Marches to highlight hidden jobless

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Gerry Byrne reports on the Women's Campaign for Jobs conference 4,000,000: that's the closest thing to an accurate figure for the number of people now out of work.

The General Household Survey, published last week, points to the huge undercounting of the real extent of unemployment. 17% of the unemployed are not registered, and for married women, the proportion rises to 43%. That's a massive gulf between government claims and the reality.

And next month a whole package of measures is being brought in to further discourage unemployed women from showing up in the figures - voluntary registration, the UB671 forms which questions women about childcare arrangements, thus reinforcing the idea that mothers should not go out to work.

Last Saturday, September 18, in County Hall, London, a small step was taken to reverse this pusn. The Women's Campaign for Jobs (formerly the Action Committee for a Woman's Right to Work) resolved to constitute itself on a more organised footing, with affiliations, local groups, and a regular newsletter.

One of its immediate objectives will be to campaign against the Rayner proposais and other changes in the benefits system which will hit women claimants. This will have to be mounted in conjunction with the unions in the benefit offices and draw on wider support from the labour movement. POR ITEE with a violent husband is a desperate situation. For Halimat Babamba, this plight is even worse than for most.

Halimat came to Britain from Nigeria to join her husband in Leeds. After 2 Jeers of his violence, of his tbrests to her life and to take their 2 smad children from her, Halimat escaped to a Woman's Aid refuge.

Her husband has now returned to Nigeria. Halimat can't do this: under local law, ber busband can take the children, and she would face further violence, or else destitution.

But this is the fate the Home Office has condemned her to. Instead of HaliThe decision of the South East Region TUC to mount a campaig on the UB 671 is a posit ve step in this direction.

Drive

Against the Tories' attempts to cover up the real level of unemployment, the Campaign proposes a drive to contact and organise women who are jobless but unregistered, culminating national day of registration.

It also agreed to give support and encouragement to the formation and ongoing work of unwaged women's groups, both to campaign on the specific problems of women's unemployment Six themselves in Britain, the Home Office intend to deport them in October.

The Labour movement has united before to protect individuals from this racism and sexism. We must make it do so again.

What you can do: • Write to Halimat's Stan Cohen. • Write to your MP. • Write to Timothy Raison, at the Home Office. • Get your union, LP, or community group's support and affiliation to the campaign.

Please send donations to: Friends of Halimat Babamba, Box HB, 59, Cookridge St, Leeds. and tackle the sexism that many women experience in unemployed groups and centres.

The conference, of about 80 women, showed a real commitment to building at the grass roots and deepening links with local stuggles, but the main focus of the discussion was on how all this local activity could be focused and drawn together by a national event.

•Tribunal The conference was presented with two alternatives: a Tribunal which would draw together evidence on women's unemployment and end up with a showy event (in London) or a women's march for UNTIL last March, 19 year old Asima Begum and her young child were preparing to join her husband in Britain. Then, he was killed, in a tragic house fire in Brick Lane.

to Jobs..

The Tribunal was greeted with overwhelming apathy. In the untuanano tho workshops Women's March for Jobs was the main talking point, with many sisters keen on the basic conception of an event which went out to the women we are trying to reach, rather than pulling the same old worn-out activists down to London.

Many drawbacks were highlighted - the enormous logistical problems of a long march, the fact that it woula mnevitably 11-4 _-_1_1I. exclude many women with children or other heavy domestic responsibilities, the terrible waste of energy involved in trudging through largely deserted Asima was granted a visitor's passport to attend the funeral and settle her husband's affairs. Now, the Home Office is using its racist laws to send her back to Bangla Desh. There, she would be alone; her father and brothers are resident in The retain t the but to t into ac the core towns € of actic tions o round i facilitie:

I thi sented t ference. mass women, battles, the loc national COMI •Count memb vote. 1 ton St regula countryside.

But it was also felt that there was a need for demonstrations to unite local opposition to the many-sided attacks on women's right to paid work, and that the answer to these attacks is not propaganda on how bad women's position is, but militant struggle.

Retain

decision was to he original idea of Nomen's March, take the difficulties count by bussing : marchers between and focussing days ›n and demonstrain local struggles lefence of jobs and s (eg nurseries). nk it fairly reprehe mood of the con, to turn out to the of working class , to relate to their and to centralise al. activities in a 1 movement.

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