around the world are proudly taking up these problems facing humanity, saying loud and clear: Another World Is Possible! It Can Be Done! It Must Be Done!

All Out to Participate in International Women's Day!

Some Facts on Working and Living Conditions of Women in Canada

International Women's Day was born out of the struggle of working women for their rights. It is a damning indictment of the current neo-liberal arrangements which block the advance of the society that close to one hundred years later women have not won equality in the workplace and continue to face impoverishment simply by being born women.

Women make up slightly over 50 per cent of the population -- 16,332,300 out of 32,976,000 based on the 2007 census figures. In Canada, a newborn female is more likely than a male to grow up to be poor. Some 18 per cent of Canadian women (just under 2.8 million) are living in poverty compared to 15 per cent of the male population. Based on the 2001 census 23 per cent of all women not born in Canada lived in poverty, and 37 per cent of those who had arrived in the previous five years were impoverished. Among aboriginal women 43 per cent lived below the poverty line. All indications are that the situation of national minority and aboriginal women has deteriorated since these figures were gathered.

Single mothers and other "unattached" women are most vulnerable to poverty with 46 per cent of single mothers and 43 per cent of "unattached" women over 65 living in poverty. By comparison 31 per cent of single senior men live in poverty.

Two-thirds of those earning the minimum wage are women and it is simply not possible to work enough hours at this rate to get above the poverty line.

 The plight of single mothers is so marked that they are included by Statistics Canada as a distinct category of those most likely to be among the working poor. In 2005, the income of single-parent families headed by women averaged $25,356 a year compared to $31,797 for those headed by men. Moreover, as of 2001 a full 37 per cent of single mothers were raising their families and paying costs of childcare on less than $10 per hour. The depth of the impoverishment of single mothers is reflected in the fact that 40.9 per cent of children living in female lone-parent families were classified as persons with low income while only 7.7 per cent of children living in two-parent families were classified as persons with low income.

In Canada working women make on average 70.5 per cent of the wages men make. This is the case in a situation in which just over 86 per cent of women between the ages of 25 and 54 participate in the workforce and in which all wages are being pushed down.

Women continue to be concentrated in traditional female-dominated jobs. According to Statscan, as of 2006, 67 per cent of all employed women were working in one of teaching, nursing and related healthcare occupations, clerical and other administrative positions or in sales and service. This compares to only 30 per cent of men in such occupations.

These are all relatively low-paid sectors of the workforce and the effects of neo-liberal globalization -- such as the privatization of public services -- have further reduced wages in sectors like healthcare. For example the privatization of the jobs of 8,500 health support workers in B.C. in 2005 their pay was cut by more than 40 per cent and they also lost their benefits. The majority of these workers were women and recent immigrants.

The drive of the monopolies to compete within the global market has also seen a steady increase over the past decade in what are referred to as non-standard or precarious jobs. Most estimates put the number of workers employed in "non-standard" jobs or "precarious" work -- which comes with low wages, unstable income, shift work, lack of benefits, limited access to labour rights and low rate of unionization -- at 33 to 37 per cent of the workforce. Women are over represented in this category with over 41 per cent of women, compared to 29 per cent of men, falling within this category. This category includes workers forced to become "self-employed contractors" with recent figures indicating that the average annual income for self-employed women is around $15,500.

Precariously employed women face unstable and unpredictable hours, and may work only part time, intermittently or alternately may work very long hours. There was also an increase during the 1990s in the number of both men and women working nights and weekends. In 2002, one in seven women were working more than 41 hours per week, 7.6 per cent were working 41 to 49 hours at their main job and 6.8 per cent were working more than 50 hours a week at their main job.

One of the ways in which this type of work shows up in Statscan figures is in the number of women who work part-time -- that is they work less than 30 hours per week at their main job. The figures do not give a figure of the total number of hours they work at several jobs, or the toll that takes. Of those employed part-time, 23 per cent were looking for full-time work. Among women aged 25 to 44, 19 per cent worked part-time, while 20 per cent of women aged 45 to 54 did so. This compares to only 5 per cent of men in each of these age categories.

