History of 8 March - International Women’s Day
Centenary Year of the International Women’s Day
History of 8 March
In 1910, the Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women’s Day, to honour the movement for women’s rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. They did not fix a date for its observance.
On 19 March 1911, Clara Zetkin, a progressive leader of the working class women’s movement, organised the first International Women’s Day in Germany. It was also celebrated in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million people attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
On 25 March 1911, the Triangle garment factory fire in New York City killed more than 140 women workers, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States and people began to question the working conditions within these factories. For the first time women marched in the city demanding shorter working hours and better pay.
In 1917, with millions dying in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for “bread and peace”. Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere. From then on 8 March has been celebrated as the International Women’s Day.
Women workers in India
And yet after a century of struggle, In India and elsewhere in the world, we continue to be faced with the same issues that our comrades and sisters across the world have historically marched against. We are faced with a very long working day, and very low wages alongside harassment at the work place, bad working conditions, lack of protection guaranteed by the law and lack of collective bargaining rights.
Women today are joining the labour force in even larger numbers than ever before. Women are employed in every form of work from domestic work to the IT sector. And the majority of these jobs are non-standard, with no job security. Most women are outside the ambit of unionisation and collective bargaining. With the expansion of global capital and introduction of new technologies, women are pushed out of jobs to be replaced by men.
The basic demand for women’s employment is work with dignity. This means a living wage with an 8-hour working day and civilised working conditions. The majority of women workers do not even receive the minimum wage and are forced to work far beyond the 8-hour norm, very often without any overtime payment. And the minimum wage in most cases is less than half the living wage. Women are paid far less than men, even for the same job. Hence, there is a clear tendency of undervaluing women’s work. And there is harassment at the workplace. Any complaint of harassment is dismissed as frivolous, with the blame often being put on the complainant. Self-employed women have no regulation of employment, and the work is undervalued. This forces women to make their children work with them and even then it is not enough to meet basic daily necessities.
The responsibility of taking care of the household unjustly falls primarily on women. In this situation only women understand the difficulties posed by life in houses with no amenities. Women take care of ill health, children’s education, providing food for the family while constantly facing patriarchy and violence at home. They have to face the brunt of price rise and the decline of public amenities.
Women are a large and integral part of the working class of this country. However, women’s labour and presence in the workforce is, more often than not, invisible. It is important to recognise and understand the importance of working class unity and struggle for winning workers rights. The unity of the working class cannot be achieved by leaving out the rights of nearly half the class. Hence rights of women workers must be seen as core workers rights. Trade unions have to ensure that women have ready access and support to join unions as active members and leaders.
Fighting imperialist globalisation can only be through a united working class movement. That fight can only be fought successfully if our struggle includes all manifestations of capitalism including patriarchal oppression. Patriarchy fiercely expresses itself through sustained violence against women both in public and in domestic spaces. The working class must unite to oppose all forms of discrimination based on gender as also those rooted in divisions of caste and religion. Working class unity can take roots in society only by eliminating it of all forms of discrimination and prejudices.
We therefore resolve in this centenary year of International Women’s Day that the NTUI will strive to build a working class solidarity based on principles of equal, democratic and just social relations between all sections of the working class to win:
At Work: Dignity of labour, to include:
- 8-hour work-day norm;
- Equal wage for equal work;
- Revision of the Minimum Wage to equal the living wage;
- Laws and public policy to ensure adequate and equal education and skilling for women;
- Ensuring an administrative mechanism so that equal skilling also translates into employment;
- Strict enforcement of workplace regulation to prevent harassment;
In Society and in the Family: Social and Economic Justice, to include:
- Immediate implementation of the Social Security law;
- Legally guaranteed subsidised food for all through the PDS
- Decent housing for all;
- Public transport, to make travel safe for women and children;
- Schemes for crèche, childcare and children’s education;
- Equal right to property;
- Both parents to have equal rights in naming of a child;
- Immediate and proper implementation of the Domestic Violence Act;