Miners' wives lead the way
Labour Party's constitution to allow positive discrimination for women inside the
The NUM was the only major inparty.
union to support the women's dustrial
If the women's demands that demands.
five seats on the Labour Party's ruling body (the NEC) be reserved solely for
In October 1942, outside the small Bolivian town of Oruro, a miners' women are met, it is likely that the NEC wife, Maria Barzola, and hundreds of her followers were shot by the would go suddenly to the left.
The dearmy on a demonstration to protest the low level of miners' wages.
mand thus threatens the current Labour
60-year old Maria, who was leading the demonstration, became a heroine
Party leadership in a rather dramatic of her people and is a symbol of the fight of silver, tin and copper miners'
This is, of course, the same Labour way.
wives throughout Boliva which continues unabated to this day.
Party leadership that is currently trying to sell the miners' strike down the river.
wives organisations have existed in Bolivia since 1946 and are now a permanent feature. Known as Amas de casa Committees and head-
The link between the miners' struggle and ed by a permanent national structure, they the struggle of women here is obvious.
mainly around the question of food and prices.
The miners' wives actions have highlighted this.
But if these women's example is really to take firm roots in the British and, indeed, in the international women's that the movement, it is important miner's do not simply wives groups disappear as quickly as they have come.
Kay Suteliffe explained that in Kent some members of her group had been dis-
"This is something we were cussing this:
Whether talking about the other night.
we will stay as a women's group, or whether we will affiliate to the Labour
Party, because the Labour Party would like us to work with them. But I think that the women themselves would work better being independent, and maybe joining the Labour Party if they wanted as individuals....There are a lot of women joining the Labour Party already?
But it seems that whatever happens these women will not be simply "returning to the kitchen sink'.
Betty
Heathfield is a member of the national women's coordinating group that has been set up out of the strike and she explained that 'No union or strike will ever be the same again. Now we need to get the wives of dockers, railway workers
Antonio MORENO
In each mining community in Bolivia, there is a pulperia (grocery store) which is owned by whoever owns the mine whether that be a private company or the government itself. Such stores have a monopoly and there are frequent shortages of basic commodities and price rises caused by spiralling inflation. In such cases the 'amas de casa' committees usually organise to demand action from the local union, sometimes turning out onto the streets of the campamento (community or village) and marching to where the union meetings are held.
But the women do not just meet when there is something pressing like this to discuss. In many areas they will meet two or three times a week to discuss various day-to-day issues ranging from education, sickness and health, work with the local peasant women, etc. In many cases they are better organised than the men and nowadays many of the Hunger strike in La Paz (DR)
began to organise women women attend the union branch meetings as well. In strike situations these organisations play a key role in mobilising the community in support of workers' demands.
In her book, Si me permitan hablar (Let me Speak), miner's wife Domitila describes her 'amas de casa' committee established in 1961 by sixty women whose miner husbands were all in jail at the time for trade-union activity. They got together to demand their husbands' release and the women mounted a hunger strike which was eventually successful. In the end, several hundred women began to come to the meetings and up to 5,000 were mobilised on demonstrations.
Domitila explains the impact that this had on the women themselves: women we had been raised from the cradle with the notion that women are only meant for the kitchen and to look after the children, that they are incapable of involving themselves in important and lorry drivers involved.
We've got a effort underway national coordinating now because during the strike women
ORGANIZACIONE have changed a lot... we have become political animals...?
Through their actions, the miners'
FEMENINAS wives galvanised the British women's movement and have become a vital component of its future. The role that they have mapped out for women within the struggle for jobs and against austerity is PULARE: one that may be copied elsewhere.
In so doing, they have helped to raise the voice of feminism and feminist demands within the Labour movement, and will hopefully continue to do so. But perhaps the most important thing they have achieved is to show that today the labour and trade-union movement cannot fight the capitalist class alone — a strong and independent women's movement is not a side issue but a decisive one in the battles ahead. 16
International Viewpoint 11 March 1985
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BOLIVIA- BARRIOS
Above all, they should not be al-
With the establishment of the miners' polities.'
The national organisation of miners* wives has now been meeting regularly for the last four or five years and have links with the unions nationally also.
Miners' wives representatives were present at the last congress of the COB (the
August 6 (See International Viewpoint, work.
lowed to take an interest in wives committees all this began to change. Bolivian trade-union confederation) on No 63, November 12, 1984).
In fact, as the crisis in Bolivia mounts and the struggle of the workers' organisations intensifies, the role of the women in general and the miners' wives organisations in particular is becoming more and more crucial.
Inflation in the country is now rampant. In October 1982, for example, there were 44 pesos to one American dol-
Currently, there are 45,000 pesos to the dollar.
In recent weeks the COB has issued a call to all women in Bolivia to organise exactly as the miners' wives are organised in their communities and to take on the organisation and distribution food. They are suggesting that local women's committees should take over the private and state-owned food storage depots and sell food at the legal prices as opposed to the prices dictated by inflation or by profiteers and gangsters.
If women do begin to organise on this
MEXICO -
Mexican women fight for their rights (DR)