Wednesday, October 24, 2018

Glasgow Womans Equal Pay March & Rally october 23 , 2018

Yesterday, October 23rd 2018 I got the train to Glasgow to join the Glasgow Woman's Equal Pay strike & march.

I have no doubt, my daughter, son's and quite a few other people who think they know me, might find this a bit odd and put it down to a manic episode, for why else would someone with social anxciety place themselves in a crowd of strangers, surrounded by sensory overload?

To be honest, its a question I've asked myself many times when I have put myself in similar situations and felt the tightening of my chest as irrational fear grasps my heart, palpitations thudding against my rib cage, as cold sweat begins to ooze from my pores and I struggle to maintain a semblance of something that looks like normality.

The answer is quite simple, when I believe in something strongly, I feel an ethical and a moral obligation to support it, where and when I can.

For me, supporting yesterdays March, rally and strike, was important on a number of levels even though it doesn't affect me directly at this time, because I don't have a job, and indeed, haven't been able to work for almost a decade as a result of the troubles I had in Telford that left me with unpredictable social anxciety and PTSD, that I have spoken about on these pages extensively in the past, and don't need to repeat now.

However in the past, I have been one of these women, underpaid and undervalued who has worked with the elderly and vulnerable, and indeed, with young people in the social care sector, cooking their meals, getting them out of, and into bed, washing their frail, weak bodies and yes, cleaning the shit from their bed sored arses, washing the vomit from there hair and or pillows before dressing, possibly feeding and attending to their toilet needs as well as ensuring they get the correct medication at the correct times. While also being subjected to their occasional verbal and even physical abuse, insults and yes, ever day moans and groans, because these are traits common to the human condition that continue into old age as the normal course of life.

I have been the first responder when the call comes through that a client fallen and injured themselves at home, and I have done the often unsavoury tasks that their families, are either too busy or are unable to do, for whatever other reason it may be, to include occasions like Christmas cover when like many single mums in the sector, has had to leave there own children to see to the care needs of someone else's parents or child because managers refuse to rota those without children at home on to these shifts again for whatever reason they see fit, at these seasonally difficult times.

For years I have felt outraged at the way these frontline workers are treated. These undervalued women who do these tasks that many don't even want to talk about. And let's not pretend that the tasks involved in a careworkers job are not taboo due to the nature of the intimacy they entail.
 Nor let us forget, often these women work for less than minimum wage, these days on zero-hours contracts and in the case of social care positions, often with unsociable shift patterns that they have to juggle around their own family lives, and god forbid that these women have anything resembling a  life of their own away from work and their family commitments, when it comes to the overall attitude of many in government office, or working higher up the ladder of the care sector, who all too often treat these woman like sciffy's with little to no consideration of the stress and strain of juggling work and family, on frankly, shit wages, and inconsistent, insecure, shift patterns, that add additional stress and strain to their own, already stressful life's.

Let there be no doubt or argument, the care sector is one where high volumes of stress, depression and physical illness are a risk to all employee's, for what else can we expect when it is someone's job to bare witness to the pain and suffering, be it physical, emotional, mental or financial of elderly, or other vulnerable people, or the physical aspect of lifting and laying large often morbidly obese bodies, even with assistance of specialist equipment. (and  that is not meant as an insult to overweight clients but as a factual reflection of a nation with a growing obesity problem that carers are at the front line tackling.)

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress/stress

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5673154/

While yesterdays march in Glasgow may have been primarily for council contracted workers, many of these roles for homecare and residential care for vulnerable and elderly and indeed young people have been outsourced to private companies, and despite the 1970 equal pay act, which was created to end the disparity in male-female pay, 48years on woman are still subject to discrimination in the workplace particularly in the lower income bracket jobs for vital services like home carers, cleaners, care assistants, dinner ladies, childcarers school dinner ladies, and auxiliary staff in various care environments that are primarily female employed these woman workers deserve better, now and in the future.

On my way to Glasgow to stand with the marchers and support their strike, I read a tweet by Solidarity Scotland leader, Tommy Sheridon, that read;

"My 80year old mother misses her care worker help & attention today. Her ill health & lack of mobility means she relys on the 7 days a week care she receives. However, she is a socialist and ardent trade unionist. She wishes to pass on her 100%solidarity to all Glasgow strikers."

https://twitter.com/citizentommy/status/1054678607078084608

This tweet struck a chord with me, because I thought of how my own mother would have supported the strikers 100%, although my mum, who only ever worked for two employers in her entire life, at Barr and Stroud's, till she became a mum when she gave up her full -time employment to be a full-time mum and housewife. Then for Glasgow City Council as a Home help, when I went to secondary school, and she returned to part-time employment where she worked until her own health rendered it no longer possible. Indeed, there are many women who hold the same role as my mother nowadays, who like my mother are in need of home helps themselves but who work on because caring is in their nature and not motivated by financial gain. None the less these women are entitled to fair and equal pay for the work they do.

