“Jails, CIES, raids and borders,
this is how European wealth is built!”
Tens of thousands of women across Catalonia
took to the streets on International Women's Day.
The Spanish CGT union called for a general strike
on this day that celebrates and honors
the struggle of women around the world.
Picket lines, marches and protests of all kinds
took place throughout the day.
One of the companies
that manages social services for the Barcelona City Council
saw its offices occupied by a group of its female workers.
We are on strike today,
because we are several services here.
To begin with, some companies, such as Grupo Cinco,
are paying salaries under the collective labor
agreement to our female colleagues.
Others are here because, for example, during
our pregnancies, we have to work on the streets, at night,
in dangerous places, and we have to be on the streets
until we are 30 weeks pregnant.
When we asked for family reconciliation
we have received coercive calls from the company.
We are also fighting for
the municipalization of these services.
This is to demand better conditions and
to be more recognized as women.
About 70% of the managers
of these services are men and the majority
of the workforce, the technicians, are women.
So that is why we are here today.
Schools, colleges and universities also called
for an education strike by students and teachers
taking to the streets in a march that took place at noon.
Demands included coeducation
under equality principles
the end of discrimination based on sex, gender
or identities in schools, as well as equality in access
to management positions and university chairs.
Women represent
the majority 55% of the university population.
However, that percentage decreases
when it comes to chairs of which only 21% are women.
In Spain's 50 public universities,
there are only 11 women at the head of these institutions.
The education sector
is the most precarious
because its services are privatized, for example,
the lunchroom monitors, the special needs students’
caregivers are all privatized.
This is very precarious and has consequences
in the quality of the service.
That is why we are on strike.
Also because we have a regulation
called the Staffing Decree, which allows the public administration
to handpick the teachers.
So pregnant and lactating women are discriminated against.
Also because we had a co-education program
in different schools called COEDUCA’T
and due to pressure from the far right,
who asked for the withdrawal of these materials,
the Department of Education
has withdrawn the materials on sexual affective education.
The university world is also a very precarious world
at the level of the teaching staff,
60% of the staff is precarious, they have precarious, temporary
contracts, with very low salaries and
then when it comes to students, of course,
they find that the teaching staff is unmotivated,
in addition to the abusive fees.
We really don’t have a public university
in this country, and it is very expensive.
Also in the case of universities, since it is a very
hierarchical system, we find abuses of power by some
professors or against female students, especially in PhD programs,
and there are cases of sexual and workplace harassment
that are being covered up by the universities.
They are well known situations where charges have been filed,
and the university drags out the process.
Dragging it out makes it look
like there will be a resolution.
That resolution never comes.
And in the meantime,
the faculty is free to do as they please.
At the CGT strike, protesters demanded
their repeal of the Labor Reform and Immigration Law,
as well
as the end of privatization, discrimination and employment,
layoffs and difficulties in work and family life conciliation.
According to a report prepared by LinkedIn
and the World Economic Forum,
women in Spain are 65% less likely to be promoted
in the labor market than men. According to the same study.
Only six out of every hundred CEOs in Spain are women.
We have called for a general strike because women are
in charge of paid and unpaid care
and despite the progress made in recent times, we continue
to suffer from precariousness in a more crude way
and inequalities continue to
exist that make it difficult for
us to have the same opportunities.
We demand a dignified life,
free of wage gap, gender violence,
harassment of any kind,
especially gender-based,
human trafficking, exploitation of other people’s bodies
and demand recognition for care work
which is of crucial importance in our society.
We demand conciliation policies against the firing
of pregnant women and nursing mothers,
decent and adapted working hours
and a distribution of wealth
to reduce the disparity which also
affects women, who make up 70% of people under the poverty threshold.
It is important for women to join a union
because we have been taught to stand alone, to be able
to handle everything and not to raise our voices.
Affiliation allows us to
defend our rights together
with the union structure behind us
and through mutual support,
lose our fear and feel that
we are not alone.
Female pensioners are among those most affected
by gender inequality, as many of them never worked
paid jobs and devoted themselves
to their families and household care.
In Spain, the gender gap in pensions currently stands
at 33%, with men receiving an average of €1,439
compared to the €966 received by women.
We talk about energy poverty because there are many
women pensioners or retired women who
had never worked in their lives because they had dedicated
themselves to taking care of their families,
who find themselves in a situation of helplessness,
earning very little, who cannot even have electricity
or be able to pay the minimum expenses.
In other words, a total wage gap.
Women who are left alone, women who are widowed,
have a miserable pension that they cannot even live on.
So, today and every day of the year, we must continue to
take to the streets and fight for the whole
issue of the pension plan and for dignity in life.
And young people, especially women, it continues to
be the women who are responsible for all the care work
in society in general, not only for
our children, but also for the elderly and dependents.
All jobs related to family independent care
fall on women.
The special system
for domestic employees is a largely feminized sector
in Spain, 95.5% of the more than 376,000
members as of January 31st, 2022, are women.
Despite being covered under Convention
189 of the International Labor Organization,
domestic workers in Spain are not allowed to pay
unemployment contributions.
According to data collected by Oxfam Intermon in 2021,
56% of all domestic and care workers in
Spain are migrant women.
It is estimated
that 70,000 of these women are in an irregular situation.
The independent unions Sindillar-Sindihogar
was created in Barcelona to combat this situation.
Sindillar-Sindihogar is a
union of domestic and care workers.
Our pillars are to seek better
conditions for domestic and care workers,
the repeal of the Immigration Law,
which keeps us in a precarious situation
and which also affects
our lives as soon as we arrive as migrant women.
Our banner says “No 8M without 30M” because March 30th is
the International Day of Domestic and Care Workers.
There is no feminism
if it is not a feminism
that is anti-capitalist, anti-racist, decolonial, etc.
This year the Congress was supposed to ratify ILO
Convention 189, but it turns out that the Spanish Constitution
does not allow domestic and care workers
to be included in the general regime until 2024.
We are now in a special regime in
which we are not allowed to take maternity leave,
we are not allowed to have a pension,
we are not allowed to take sick leave.
So our main demands are
the repeal of the Immigration Law,
the ratification of ILO Convention 189, but a real one.
They are not going to make laws to harm their
own economy, their economy
is much larger than ours,
because sometimes they want to pay
€3 per hour, sometimes they want to pay €600 per month
for a person who is working as an intern,
because they say “ah, since you live here,
then I discount your housing, I discount your food and
then with that it would be about €1,100”
But they do not take into account that the workers,
especially those who are interns, work 24 hours a day.
We are an independent union because we do not receive government help.
We weave this network together,
we build together, we support each other,
most of us are migrant women
with and without legal papers,
with or without regular administrative status,
but the most important thing
is that we are fighting for a dignified life so that
all women can have a dignified life here and wherever we are.
After the massive march that brought
more than 60,000 people together in Barcelona
this day of general strike in Catalonia came to an end.
Although no other strikes were called for
in other regions of Spain,
thousands of women took to the streets to fight
for their rights.
“Long live the transfeminist fight!”