Three Voices from the International Women Workers' Day: CNT, FAU and NGWF

Each year on March 8, female union members worldwide celebrate the international women-workers' day, e.g. the CNT-IWA published a brochure titled La Mujer en el s.XXI: Reivindicaciones, propuestas y experiencias desde un prisma libertario, FAU Nürnberg participated in an emancipatory demonstration and comrades from the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF) in Bangladesh invited several people to a discussion in Dhaka including the Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Barrister Shafique Ahmed. On a bright morning in Dhaka, people saw a colourful demonstration including huge „women-worker“ banners made by NGWF members. General secretary Amirul Haque Amin demanded equal rights for women in the public and private sector. In return, Bangladesh's minister promised to ensure 6-month paid maternity leave for women workers in private sectors and that he is going to take immediate initiatives to establish Daycare Centres for workers' children in garment factories, safe delivery health centres and schools for workers' children in RMG industrial areas.

In addition, the NGWF, BNC and ITGLWF led by Brother Neil Kearney placed the proposal, for the first time in Bangladesh, to set up a permanent Trust Fund following the April 11 (2005) tragic Spectrum Garment building collapse that killed 63 and injured over a 100 workers. Barrister Shafique pledged that the Government would take initiative to create a Trust Fund, which would be constituted with contributions from the Government, factory owners and buyers, for the welfare of garment workers. Such a fund was created last year in the road transport sector in Bangladesh.

Jatiya Sramik League General Secretary Roy Romesh Chandra criticized the fundamentalist forces in Bangladesh for threatening to enforce hartal (general strike) program against equal rights of the women. “The female workers of the RMG sector will take out broom-procession to resist the fundamentalist forces if the rightists were not shun their conspiracies against equal rights of the women in Bangladesh,” he said.

CNT Spain published a brochure titled Woman in the 21st century: Demands, proposals and experiences from a libertarian perspective (orig.: La Mujer en el s.XXI: Reivindicaciones, propuestas y experiencias desde un prisma libertario). With its content, the brochure covers a large number of libertarian insights for women in the 21. century. You’ll find it for free at CNT’s Homepage (see text’s cited). Here is its content translated into English.
Chapter 1. Iconoclast (orig.: Iconoclasta) by Ana Otero. During years, decades and longer measures of time women, generation after generation, have fought and are still fighting for the sake of gender progress.

Chapter 2. Women and war (orig.: Las Mujeres y la Guerra) by Prado Esteban. Militarism, imperial feminism and biopolitics in the 21st century. The so-called "feminist achievements" in the last decades are, in fact, biopolitical impositions based on military needs. The incorporation of women into the capitalist labour market was the indispensable condition for the growth of the State which needed to re-double its income by means of taxes. The radical division between the popular movement of women and institutional feminism also lies on denouncing all mechanisms imposed by the system by means of the so-called welfare state which are used to subjugate women under its patronage with ends of political domination and military use of women.

Chapter 3. March 8th: Working Women's Day (orig.: Marzo: Día de la Mujer Trabajadora) by Ana Sigüenz. After one hundred years working women still have to fight against the unfair distribution of wealth.

Chapter 4. The brief story of History (La pequeña historia de la Historia) by Ellison Moorehead. Don't tell him everything what you think, my mother advises me. Men are scared by determined women; sad, she says, but it's so.

Chapter 5. Equal under the crisis! Equal in the struggle! (orig.: ¡Iguales en la crisis!) by Secretaría de Acción Social del Secretariado Permanente del Comité Confederal de la CNT, March 8th, 2011, Working Women's Day. The reform of the retirement system is the best example to clearly observe that inequality between men and women is still constant and, therefore, a target to be destroyed.

Chapter 6. March 8th: Working Women's Day (orig.: 8 de Marzo: Día de la Mujer Trabajadora) by CNT Córdoba. Working women of the Cotton factory in New York demonstrated through the streets demanding the 8 hour working day.

Chapter 7. CNT and Anarcha-Feminism (orig.: La CNT y el anarcofeminismo) by CNT Villaverde. As working women fighting to dignify our life regarding our personal, social and labour situation, we must join forces and help each other against the competitive spirit inspired by neoliberalism.

FAU Nürnberg, a syndicate from Germany's southern region, did not remain voiceless on March, 8th. They formed an alliance together with anticapitalist, antifascist and emancipatory groups, such as Internationale Frauencafe, Feliara, Internationale Frauen- und Mädchenzentrum oder Vertreterinnen der Stadtfrauenkonferenz zur Vorbereitung der Weltfrauenkonferenz in Venezuela. Its name is “8. March Alliance” (orig: „8. März Bündnis“). By forming such an alliance, they got the opportunity to express the necessity of fights of women-workers in different fields while at the same time informing others about their specific interests. But they still come along united.


The demonstration begun at a central place demanding self-determination and criticizing cuts as the city of Nürnberg primarily cuts women’s and girl’s projects. It did also criticize a special kind of pop-culture which defines itself by sexist, misogynist and discriminating lyrics - a tendency to be found in advertisement too.

After a short march, the demonstration stopped at the central station to demand equal rights for homosexuals. It remains a taboo in Germany and homophobia is widely spreaded among the people. Women should determine their sexuality by themselves and patriachal gender roles need to be abandoned now. 

Capitalism exploits women more than men because many women have to take care of reproductive work (children, housework) and common work. Gender relations need to be connected to capitalist societies. Conclusively, let’s throw capitalism and patriarchy into the dustbin of history.

The demonstration ended at a church. The demonstration’s final words were about the origins of the women workers' day. Clara Zetkin, communist and suffragette, demanded such a day in 1910. Since then, lesbians and women appear on the streets to fight against patriarchy, violence and sexism.

Women - fight back!

Our struggle is international!

Against exploitation and suppression!

Works Cited

Jeder Tag ist ein Frauenkampftag! in: Bündnis 8. März Homepage, 14.03.2011.
Mujer en el s.XXI: Reivindicaciones, propuestas y experiencias desde un prisma libertario. in: CNT Homepage, 07.03.2011.
NGWF Press Release. in: FAU-Intern, 13.03.2011.

Author: diup