Another form of precarious employment is so-called "self-employment." According to the 2007 census figures 900,000 women were "self-employed." According to a federal government task force report in late 2003, there was a 208 per cent increase from 1981 to 2001 in the number of women who were "self-employed"compared to a 38 per cent increase among men. The growth of this "self-employment" in the 1990s was an increasing number of "own-account" workers who were unincorporated and employed no-paid help. Many of the women in this category are really temporary workers with a series of short-term contracts with an employer or ran micro-businesses out of their homes. In 2002, 61.1 per cent of all self-employed women fell into this category as compared to only 44.5 per cent of self-employed men. The average annual income of women "own-account" self-employed workers in 1999 was $13,032 per year.

In 2002, the average woman worker earned $15.82 per hour, 81.6 per cent of the $19.38 per hour earned by the average man. When the average annual earning of women full-time/full-year workers is considered, the gap is still more marked. In 1995, earnings of women in this category rose to 73 per cent of men's earnings, an all-time high and by 2000 had declined to 71.7 per cent of men's average yearly earnings. Particularly striking is the fact that women with university degrees, traditionally the group with the smallest wage gap, were earning only 69.8 per cent of what their male counterparts earned by 2002, down from a all-time high also in 1995 of 75.9 per cent.

According to 2002 figures, almost one in three women (31.5 per cent) were low paid compared to one in five men (19.5 per cent). Low paid is defined as earning less than two-thirds of the national median wage.

The recent period has seen a marked increase in the employment rate for older women. From 1995-2002 the employment rate of women aged 55 to 59 rose from 44.0 per cent to 50.9 per cent and for women from 60 to 64 rose from 22.0 per cent to 28.8 per cent. This is partially explained by the fact that more of today's older women have worked all or most of their lives than was the case with previous generations but may also be explained by the need of many older women to continue to work because of inadequate pensions, particularly for those among the working poor. As of 2003, the percentage of women in the labour force covered by a registered pension plan was 33.2 per cent.

United States

Open Declaration: March 8th Against the War!

- GABRIELA Network -

International Women's Day arose from the upsurge of women's activism on both national and international politics. 1913 was a watershed for the women's movement. On March 8th, women led peace rallies in Europe, in protest against the looming threat of a world war. In Russia, the women went on strike, calling for "peace and bread," thereby starting the cresting of a revolutionary wave until the 1917 October revolution. In the U.S., Ida Wells-Barnett, an African-American journalist, broke segregation laws by marching with her white colleagues, calling for the women's right to vote. Indeed, the 20th century was replete with instances of women challenging national and international politics, culminating in rallies, pickets, demonstrations on March 8th.

Since then March 8th has been co-opted and turned into a so-called commemoration of women's achievements, as though there were no more need for further achievements. It is time to return March 8th to its historic role as the day women challenge government decisions and policies inimical to peace, justice and the preservation of the human species. It is time for March 8th to be known as the day when women unite and march against state policies dangerous to the health and safety of the nation.

In the year 2008, we issue the call to all women to transform March 8th into a historic protest against the war in Iraq. Despite the majority opprobrium against this war, it continues, sucking up resources needed for education, health and social services. Despite majority opposition to the war, it continues, funneling hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money into the maws of war-profiteers and war-racketeers. Despite majority disgust with the war, it continues, killing one U.S. youth after another, nearly 4,000 now; killing nearly 2 million Iraqis; the endless carnage justified by hollow assertions of "victory" and "it's working."

The March 8th Against the War Committee calls on all women to use this day of international activism to protest the war, call for its end, and for U.S. troops to return to U.S. soil. The March 8th Against the War Committee invokes the memory of Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai, of the European women and the Russian women who opposed imperialist wars. May their likes walk with us again, in the 21st century!

GABRIELA Network is a Philippine-U.S. women's solidarity mass organization.

International Women's Day:
A Salute to Women's Resistance

- International Women's Day '08 Coalition (New York City) -

* No war on women at home and worldwide
* Unite to win our liberation

On March 8, 1908, working women in the needle trade industry took to the streets of New York City demanding better working conditions, higher wages, shorter workdays and the overall improvement of women's lives in this country.

These women marched through New York City demanding justice for women workers and immigrant workers; they were in fact working immigrant women.

