#iwd2918

This Thursday, 8th March 2018, I and many other women and nonbinary people in the UK and around the world will be on strike. I will strike in two ways: 

1) Wage strike - I will withdraw my labour from my place of waged work 2) Solidarity and renewal strike - I will strike in solidarity with other women, amplifying and contributing materially to their struggles

1) Wage strike My employer, a university, plays a part in a larger dispute that UCU has with Universities UK over pension cuts, which has led to a strike. On 8th March it is likely that the UCU strike will enter its 9th day. At the time I write this, and at the time I made the decision to strike, my employer was threatening staff working to contract as part of the industrial action with a 25% pay cut. On international women’s day, in a university in which there is a huge amount of low-paid female labour, a gender pay gap, a university where many administrators who do essential work, like me, are women, I cannot give my labour to an institution that treats its workers like this. In solidarity with my colleagues in UCU, I withdraw my labour from the university for one day, and on this day I will continue to show my solidarity to colleagues on picket lines and in teach-outs. 2) Solidarity and renewal strike For this one day, then, I give my labour and my energy to others who are struggling in some of the following ways:

·       I will demonstrate in solidarity with the women in Yarl’s Wood detention centre who are on hunger and work strike, who are being threatened with deportation, and to women in detention everywhere. I want an end to immigration detention with no exceptions.

·       I will wear black and in solidarity with those struggling for reproductive justice everywhere, particularly the fight for abortion rights in Ireland, Poland and Argentina. I want reproductive justice for all.

·       I will read, write and share information about trans and non-binary people who face multiple oppressions and discrimination, much of it rooted in misogyny and transmisogyny. I will in particular share the work of trans women and transfeminine people. I want people to be free to self-define their gender and have the health and care support they need to do so.

·       I will publicise support initiatives run by or with women whose work is too essential and/ or precarious to be on strike at this time, and to organisations who are participating in the Sex Worker Strike in the UK. I want full decriminalisation of sex work. 

In terms of material support, I will split my day’s wage (about £55) among organisations which are part of the above initiatives.

Some comrades in Plan C and in many other organisations in the UK and further abroad have been organising around broadening the Women’s Movement through the Women’s Strike. In London and Birmingham, there will be strike assemblies and actions throughout the day – please come and take part if you are there. We are trying to understand how we might strike – how we can socialise a strike – in this world of precarious and scarce work, and still have time for dreaming and making the dreams happen. This movement must be inclusive of all women and nonbinary people. I also want to say how much I realise the limitations of the ability to withdraw your labour, especially unwaged labour, and that these abilities are often very compromised by race and or class. In the hierarchies of womanhood, I am often very much near the top, and on this day I will keep trying to find ways for power to be more equally shared among women.

Please join me in whatever way you feel you can.

#iwd2018 #womensstrike #socialstrike #whyistrike