BY KATHY NEWNAM
ADELAIDE — The bread and roses that adorned the meeting hall of the first South Australian Inter-Union Women's Conference on August 18 symbolised women's continuing struggle for their "basic needs and a rich cultural life", according to the United Trades and Labor Council secretary Michelle Hogan. The conference attracted more than 130 women from 13 unions to discuss the effects of poverty and violence on women.
Conference participants also discussed many issues directly affecting women in SA, such as workplace harassment, domestic violence and racism. Pam Simmons from the SA Council of Social Services outlined the poverty in SA and Australia, noting that in 1975 60,000 people in Australia lived in poverty but by 1998 this had grown to 2 million.
There was also a considerable focus on global issues affecting women. Jennie Devereaux from the Australian Education Union (AEU) conducted a workshop on the worldwide feminisation of poverty. She quoted a United Nations report that: "The world's women contribute 66% of the hours worked each day but they earn only 10% of the world's income and own only 1% of the world's property".
In another workshop, AEU deputy federal secretary Susan Hopgood outlined her union's international campaigns on education, child labour and peace, and its participation in the mobilisation against the World Economic Forum meeting in Melbourne, September 11-13.
The final session of the conference unanimously rejected "short-term, short-sighted solutions to globalisation and free trade, such as the inclusion of minimum social, labour and green clauses in international trade agreements". It adopted a motion for the UTLC to form a working group to help Fairwear's campaign to educate the public about outworkers in the garment industry.