Areas of intervention/battles

The breakdown of battles in to national and international is indicative. We know there is overlap between the battlegrounds and the influence of actors at both levels.

Macroeconomic policies

At both national and international levels, we will unequivocally oppose prevailing macroeconomic models, policies and policy-making institutions that exploit women’s unrecognized and undervalued labour, restrict public expenditure, result in the downsizing of the public sector, and promote regressive forms of taxation. We will be calling for economic policies that promote economic justice and address structural inequalities, redistribute care work through social programmes, centre progressive taxation policies and social spending. In all this we will foreground increased participation of womxn – including formal and informal workers, feminist and women’s rights organizations – in economic decision-making

Gender- based violence at work

In our advocacy, we will support the ITUC campaign for the adoption, ratification and implementation of an ILO convention on GBV at work and we will will speak to violence targeted at specific groups of womxn workers at risk, such as those not adequately covered by labour laws and social protections, sex workers, domestic workers, public and emergency workers, as well as those targeted on the basis of their migrant status, age, race, caste, sexual orientation or gender identity.

International:
We will support the ITUC campaign for the ILO convention on GBV at Work
Build critical support for the adoption of an ILO Convention, accompanied by a Recommendation, on “Violence and harassment against womxn and men in the world of work”, with a strong focus on the gender dimension of violence in June 2019

National:
We will work with ITUC focal points and other allies and ask national governments to ratify and implement the convention.
We will also calls on governments to address sexual and gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work, in both formal and informal sectors, through passing and implementing appropriate laws and ensuring that no industries, sectors or corporations are exempted from national labour and women’s rights laws and standards.

Extension of social protections and international labour standards to informal workers
International:
We will defend social protection as a human right and demand universal social protection funded through progressive taxation and expansion of fiscal policy space.
We will oppose attacks on universal social protection by the IMF and the World Bank, including attempts to erode contributory social protection and attempts to promote minimal and targeted safety nets.
We will call for the integration of informal workers in comprehensive social protection policies and programmes
National:
We will call on governments to integrate informal workers in comprehensive social protection policies and programmes, including access to quality, universal health services, child benefits, maternity protections, housing, sanitation, education and training, income security and pensions.
We will stand with womxn informal workers and their organizations in demanding clean and safe work spaces, freedom from harassment by authorities, freedom to organize and collective bargaining among other decent work standards.

Minimum living wage and addressing the gender pay gap

International:
We will oppose all efforts of IFIs whether in policy documents or advice to national governments on deregulation and flexibilisation of the labour market, including propositions on lower or no minimum wage. We will demand the World Bank stop undermining the Decent Work agenda and States’ obligations to implement it.
National:
We will be calling on governments to set minimum wages that are living wages, based on the cost of living and allowing workers to live a life of dignity with adequate social protection systems.
We will also be calling for accelerated action to close the gender pay gap. This includes measures to enforce equal pay legislation, promote pay transparency, tackle occupational gender segregation and address women’s underrepresentation in managerial positions, combined with their over concentration in informal and precarious work and their disproportionate burden of unpaid care work.
Processes for setting, implementing and monitoring a living wage and addressing the gender pay gap must create space for dialogue with a range of social partners and for organizing and collective bargaining.

Public services and provisioning of care

We will call for the elimination of all barriers to equitable, universal access to quality gender responsive public services, and mainly the privatisation of public services, which not only cause further social exclusion but also increase the care burden on womxn, limiting their paid work options and ability to access decent work.
International
We will oppose efforts by IFIs to promote privatisation of public services, including through the Public Private Partnership model
We will demand doubling investment in the care economy to avert a looming global care crisis and tackle the huge disparity between women’s and men’s care responsibilities.
We will demand that governments and multilateral agencies and bilateral donors commit to doubling investment in education, health and the care economy and ensure that the 269 million jobs created meet decent work and core labour standards.
We will demand the scaling- up of public investment in provision of public infrastructure and services (transport, water, sanitation, health, child care) as a means to reduce women’s unpaid care burden and address the accompanying physical and safety vulnerabilities.

National
We will demand governments adopt an integrated approach to reducing and redistributing unpaid care and domestic work by developing care and other policies, including improving water provision, sanitation, access to energy (gas, electricity) and to efficient public transport, as well as providing better environment for care giving.
We will join with social, feminist and labour movements to demand an end to privatisaton and PPP models of service delivery.
We will demand governments provide universal gender responsive public services and end means tested and targeted delivery of public services.
We will demand governments extend social security, including public provisioning of care, maternity entitlements, care credits to womxn working in the informal sectors

womxn public sector workers

International:
We will oppose IFI’s continued efforts to downsize and undermine the public sector and policies attacking public sector workers, including through promotion of PPPs, contractualisation, wage bill spending cuts and caps, limiting labour protections and access to comprehensive social protection.
We will defend public sector and public services, and we will stand with womxn public sector workers who are disproportionately affected by the assault on public funding, labour rights and the reversal of collective bargaining gains. We will support their campaigns against privatisation, precarious work, workplace violence, sexual division of labour and gender pay gaps.
National:
We will call on governments to scale up investment in public services and support public sector workers’ demands to increase wages, end contractualisation and limitations on access to social security and benefits
We will support public sector womxn workers’ campaigns against privatisation, precarious work, workplace violence, sexual division of labour and gender pay gaps.