5th March 2014 To All Affiliates in BWI Asia Pacific Region Re: 2014 Celebration of International Women’s Day Below is the BWI Global Statement for the 2014 IWD: STATEMENT OF BUILDING AND WOOD WORKERS INTERNATIONAL (BWI) ON THE 2014 CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: CALLING UPON ALL ITS AFFILIATES ON BUILDING WOMEN POWER THROUGH UNIONS The Building and Wood Workers International recognise that women workers in the BWI sectors throughout the world are still lagged in precarious forms of work and are often paid less than their male counterparts with very little social benefits. The BWI and its affiliates have been working to address problems faced by women workers and the prevailing gaps across regions to overcome socio-economic and cultural factors that limit women from increasing their economic and social power. On the occasion of celebrating International Women’s Day, BWI call all its affiliates to reaffirm its commitment to continue working for greater visibility and participation of women in all its activities and structures at all levels – Building Women Power through Unions! BWI and all its affiliates should recognise that building women power through unions is embracing the reality that the current (and progressing) increase of women in the labourforce make women workers a strategic force to organise, that women’s leaders’ ideas and approaches on organising can be more innovative and inimitable, and that integrating women and gender is one way of reviving and making our unions stronger. The BWI Global Strategies adopted at the 3rd World Congress that was held in Bangkok strongly re-emphasized on the very basic and core of unions’ work – organising, negotiating and campaigning to ensure gender equality in the workplace, in trade unions, and in society. To realize these strategies, we call upon our affiliates: • To sharpen its focus and be more ambitious on demanding for women’s rights and to good working health and safety conditions as well as equal pay for work of equal value. • To be more inclusive on their organising approaches and with a conscious effort to prioritise on informal/ casual, migrant and young women workers. • To push their governments and employers for policies designed to increase employment of women in the workforce and particular occupations as well as develop appropriate welfare and social security programmes for women as an immediate economic relief to augment the low-skilled and low-paying jobs And we call upon the IWC, RWC, National Women Committees and all women leaders and members of BWI to proactively claim exclusive spaces for women within our own trade union structures. On this regard, we call upon all BWI affiliates in the Region to implement activities revolving around these CALLS on 8th March as a kick-off point, and these should be the guide for your gender activities for the rest of the years to the next BWI Global Congress in 2017. We will appreciate if you can send us regular brief reports of what you have done or accomplished pertaining to women and gender concerns. Yours in Solidarity, Fatimah Mohammad Chairperson BWI Asia Pacific Regional Women’s Committee
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:28:14 +0000
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