Bail Out Workers, Not Corporations

    Under the shadow of financial crisis, International Women's Day 2009 is being commemorated with the reality that millions of women workers lost their jobs.
    The prosperity promised by profit-driven capitalist system has resulted in debt-ridden lives, environmental destruction, energy and food crises that entwine in vicious cycles of each other. Indulging more in neoliberalism will not save the people.
    An immediate and unconditional halt to all free trade agreements, together with the allocation of insurance funds for displaced workers, nationalising of privatised public utilities and services, development of employment opportunities at home for returning migrant workers, and debt cancellation are needed to bail out suffering workers– the real victims of this global financial tsunami.
    The statement is in English. Summary translation in Thai is available for download.

CAW welcome our new EXCO Menaha Kandasamy, President of Red Flag Women's Movement, Sri Lanka; and three new member groups: Red Flag Women's Movement(Sri Lanka), Thai Labour Campaign(Thailand) and KASBI(Indonesia).

Formal Economy

Universities call to respond to Russell Athletic Factory Closure
Sportswear supplier Russell Athletic is facing growing pressure from students and other anti-sweatshop activists and US and Canadian universities to get serious about remediating well-documented violations of workers’ rights at its recently closed Jerzees de Honduras factory in Choloma, Honduras. In response to reports from separate investigation...
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23 views,·March 19th, 2009

Rights in Conflict and Suppression

The Political Rape of Elizabeth Wong
No question – the vicious attack on the integrity of the popular and dedicated state assemblywoman Elizabeth Wong – is an example of how women politicians are maliciously victimised. The attack on her personal life illustrates the challenges that women face when entering the public arena and the dirty tactics that are used to discredit them. [....
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320 views,·February 19th, 2009

Migration and Labour

Asian Migrant Women are Vulnerable to HIV
Women migrants from Asia are finding themselves “highly vulnerable” to HIV infections amid the global financial crisis, a United Nations study said Tuesday. The crisis has led to massive job cuts and the “situation of migrant workers is under threat,” according to the study, released in Manila by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP...
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30 views,·March 20th, 2009

Informal Economy

Domestic Workers Union Leader Attacked in Greece
On 27 December 2008, members of Panattic Union of Cleaners and Domestic Personnel in Greece occupied the headquarters of ISAP (Athens Piraeus Electric Railway) demanding justice to the general secretary of their union, Konstantina Kuneva. Konstantina was suffering serious sight and respiration system injuries and under the care of the Intensive Care Unit. She was [...]...
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137 views,·February 5th, 2009

Trade and Labour

India postpones FTA with ASEAN
Six years of negotiations have yet to convince India to sign a much-awaited free trade deal with ASEAN, as scheduled last week during the group’s summit. India would only ink a deal after it concludes its April general elections. The delay came as a surprise because the country confirmed early this year it would proceed with the [...]...
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64 views,·March 10th, 2009

Campaigns

Campaign for Domestic Workers
Campaign for Domestic Workers There are more than 100 million domestic workers worldwide. They are also known as ‘servants’, ‘domestic helpers’, ‘nannies’, ‘cooks’, ‘housekeepers’, ‘cleaners’, among other names. They work more than 10 hours a day in poor or slavelike conditions; most are abused, underpaid, underfed and overworked. They have no opportunities to study or deve...
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496 views,·November 18th, 2008