Call for a general strike in all industries March 8, 2019

Original text [PDF]

On March 8, 2017 and again in 2018, after the call of “Not one less,” a general strike was called in more than 55 countries, underlining, if necessary, that the struggle of women has a fundamental rightness. The Italian Sindicalist Union (Unione Sindacale Italiana, USI) always adhered to the call and called for the strike.

In Italy, one in three women between 16 and 70 years has been the victim of a man’s violence. Almost seven million women have suffered physical and sexual violence. Each year 200 women are murdered by the husband, the boyfriend, the ex partner. One million and 400 thousand women have suffered sexual violence before the age of 16. One million women have suffered rape or attempted rape. 420 thousand women have suffered sexual harassment and blackmail in their place of work. Less than half of adult women are employed in the regular labor market. Wage discrimination is between 20 and 40%, depending on the profession. One third of women workers leave paid work for motherhood.

The strike is the response to all forms of violence that systematically affect our lives as women, in the family, at work, on the streets, in hospitals, in schools, inside and outside borders.

Within the framework of the INTERNATIONAL STRIKE OF WOMEN on March 8, the USI calls for a general strike in all industries for the 24 hours of March 8, 2019 against sexist violence against women.

We strike against:

• structural violence, which denies women freedom
• the rise of the reactionary right that makes a patriarchal and racist pact with neoliberalism;
• the “Pillon” bill on separation and custody, which attacks women, instrumentalizing their children;
• the “Salvini” law, which impedes the freedom and self-determination of immigrants of all genders, legitimizing racist violence;
• the attacks on the “gender ideology”, which are just an attempt to impose patriarchal ideology in the schools and universities;
• the “citizenship income” based on the family, a lie that will force women to remain poor and to work under any condition and under the oppressive control of the state;
• the false flexibility of maternity leave, which continues to be borne solely by mothers in the care of their children.

We fight for:

• self-determination income;
• European minimum wage and universal welfare;
• Abortion: safe, without cost, and without restriction;
• autonomy and freedom of choice of women over their lives;
• redistribution of reproductive work;
• for all women the freedom to go where they want without fear, to move around or stay put;
• European residence permit without conditions.

Italian Sindicalist Union – USI

Also available in: Español (Spanish)