The two of us have been celebrating International Women’s Day for nearly fifty years. Back then there were no proclamations in U.S. cities, no corporate hoo-hah. In recent years that’s all changed. We’ve seen McDonald’s flip the golden arches from an “M” to a “W”on March 8; Amazon declares they have five ways you can celebrate with them.
So a quick reminder of the origin of the day. While it is, in fact, an international event, this holiday was inspired by garment workers in NYC, thousands of mostly immigrants who walked out in 1908 to demand higher pay, fewer hours, safer working conditions and union recognition. Those garment workers won at a number of shops, but one holdout was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Three years later, a fire there killed 148 workers, most of them women and children. The outrage that followed led to the first ever regulation of factories in New York.
The Real Estate Board pushed back, claiming: “This law will destroy industry in the city and the state.” What exactly did the law require? That employers have a fire escape, allow inspections, and not lock the workers in while they were doing their jobs.
Around the U.S. today, restaurant workers struggling to put food on their own tables, Amazon employees battling dangerous speed-up and harassment, care workers and teachers and many more are rejecting corporate double-speak and demanding union power. For us, International Women’s Day is one more occasion to applaud their courage, creativity and persistence and to stand at their side.
Same words, saying the same thing. Now, almost 20 years later, we’re denied the rights to our own bodies, the way you denied poor women the right to fight for themselves in the PNI. Court did it in one vote, you did it in one phone call. Rest well, nothing changed. Now you can feel as I did 20 years ago.