The message and militancy of these women were so inspiring to women around the world that in 1910 the International Socialist Congress, meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, officially declared March 8 International Women's Day.

This year, on the 100th anniversary of that historic march, we call on you to join us in commemoration of International Women's Day 2008 to honor all the women who have fought for our liberation by continuing the fight for freedom today.

We are in the midst of a rise in attacks on women -- including Black, Latina, Asian, Indigenous, Arab and white here in the U.S. -- as well as women who originate or currently live in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, Australia and Europe.

The attacks inside the U.S. include legal and extralegal attacks on our reproductive self-determination; an escalation of sexual assaults and rapes, like those against Megan Williams and Crystal Mangum; violence toward lesbian, bisexual and transgender women, like the persecution of the Jersey 4; and the detention and deportation of immigrant women and their families.

Artists worldwide are using their creativity to combat the anti-Black and anti-woman images we see in today's corporate media machines. The media conglomerates peddle destructive mind-poison that hatefully twists and manipulates the images of women of all nationalities and backgrounds. These unrealistic messages promote the rape, abuse and murder of women and young girls everywhere.

Attacks on Living Standards and the War Budget

The economic crisis is affecting women in a distinctive way. Women, young and old, are uniquely affected by the mortgage foreclosures; demolition of public housing in New Orleans, New York and elsewhere; evictions; lack of health care, childcare and job loss that this crisis -- intensified by Wall Street's greed for profits -- has caused.

Women comprise the fastest-growing population of prisoners in the U.S.

Meanwhile, war on working-class youth and youth of color, including racist police brutality and militarization of schools, is demonizing and killing our children.

Cuts in funding for education and social programs are decreasing the quality of life of our youth. The illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are stealing our children, dehumanizing them and devaluing them into nothing more than property of the U.S. military, or worse, taking their lives.

The conditions for women worldwide have greatly deteriorated as a result of war, occupation and ruthless U.S. foreign policy.

The military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, costing trillions of our tax dollars, has caused a backward movement in women's rights and freedoms in those countries, including a decrease in educational opportunities. Women in those countries are losing family members to murders and illegal detentions and are being sexually assaulted, killed and detained themselves.

The people of Palestine are under a violent and genocidal occupation by the U.S.-funded state of Israel. Women in the West Bank are seeing the demolition of their homes, the murder of their children and the imprisonment of Palestinian men and are being imprisoned and killed themselves. The women of Gaza are starving, dying of thirst and watching their children and loved ones die from lack of health care, water, food and income -- all of this forced on them by the U.S. and Israeli blockade. In the most recent revolt against U.S. imperialism and Israeli apartheid, the women of Gaza played a key role in breaking through the Egyptian wall in order to obtain food, water and life necessities.

Women in Sudan and other areas of Africa are dying from U.S. sanctions; women in the Philippines are being rounded up and killed or imprisoned for resisting the U.S.-backed regime; the women of Latin America and the Caribbean are being affected by economic and political U.S. intervention, forcing them to live in poverty and leave their homes for the prospect of better opportunities.

Indigenous women are being brutally repressed for reclaiming their original lands throughout the Americas.

Worldwide sex trafficking has forced women and children into prostitution and illegal servitude. Often these women and children are kidnapped or forced into sex trafficking as a result of economic disparity rooted in imperialist plunder of their countries' resources.

We mention all these issues because every issue is a woman's issue.

What Women Are Doing Now to Resist

The fight for women's liberation has been a long road and will take unity and militancy to complete.

The growing numbers of new union members are largely women willing to stand up against their bosses and fight for justice at the workplace.

Mothers, wives, sisters and grandmothers are organizing challenges to racist cops who murder their sons, grandsons, husbands and partners with impunity.

Women are leading the fight against military recruiters in their children's schools and their neighborhoods.

Women are fighting against the legal and extralegal heteronormative and homophobic assaults on the LGBT communities.

Military women are standing up and resisting the violence against their persons and the imperialist wars.

Women across the country are organizing against domestic violence, rapes and racist torture.

Women continue to band together to defend their right to control their own bodies and to fight for reproductive justice.

