International Women’s Day/Week

International Women’s Day 2014

Unifor women are standing up for equality, rights and good jobs.

Unions are a big reason women’s equality in Canada has advanced.  Unifor, with its 305,000 members, is committed to making sure we continue to get the job done.

When right-wing politicians attack unions, they also attack an important catalyst for delivering women’s equality.

That is why this International Women’s Day, Unifor women are standing up for our rights – the right to have a union, the right to have equal pay, reproductive rights, the right to good jobs which includes affordable childcare and a world safe from violence.  Unifor will not stand idly by while women are under assault and our equality is eroded.

Women are taking on bigger roles and are a vital part of every structure in our new union.  Already, women hold 11 of the 25 seats on the National Executive Board, including two of the top six positions within the union.  Women’s committees are forming right across the country – at every regional council and in local unions across Canada and Quebec.

Unifor represents more than 86,000 women in every region of the coungtry, in more than 20 different economic sectors.   Women are making a difference in the union, helping to shape the conversation at every level.  Women have already taken on two major initiatives since the creation of Unifor – a campaign on childcare and a national survey on the impact of domestic violence in the workplace.

Unifor is making a difference in the lives of women too – through training opportunities, events and a continued commitment to negotiating the Women’s Advocate Program in all of our workplaces.  To date, we have more than 300 Women’s Advocates, trained to assist women with issues of workplace harassment, intimate violence and abuse.

Unifor women are getting their voices heard – in their workplaces, in the union and in the community.  We are standing up for our union, for equality, and for economic and social justice.  Every day, every week and every year to come – our actions are building a fairer and more equal world.  Unifor women are building a movement.

This International Women’s Day – the Unifor Women’s Department is calling on women and allies across the country to join with us to stand up for women’s rights, and to continue to fight for good jobs, strong public services and strong unions.

Women need unions and unions need women. 

International Women’s Week:  Organized Labour doing it’s part to Promote Women in Leadership

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour wishes all New Brunswick women a happy International Women’s Week (IWW).  Every year, women come together to celebrate their accomplishments during IWW and to refocus their energies on the struggles for equality that remain ahead.  This year, IWW runs from March 2 to 8.

This year, for International Women’s Week, the New Brunswick Federation of Labour is calling on the provincial government to take action to remedy three areas that perpetuate gender inequality:  pay inequity, the lack of a comprehensive child care strategy and the unacceptablly high rates of violence against women and girls.

Jobs traditionally done by women, many of them jobs caring for society’s most vulnerable, are undervalued and underpaid.  We know that this form of wage discrimination exists and persists for some time.  Government has been slow in taking action to remedy this situation.  It is time for this to change.  The government needs to implement pay equity for the remaining public sector employees as well as the para-public sectors for which job evaluations have been completed.  Finally, it is important for pay equity legislation to be adopted that covers the private sector, where the majority of New Brunswickers work.

In New Brunswick, according to data produced by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Develoment, as of July 2013, only 23% of children aged 0 to 12 have access to a regulated child care space.  The vast majority (73%) of services are centered in the province’s three largest cities, meaning that the lack of services is even more pronounced in other areas in the province.  Most of the programs available (71%) are operated privately.  Research shows that the highest quality of care can be found in programs offered on a not-for-profit basis.

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour recommends that the New Brunswick government takes the necessary steps to transform our current piecemeal child care system into a publicly-funded and not-for-profit child care system as promised in the Progressive Conservative Party’s 2010 electoral platform:  “Examine how we can shift the way childcare is financed, creating a more systemic approach.”

When it comes to violence against women and girls, New Brunswick does not compare well to the rest of Canada.  A statistical profile on family violence was recently released by Statistics Canada.  It finds that New Brunswick has the highest rate of family-related murder-suicides in all of the country.  In 95 per cent of the cases, the perpetrator of family-related murder-suicides is male.  Many of the perpetrators have a history of family violence.  Arguments, frustration, anger and despair are listed as the most common motives in spousal murder-suicide cases.  According to a detailed report published every year by MacLean’s Magazine, New Brunswick also has two out of the top three cities with the highest number of sexual assault cases reported to police.  Fredericton and Saint John rank second and third respectively.

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The New Brunswick Federation of Labour is the central voice of organized labour in the province.  We represent over 40,000 workers from every sector of the economy and from every community in the province.

For information please contact:

Odette Robichaud
NBFL Vice President for Women
(506) 724-2300 (cell) / (506) 336-9277 (h) 

Iris Lloyd
Chair, NBFL Women’s Committee
(506) 693-9406