work. the maiority of women now do paid work for a substantial part of taeir Byes, touge outco in part tonic or temporary jobs.
Women increasingly work even when they have dependent children rather than just before starting their families or after their children have Birmingham's Labour council has been one of the first to bring in a new sickness policy which allows management to sack workers off sick. UNISON members registered their response with strike action. and the changing organisation of employment mean that full time, permanent and male jobs are being and female jobs. Half of all women now do paid work, 8-per cent more work full time than in 1987, while male full time employment has fallen by 2 per cent.
Unemployed Young inen tend to be unemployed for longer than young women while overall unemploy. ment rates hide huge regional disFor example unemployment is 30 per cent in Newham, but only 3 per tamilies have no-one carning - threr times as many as in 1975. A growing Women have consistently been at the forefront of struggles defending health and welfare services Labour has given up any realistic chance of changing this growing Only a massive scheme of public works which pay people a decent wage for building and running hos. pitais, schools and homes could offer an alternative means of redis.
UNFAIR
SICK POLICY Family Women, as those with the main responsibility for taking care of the family and children are those who bear the brunt of coping with the ef. fects of poverty and stress. Cuts in welfare push back onto a fragmented and crisis-ridden family a caring and threaten women who are al ready working in poorly paid flex. ible jobs with an increased burden When 'the family' is shown to be unable to cope with the pressures of the work its members have to endure and the extra burden arising from cuts in welfare, it is the indi.
Single mothers are blamed as "feckless", the long term unemployed are "work shy'. Blair tells us that "there will be no option of a life permanently on full benefit". Those parents unable to cope in a situation of dire social crisis are blamed for and therefore against women, scapegoated for the problems forget that the family is the site relies on women's unpaid and form of the family is for society on demand, equal pay and fiWe need to fight to rebuild the who work in it and use it. battle over the welfare state. demonstrations, road blocks, een years of Tory attacks, the As the General Election draws ever nearer with the prospect
Europe-wide The stakes ace high in the