Sept.18: Decision day!

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Gerry Byrne previews the September 18 conference of the Women's Campaian for Johs lat County Hall I ondon| Gerry Byrne previews the September 18 conference of the Women's Campaign for Jobs (at C erence of the Women's Campaign for Mary Corbishley reviews a new pamphlet on sexual harassment at work by Ann Sedley and Melissa Benn, published by the National Counharassment at work.

year.

The town hall union NALGO initiated a campaign against it in 1981.

Pressure had been put on NALGO by a case of sexual harassment in Brent cil for Civil Liberties (95p). a few years previously, when two women compl ained to their shop stewHence has been accepted as AS WE wind into September and political activity starts to warm up again after the summer lethargy, it's time to rebuild the links and renew contacts.

While the Labour movement lat least the official, routine part of it) has been resting, the unemployment figures have crept up, a whole generation of school leavers has been thrown on the dole, and vicious new Because the office wolf, September 18 co attacks on the low-paid and unorganised have been set in The campaign for the June 5 Women's Right to Work demo created a movement, albeit an amorphous and disconnected one: The task now is to link those activists who took up the call - at the very least the 5,000 women who came onto the streets on June 5 - into a campaign which can agitate and fight..

At a meeting in July, 20 women resolved that Campaign must not end with the one-off Women's Right to Work March. We need to deepen the local roots generated by the work for the march. So the Women's Campaign for Jobs But it will take more than 20 women to make it a campaign in more than name.

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September 18 is the step in this. We need to define our priorities, generate initiatives, and give coherence to the widespread feeling in favour of a woman's right to paid work, independence and decent facilities.

The primary aim must be to develop a reat base in the localities. This doesn't mean demanding that a handful of women gather under a new novement there. is important that instead we argue that sexual harassment must be taken out of the realm of personal or individual problems and 'cases' (which is the way the bourgeois legal system treats everything). It is an aspect of the overall oppression of women in society, and it needs to be fought collectively by the labour movement.

In some instances taking a case to an industrial tribunal may be the only resort a woman has, because her workplace is non-unionised. Even then, women must not be left to stand alone: campaigns of support need to be built which put the individual case in the context of the whole issue of sexual harassment, and link this into fighting for unionisation of the workplace or industry.

Essentially it will be up to women already in unions to lead the way.

..NALGO has started the campaign. The Women's TUC has passed a resolution on sexual harassment, and a resolution is up before the TUC congress next week -but without activists at the rank and file taking up the issue, we can be sure that these resolutions will remain dead letters.

But already many branches have begun to take up the issue in their own way. In my branch, Haringey, for example, we had a branch meeting where the issue of sexual harassment was posed in terms of the wider context of the atmosphere in which women work. The branch was committed not only to fight individual cases of harassment but also to remove from position of women at work.

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Name Address I enclose £ To: Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, London N8 8PL. sunty Hall, London) banner and go to yet ans ther meeting. It means the the initial small numbers ( activists turn out to build o existing links with labou movement and other wome - to link up with the strug les of women in work whos jobs are threatened lan whose aren't, these days? and 'non-working' wome (i.e., those who are excle ded from paid employmen and defined as 'useless t society.)

We will have to utilis existing organisation whether trade union, Labou Party, or women's right t work, and create new one where there is a need. It' not the form or the nam that's important, but th work that is done in resi: ting and publicising th attacks on women. We mus generate support for wome workers taking action in de fence of jobs and service (like nurseries, health sei vices, etc.) and attempt t organise women who are a home, under attack from th new socia. security rules an the destruction of local sen ices.

We must counter th ideological barrage that tel us our place is at home an we should have no ambitio beyond that.

Movement

A real movement is al! more than a collection 1 local activities. It needs a c rection and a focus to wor towards. It needs co-ordin tion so that local groul don't get sucked into whi can become a depressing ar isolating round of unconne ted activity.

That's why it's importal that the campaign adopts militant national focus 1 link isolated groups and inc viduals into a moveme with a goal, a purpose, ar agreed focuses for action.

A 'nation-wide ever (e.g. a Women's March fr Jobs)' was proposed at tl July 3 meeting. It will be 1 to the September 18 confe ence to fill out the detail Some of us will be sugges ing that a 'tour' of loc marches, with the hard-co marchers going from city 1 city by bus rather tha expending most of the time and effort in poundir lonely highways, is the be formula.

What is important is thi it should be a forceful, mil tant affair, which generat enthusiasm - which, f from diverting from loc activity, builds on i strengths and helps make fighting force from the figh ing spirit of women, wage and unwaged, organised ar not yet organised.

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