Three years ago, a women’s group in Galway, Ireland, a small town in the west of the tiny country, called for womento stop work on International Women’s Day. Women all over Ireland held a strike to end conditions of no pay, low payand too much work for women all over the world.

A few months later, the Irish women leaders approached the International Wages for Housework Campaign at a U.N.meeting in New York, and the strike went global. Women in 60 countries took part in the first ever Global Women’sStrike on March 8, 2000, demanding pay equity and wages for all “caring work,” the abolition of Third World debt,access to clean water and affordable housing, and an end to violence against women. Today we are going to go to someof the women across the world, holding a global strike for International Working Women’s Day.

We go first to Margaretta D’arcy, who is one of the founders of the global women’s strike. She is leading a ten-hourrally and vigil in Galway and they are sending a message of “sweeping out” corporate greed and unequal treatment.

Guests:

• Margaretta D’arcy, (Galway, Ireland), Women In Media & Entertainment, global women’s strike organizer.
• Nina Lopez Jones, (London), coordinator with the Housewives Union, the group that’s coordinating thestrike in Argentina.
• Manju Gardia, (Chattesgar state, India), Chattesgar Women’s Organization.
• Lori Nairne, (San Francisco) global women’s strike coordinator, organizer with the group Wages DueLesbians, part of the Wages for Housework campaign.

Related links:

• 3rd Global Women’s Strike
• InternationalWages for Housework Campaign