Women are standing up against the bulldozing of their homes and leading the struggles against displacement, gentrification, foreclosures and criminal landlords.

Women have mounted strong and united efforts against the destruction of our land, air, food, water and environmental racism.

Women organize to free their family members who are political prisoners.

Women band together in their communities to stop the lack of quality education, jobs, health care and a safety net for the disabled, seniors, poor families, the homeless and children.

Women stand up against the racist immigration policies that separate them from their children and families.

Women are struggling to recover their children from the so-called child welfare system.

Women will use their creativity to conjure what is nurturing, beautiful and strong about women in our songs, our dances, our poems, our drawings and our musical compositions.

Whether on the streets, in the schools or in our own homes, women will continue to organize their families and friends and will not stop until a more life-affirming depiction of the sustainers of our world becomes mainstream.

Our mission is to empower women worldwide as well as to bring to the attention of our sisters and brothers that we must challenge our oppressors' divide-and-conquer tactics, such as racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.

This call is for all of us to honor and uphold the great traditions of women warriors who continue to display courage, strength, wisdom and the will to resist against great odds. Organize, Resist and Build Our Movements for Victory!

(To sign on to this statement, go to the www.troopsoutnow.org web site..)

Petition

Visiting Rights for the Families of the Cuban Five

- Canadian Network on Cuba, National Network on Cuba, Table de concertation solidarité Québec-Cuba, January 2008 -

In December 2001, a Miami Court sentenced five innocent Cubans for fighting against terrorism. Unjustly imprisoned in the United States since Sept. 12, 1998, they had infiltrated the anti-Cuban groups in Miami whose terrorist actions have killed 3,200 Cubans and injured more than 2,000 since 1959. When the Cuban government informed the United States of the new criminal activities that were being planned, the FBI arrested the five Cubans instead of the terrorists.

The wrongful convictions imposed by the United States government include four life sentences plus 75 years in prison. To date, the right to a new trial for the Five in another city than Miami has been denied.

To this enormous injustice is added another punishment: preventing regular visits from relatives. The case for two of the Five -- René González and Gerardo Hernández -- is even more inhumane since the U.S. government has consistently refused any visiting rights to their wives.

Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez

Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, the wives respectively of Gerardo and René, have applied for visas eight times, and eight times they have been denied without just cause. An international campaign is underway so that they can obtain visas.

Olga, a 48-year-old industrial engineer and mother of two daughters, has been married to Rene for 24 years. She has been unable to visit her husband for the past seven years. René is 51 years old and is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Adriana is a chemical engineer and has been married to Gerardo for 20 years. She has not been allowed to visit him since his arrest on September 12, 1998. Because of this unjust imprisonment, they have not had any children. Adriana is 37 years old and Gerardo 42. Gerardo was sentenced to two life sentences plus 10 years in prison.

In reaction to the perverse refusal of the George W. Bush government to grant humanitarian visas to Olga and Adriana to visit their husbands in prison, women around the world are circulating petitions.

This petition is the realization of one of the resolutions adopted by the «Breaking the Silence: Solidarity Conference for the Cuban Five» held in Toronto November 10, 2007, organized by the Canadian Network on Cuba, la Table de Concertation de Solidarité Québec-Cuba, and the National Network on Cuba (U.S.) and attended by hundreds of activists and prominent figures in the struggle for constitutional and human rights.

Signatures on the petitions will be collected until March 8th, 2008, International Women's Day, and then transmitted to the U.S. government.

Petition

(To be signed by women only)

To:

Dr Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State
M. Michael Mukasey Attorney General United States of America

We, women of the USA and Canada who have signed this petition, share with the international community our concern about the repeated unfounded refusals by the Government of the United States to grant visas to Adriana Pérez O'Connor and Olga Salanueva Arango, the wives respectively of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo and René González Sehwerert, two of the men known as the Cuban Five.

These two Cuban women are claiming their basic human right to visit their husbands in the prisons where they have been unjustly incarcerated since 1998.

We join in the demand to grant Olga and Adriana visas on humanitarian grounds WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.

In solidarity, women of Canada and the USA.

To sign click here.

Calendar of Events

International Women's Day 2008

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