Global Women's Strike

Last updated

The Global Women's Strike is a movement that seeks to value all women's work and all women's lives around the world. Many countries (including Guyana, Haiti, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Italy, [1] Peru, Luxembourg and Ireland) actively participate in this campaign in an effort to grant women justice for their unacknowledged contribution in the labor force.

Contents

Background

Poster of a demonstration connected to the 8 March 2017 strike in Turin (Italy). SCIOPEROGLOBALEDELLEDONNE Turin Italy 2017.jpg
Poster of a demonstration connected to the 8 March 2017 strike in Turin (Italy).

Women and girls perform nearly two-thirds of the work in most given households. This work includes physical labor such as washing dishes, doing laundry, vacuuming, etc. but also emotional labor such as sending out birthday cards, organizing family vacations, preparing for holidays, etc. Much of this work in the household, while at times is referred to as a "second shift," remains unpaid. It is also not included in a country's gross national product or gross domestic product, although women's unpaid labor is estimated at nearly $11 trillion. Many of the women engaged in this campaign argue that a large portion of this problem can be traced back to the military-industrial complex. Over $1 trillion a year is spent on the military worldwide, owing a large portion of this spending to the United States. If 10% of this money was circulated back into the community, it could be used to provide essentials for living: water, basic health care, sanitation, nutrition programs, literacy programs, minimum wage. The Global Women's Strike, which is a result of the International Wages for Housework Campaign started by Selma James in 1972, seeks the recognition and payment for all caring work and the return of military spending to the community through a policy of "Invest in Caring, Not Killing". [2] [3]

Goals

The goals of the global campaign are:

Related Research Articles

Feminist economics Gender-aware branch of economics

Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitioners. Much feminist economic research focuses on topics that have been neglected in the field, such as care work, intimate partner violence, or on economic theories which could be improved through better incorporation of gendered effects and interactions, such as between paid and unpaid sectors of economies. Other feminist scholars have engaged in new forms of data collection and measurement such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), and more gender-aware theories such as the capabilities approach. Feminist economics is oriented towards the goal of "enhancing the well-being of children, women, and men in local, national, and transnational communities."

Payroll List of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive

In treasury management, a payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks performed, payroll can also refer to a company's records of payments that were previously made to employees, including salaries and wages, bonuses, and withheld taxes, or the company's department that deals with compensation. One way that payroll can be handled is in-house, meaning that a company handles all aspects of the payroll process on its own, including timesheets, calculating wages, producing paychecks, sending the ACH, for any direct deposits, and remitting any tax payments necessary. Payroll can also be outsourced to a full-service payroll processing company. When a company chooses to outsource their payroll, timesheets, wage calculations, creating paychecks, direct deposits, and tax payments can be handled all, or in part, by the payroll company.

Salary

A salary is a form of payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour, or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. From the point of view of running a business, salary can also be viewed as the cost of acquiring and retaining human resources for running operations, and is then termed personnel expense or salary expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded on payroll accounts.

Working poor

The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.

Employee benefits Non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to normal wages or salaries

Employee benefits and benefits in kind include various types of non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. Instances where an employee exchanges (cash) wages for some other form of benefit is generally referred to as a "salary packaging" or "salary exchange" arrangement. In most countries, most kinds of employee benefits are taxable to at least some degree. Examples of these benefits include: housing furnished or not, with or without free utilities; group insurance ; disability income protection; retirement benefits; daycare; tuition reimbursement; sick leave; vacation ; social security; profit sharing; employer student loan contributions; conveyancing; long service leave; domestic help (servants); and other specialized benefits.

Compensation of employees (CE) is a statistical term used in national accounts, balance of payments statistics and sometimes in corporate accounts as well. It refers basically to the total gross (pre-tax) wages paid by employers to employees for work done in an accounting period, such as a quarter or a year.

Double burden Workload of people who both earn money and have significant domestic responsibilities

A double burden is the workload of people who work to earn money, but who are also responsible for significant amounts of unpaid domestic labor. This phenomenon is also known as the Second Shift as in Arlie Hochschild's book of the same name. In couples where both partners have paid jobs, women often spend significantly more time than men on household chores and caring work, such as childrearing or caring for sick family members. This outcome is determined in large part by traditional gender roles that have been accepted by society over time. Labor market constraints also play a role in determining who does the bulk of unpaid work.

In economics, personal income refers to an individual's total earnings from wages, investment enterprises, and other ventures. It is the sum of all the incomes received by all the individuals or household during a given period. Personal income is that income which is received by the individuals or households in a country during the year from all sources. In general, it refers to all products and money that you receive.

