Working – unemployed -self-employed – farmers – young – immigrant women,

The 8^th of March is not a typical anniversary dedicated to women. It is the day that marks the struggles of the working women, the women of the popular strata, for their liberation and their emancipation from exploitation and oppression by the capitalist employers and of all kinds of prejudice against them. It is a day, lesson for our generation and for the future ones, which shows the path of the militant demand for all those that belong to us, but we are deprived of. Against a system that wants us half-working, half-unemployed depending on the needs of the monopolies every time. In any case, what they want us, is being cheap labour force.

Today, more than ever before, the struggles of the past must become lightning examples for the struggles of today and the struggles of the future. We must be inspired and take example from the working women in textile who in 1857 New York City struggled for better working conditions, decent wages, less working hours. We must be inspired and take example from the thousands of the working women, the women farmers who were present in all the struggles of the labour and popular movement, in all the historical periods of our country, some of them, even by sacrificing their lives.

Thus today, there is no room for complacency and waiting. We must decisively, militantly respond in a pioneer way to the endless war that the government, the E.U., the IMF, the parties of the plutocracy have declared against us, so that the capitalists to overcome the crisis as painlessly as possible, by abolishing conquests and rights. No woman is in excess in the struggle for a future where our children and us, will get rid of the sufferings of unemployment and insecurity, poverty, rottenness and corruption, for a future where education, jobs and prosperity will be provided to our children and to us, for a future where the working women and men together with the poor farmers and the self-employed will be in charge. This perspective will come as a result of hard struggles.

Women, we break the chains of fear

Organized struggle against the monopolies for their total overthrow

We do not submit to the blackmailing dilemmas, we do no compromise with the poverty that they condemn us; we do not bend our heads against the terrorism and oppression that the employers and the coalition-government have launched. We will not tolerate their effort to stop us with the riot police and tear gases, with the threat of dismissals and unemployment.

We owe it to our children and to ourselves. We have the duty to struggle for a future that will ensure a decent life to our children. We do not have the right to leave as a heritage to them salaries of 200 and 300 euros, pension at very old age, unemployment and insecurity, the unbearable tax-robbery and the lack of education, in order for the monopolies to profit.

We are called to take a big decision in today’s conditions, of the deep and prolonged capitalist crisis, to respond to the dilemmas. Are we going to stay closed in our houses and recycling disappointment and fatalism, or we are going to take our lives into our own hands? Are we going to submit to a life of slavery without rights, with intensification of exploitation and inequality for women, where the political servants of monopolies have lead us, or are we going to struggle for conquests of today and a life without exploitation of man by man for our families and for us?

It is in our own hands to change things, provided that we will believe in our strength. We can win, as long as we stand up against the monopolies and their unions, the E.U. the European Central Bank, the IMF, as long as we say disengagement from this wolf pack, with unilateral cancellation of the debt, as long as the people will take the tools of the economy and power into their own hands.

We have to get rid of those who leave us without jobs, without electricity, without heating, without bread on the table, without doctors and medicines, without schools for our children, without perspective for the young women and men of the popular families. We must get rid of the capitalists.

We are not alone. We have the Social Alliance with us, the forces of resistance, of counterattack and of the class conflict which are integrated in PAME, PASEVE, PASY, OGE, MAS and struggle every day against the policies that degrade us and against the sold-out trade union leaders of the governmental and employers’ trade unionism, who support these policies. We have the Popular Committees in the neighbourhoods, expression of the Social Alliance. We need to meet there and fight so that the alliance of the people will strengthen in the neighbourhoods, with our participation and action in our trade unions, the Women’s Associations of OGE, the agricultural associations of PASY, the struggle committees of self-employed of PASEVE and the students of MAS.

The satisfaction of the needs of our families must become our flag. The capitalist system has proven that neither can, nor wants to satisfy them. We must aim for another power and economy, for another society, where the right to live and to work will be nonnegotiable.

We immediately demand:

• Full-time and steady jobs for all.Ensure 7hour workday, 5 days – 35hour working week. No to the abolition of Sunday as a day off.

• No to the abolition of the Collective Contracts. Signing of National General Collective Contract and branch contracts that will satisfy our contemporary needs.

• Pension at 60 years of age for men and 55 for women. For those occupations categorized as heavy and unwholesome 5 years earlier. All the laws which attack the social security system must be abolished.

• The head fines and the tax-robbery must be abolished.

• Substantial protection of the unemployed by extending the duration of the unemployment benefits and raising it. The unemployment benefits to be granted for all the unemployed, without terms and conditions.

• Free and full coverage of medical care for all the unemployed and uninsured, including their families, without terms and conditions.

• Substantial protection of maternity for all the women who work, either they are employees, or self-employed, or farmers during pregnancy and lactation.

• State owned, free nurseries and kindergartens, family planning centres. Exclusively free and public Education.