My mum, unlike Mrs Sheridon, wasn't a trade unionist, and I can't be sure what her politics were exactly, but I know how she behaved and conducted herself, both in her private and public life, and that behaviour definitely, in my opinion, leaned to the socialist ethic, of caring, sharing and treating all people with equal reverence, respect, compassion and kindness irrespective of any religious, cultural, racial gender, or any other differences they might have to yourself, in how they behaved towards others.

My mum had been a member of the trade union at Barr and Stroud's at one time, I know this because when I left school and started working and said I was going to join the general workers union my mum told me the story of how, and why she had ended her union membership.

 Apparently, her faith had been diminished because at some point during her membership, the shop-steward at Barr and Strouds had made off with members union dues, and that action, by that individual, was enough at that time, for my mum to say enough is enough, having been left feeling betrayed by that union representative.

I guess in fairness, to my mum, it could be suggested that many of the woman striking yesterday must feel a similar sense of betrayal, given their 12year fight for fair wages, and the lack of support or action by the top brass of their unions, and indeed the labour party who have failed them over the last 12years, to find a way to resolve these pay issues.
 I completely understand any sense of betrayal that the women feel, frankly,  I believe all woman are entitled to feel betrayed, by their employers, their unions and the governments.

Moreover, might I suggest that given the 48 years that have passed since the equal pay act was legislated in 1970, all working woman have been failed not only by their unions but by successive legislators, governments and indeed the whole justice system, that in 48 years has failed to ensure equality across the workplace, not just in relation to pay, but as defined by the 9 protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/equality-act-2010/what-equality-act

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1970/41/pdfs/ukpga_19700041_en.pdf

I was proud to stand with all the woman from Glasgow yesterday attending the rally, I was proud to hear my sisters from Glasgow speak from the podium for all woman just like them, and me, who face discrimination in the workplace, not just in Glasgow, but around Scotland, the UK , and indeed the world. Women who throughout the centuries have fought for equality for themselves, their mothers,   grandmothers, sisters and daughters who have heard the promises of equality to come, from those in power, from governmental and union leaders, who promise and legislate equality, in the workplace and in society generally.
 Promises made by politicians, union leaders and employers, male and female alike, who have much to say on equality, but who fail and fall short when it comes to ensuring that equality is implemented and that the rights of woman are no longer violated.

I hope that woman around the UK, and indeed the world, will see my Glaswegian sister on tv news reports, and join their cry of enough is enough, and demand that the rights of woman be heard and adhered to, not only for equal pay but for equality in treatment and respect in workplace and in society as has been promised for not only 48 years since the equal pay act, but for the many proceeding years of political rhetoric and promises since 1918 when woman were granted the right to vote be heard.

 However, being heard means little if what is heard and requested is denied or ignored unjustly.

 I hope around the world woman from all walks of life, irrespective of cultural, religious, racial class or other diversities of life, will be inspired by the women of Glasgow calling out for solidarity, for the right to be valued and paid equally to men, as is our right, and as has been promised and legislated for.
And I hope the equality of woman around the world becomes as common and normal as it is for the sun and moon to rise and set and shine in our sky.
I hope as human beings, the female of the species and the mothers of generations of children who will become young adult, workers and leaders of future generations of woman around the world are granted the same respect, and real equality they have been promised and are entitled to as equally valued members of the human race.
Finally, I salute my Glaswegian sisters for standing firm against the injustice in wage structures and inequalities in pay and in the workplace with a clear message of solidarity demonstrated and voiced to their sisters across Scotland, the UK and the around the world a message that says , enough is enough the rights of woman matter.
                                   

 THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN BY ROBERT BURNS
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, 
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings; 
While quacks of State must each produce his plan, 
And even children lisp the Rights of Man; 
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, 
The Rights of Woman merit some attention. 

First, in the Sexes' intermix'd connection, 
One sacred Right of Woman is, protection. - 
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate, 
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of Fate, 
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form, 
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. 

Our second Right-but needless here is caution, 
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion; 
Each man of sense has it so full before him, 
He'd die before he'd wrong it-'tis decorum. - 
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days, 
A time, when rough rude man had naughty ways, 
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot, 
Nay even thus invade a Lady's quiet. 

Now, thank our stars! those Gothic times are fled; 
Now, well-bred men-and you are all well-bred- 
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers) 
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. 

For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest, 
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest; 
Which even the Rights of Kings, in low prostration, 
Most humbly own-'tis dear, dear admiration! 
In that blest sphere alone we live and move; 
There taste that life of life-immortal love. 
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs; 
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares, 
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms- 
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms? 

But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions, 
With bloody armaments and revolutions; 
Let Majesty your first attention summon, 
Ah! ca ira! The Majesty Of Woman!