In economics, factor payments are the income people receive for supplying the factors of production: land, labor, capital or entrepreneurship.

Unpaid work

Unpaid labor is defined as labor that does not receive any direct remuneration. This is a form of 'non-market work' which can fall into one of two categories: (1) unpaid work that is placed within the production boundary of the System of National Accounts (SNA), such as gross domestic product (GDP), and (2) unpaid work that falls outside of the production boundary, such as domestic labor that occurs inside households for their consumption. Unpaid labor is visible in many forms and isn't limited to activities within a household. Other types of unpaid labor activities include volunteering as a form of charity work and interning as a form of unpaid employment.

Care work

Care work is a sub-category of work that includes all tasks that directly involve care processes done in service of others. It is often differentiated from other forms of work because it is considered to be intrinsically motivated, meaning that people are motivated to pursue care work for reasons other than financial compensation. Another factor that is often used to differentiate caring labor from other types of work is the motivating factor. This perspective defines care labor as labor undertaken out of affection or a sense of responsibility for other people, with no expectation of immediate pecuniary reward. Regardless of motivation, care work includes care activities done for pay as well as those done without remuneration.

The economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the United States is challenging to measure, and politically contentious. Research shows that undocumented immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy/contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services. Economists estimate that legalization of the undocumented immigrant population would increase the immigrants' earnings and consumption considerably, and increase U.S. gross domestic product.

The International Wages for Housework Campaign (IWFHC) is a grassroots women's network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work, in the home and outside. It was started in 1972 by Selma James who first put forward the demand for wages for housework at the third National Women's Liberation Conference in Manchester, England. The IWFHC state that they begin with those with least power internationally – unwaged workers in the home, and unwaged subsistence farmers and workers on the land and in the community. They consider the demand for wages for unwaged caring work to be also a perspective and a way of organizing from the bottom up, of autonomous sectors working together to end the power relations among them.

In Russia the wage gap exists and statistical analysis shows that most of it cannot be explained by lower qualifications of women compared to men. On the other hand, occupational segregation by gender and labor market discrimination seem to account for a large share of it.

A moneyless economy or non-monetary economy is a system for the allocation of goods and services as well as for the assignment of work without payment of money. The simplest example is the family household, which can be a system of obligations nevertheless.

Fight for $15 Political movement in the United States

The Fight for $15 is an American political movement advocating for the minimum wage to be raised to $15 per hour. The federal minimum wage was last set at $7.25 per hour in 2009. The movement has involved strikes by child care, home healthcare, airport, gas station, convenience store, and fast food workers for increased wages and the right to form a labor union. The "Fight for $15" movement started in 2012, in response to workers' inability to cover their costs on such a low salary, as well as the stressful work conditions of many of the service jobs which pay the minimum wage.

The valuation of nonmarket housework comprises attempts to attach value to non-exchange domestic tasks. Housework may include a variety of activities, particularly those traditionally associated with housekeeping, along with child care and nurturing. These activities have recognizable economic and social significance, but are not included in standard economic measurements, such as the gross domestic product (GDP). While the symbolic or subjective benefits of housework are difficult to measure, various attempts have been made to attach value to economically productive household activity.

Gender pay gap in India refers to the difference in earnings between women and men in the paid employment and labor market. For the year 2013, the gender pay gap in India was estimated to be 24.81%. Further, while analyzing the level of female participation in the economy, this report slots India as one of the bottom 10 countries on its list. Thus, in addition to unequal pay, there is also unequal representation, because while women constitute almost half the Indian population, their representation in the work force amounts to only about one-fourth of the total.

Economic policy of the Joe Biden administration Wikipedia list article

The economic policy of the Joe Biden administration, or "Bidenomics" is characterized by goals to increase the national minimum wage and expand worker training, narrow income inequality, invest in clean energy and infrastructure, expand access to affordable healthcare, and forgive student loan debt. The March 2021 enactment of the American Rescue Plan to provide relief from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the first major element of the policy.

References

  1. "8 marzo, sarà sciopero 'globale': donne in marcia in 40 Paesi del mondo", article by Maria Novella Deluca on the 8-3-2107 issue of La Repubblica , see www.repubblica.it
  2. 100 Women: Should mothers get living wage?, 23 October 2013 article on www.bbc.co.uk
  3. "Stop the world and change it: the global women's strike", The Guardian , 7 March 2000.
  4. The No-nonsense Guide to Women's Rights, p. 127; Nikki van der Gaag, Verso, 2004.


Examples around the World