L WOMEN’S DAY _

It was the Women’s International
Democratic Federation (WIDF), em-
bracing progressive women from all
countries of the world and enjoying con-
Sultative status (B) in UNESCO, which
Initiated International Women’s Year,
proclaimed by the United Nations as the
year 1975, with the theme, Equality, De-
velopment, Peace. This initiative was
supported by the socialist community of
States. The inspiration for the United Na-
tions proclamation which focused world
attention for the equality of women, did
not come about spontaneously.

Indeed it was an historic year and
shows a notable advance in the struggle
for women’s equality. 1975 International
Women’s Year laid a solid foundation as
the opening year for a ‘‘Decade for Wo-
men’’ 1975-1985 proclaimed by the Un-
ited Nations, and forms an integral part
of the forces fighting against imperialism,
for national liberation, and advances the
Struggle for world peace and socialism.

The Decade for Women gives the
working class and democratic move-
Ments the opportunity to continue and
expand-the struggle against women’s in-
equality.

In Canada, International Women’s
Year encouraged women’s organizations
in public forums around the three key
questions put forward by the United Na-
tions. The-debate and decisions arrived
at indicate that the movement has at-
tained a higher political level. Wide in-
terest in March the 8th, International
Women’s Day celebrations produced a
Significant degree of breadth and unity.
Communist women played a significant
role in developing the largest events wit-
Nessed in many decades. The celebra-
tions. embraced the most diverse wo-
men’s groups, local trade unions, some
labor councils, Native Peoples, peace

‘and church groups, professional and

democratic organizations, including the
Communist Party and the New Democ-
Tatic Party. The Congress of Canadian
Women and the Ligue des Femmes, a
Section of the WIDF, played important
Toles in developing the unity and breadth
Of this movement.

_ A significant development in Toronto

Involving the organized labor movement, —

Particularly among women trade
Unionists, is the recent formation of a
trade union coalition of women. The up-
Coming conferences of the Canadian
Labor Congress and of Provincial Fed-
erations should be a positive step for-
Ward in the formation of such coalitions.

The mass media and reaction gener-
ally in the capitalist countries, has. stri-
Ven to denigrate the results of Interna-
tional Women’s Year, internationally
and in Canada. The purpose of this exer-
Cise is twofold: first to create pessimism
about the possibility of ending discrimi-
Nation against women and winning the
battle for their rights and full equality;
and secondly, to divide the women’s
Movement, and separate it from the

a

The accompanying re-
solution was passed at the
Jan. 24-25 meeting of the
Central Committee, Com-
munist Party of Canada.

es

working class and democratic move-
ment.

At the same time International Wo-
men’s Year events in 1975 have shown
how monopoly and governments resist
the implementation of social and
economic measures to improve the
status of women. They continue to divert
women from the joint struggle for the
solution of the acute social problems
confronting the people. Other than
promoting tokenism, governments have
resisted the implementation of meaning-
ful democratic measures.

Our Party sees International Women’s
Year not as an end, but as the beginning
of a new stage of struggle for equality, a
new stage of the fight for widening united
action and the achievement of broad
cooperation of women, of labor and the
democratic forces in Canada.

The need for such cooperation and ac-
tion is obvious. The present economic
crisis is having a brutal effect on the liv-
ing standards of Canadian women; those
who are the hardest hit by unemploy-
ment and poverty, particularly young
women, face.the future with little hope
and mounting anger.

The Federal Government’s Economic
Council proposes that women under the
age of 25 and over 55 should not be in-
cluded in the Statistics Canada figure of
the unemployed — this is their way of
solving unemployment. Single parents,

pensioners, the working poor, those on
social assistance bear the blunt end of the
federal government’s anti-inflation regu-
lations in reducing its expenditures by
$220-million in Family Allowances,
under the pretext of fighting inflation.
This comes hard on the heels of a gov-
ernment decision to spend $1.5-billion on
new military weapons.

The possibility for equal pay for work
of equal value, has been set back by the
economic ‘controls program. In fact
working women are now frozen in their
inequality,’ through government legisla-
tion. Under the maximum increases,
planned for the first year, women who
are a large part of the low income sector
will fall farther behind; the gap in wages’
between men and women workers. will
grow even wider. Women make up one-
third of the labor force (many are
employed in what is considered women’s
jobs). It is precisely this section of the
work force which is the least organized.
Only 32% of working women are or-
ganized in the trade union movement.

The fight for equal pay, and to or-
ganize the unorganized must be stepped
up if women’s equality and rights-are to
be guaranteed. Working women have
proven they are prepared to fight and
take positions of leadership. Com-
munists in the labor movement must en-
courage women members to play an ac-
tive role in the organized labor move-
ment. We must fight for the support of
these militant women, who are fighting
for-the rights of women and all working
people.

The deepening crisis of monopoly
capitalism in Canada is bound to aggra-
vate the already serious economic and
social discrimination against Canadian
women. Unemployment, lower wages,
cut-backs in social services such as wel-
fare, education, health programs and in
daycare facilities; these are conditions
women will face if the monopoly offen-
sive inspired by the Trudeau. Govern-
ment against the Canadian people is al-
lowed to continue. In their own interest
women will be compelled more and more
to enter into the struggle against
monopoly and are now becominga major
component of that struggle.

The Communist Party must intensify
its efforts to organize and unify the many
sided struggles of Canadian women
against monopoly. Its efforts should
centre around the following areas, while
at the same time playing a part in all the
struggles of Canadian women:

(1) The fight for equal pay for work of
equal value.

(2) Equal opportunity in employment,
training and advancement.

(3) Eliminate » oppression suffered
especially by the Indian, Innuit and
Métis women, as well as the special dis-
crimination suffered by women of im-
migrant groups.

(4) Universal access to free day care
financed through federal and provincial
governments. \

(5) Organize the unorganized in those
areas where women are concentrated.

(6) Remove abortion from the crimi-
nal code.

(7) Reduction of the arms budget by
50% with this money to be used for social
services.

(8) Increases in Family Allowances

Nancy .McDonald, who was
elected the Communist Party’s Di-
rector of Work Among Women in
May 1975, presented the resolution
.on the Decade for Women, to the
recent CP Central Committee meet.

and for those on fixed incomes through
indexing to Cost-of-Living-Allowance
(COLA).

(9) Pensions at 55 for all women.

(10) Establish a special pension plan
to cover housewives on a non-
contributory basis.

(11) Farm wives to have the opportun-
ity to be paid a wage for their work on the
farm, and that tax laws be adjusted to
accommodate same.

-(12) Women be accorded half interest
in matrimonial property, accrued during
the marriage contract.

(13) Put into force the United Nations
declaration on the elimination of dis-
crimination against women.

The Central Committee of the Com-
munist Party of Canada welcomes the
decade of struggle decided upon by the
United Nations and the Women’s Inter-
national Democratic Federation. In this
regard, at a meeting of its Central Com-
mittee in May of 1975, the Communist
Party created the position of Director of
Work Among Women, to signalize the
need of the Party to strengthen all sided
work among women particularly working
women in Canada. It pledges to doallinits
power to unite the working class and
democratic movement in support of these
objectives to the achievement of
socialism as the final guarantee of com-
plete equality for women.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 27, 1976—Page 7