risis SYDNEY - Around 200 women attended a day-long meeting here on July 2 to discuss women and the economic recession, the Australian Labour Party/ Australian Congress Trades Unions prices and incomes accord, and an alternative economic strategy.
Four workshops were held throughout the day: on wages and working conditions, the social wage, women and unions, and alternative economic strategies.
Women at the meeting were angered by the fact that women's groups and representatives were not consulted in the development of key economic policies, particularly in relation to the ALP/ACTU accord and the national economic summit.
It was felt that the women's liberation movement needed to discuss and formulate policies relating to women's specific needs - for example, in the areas of childcare, job-creation programs, and falling real incomes - and find the means to present these policies in the key working-class and ment decision-making forums.
While the consensus seemed to be that the accord as it stands is of little use to women, this was mainly seen to be because the social-wage package does not incorporate policy commitments relating to the specific needs of women as an especially oppressed group.
At the report-back session at the end of the day, a series of recommendations were put forward and adopted by the meeting as a whole.
It was decided that all women delegates from New South Wales to forthcoming ACTU congress would form a caucus and demand that all government-initiated job-creation benefit all social groups and that there be proportional access to all new jobs created; that anti-discrimination legislation specifically be applied to private industry; and that a national childcare program be demanded as a priority over all other social-wage policy areas.
It was also decided that the women delegates to the congress would report back to a specially convened women's movement meeting to be held in October.
As well, a national congress would be organised for early next year to allow women trade unionists to continue the discussion on policies and strategies in the labor movement.
The meeting decided that a Women's Employment Action Campaign would be the structure in which women could continue discussion around such issues as wages, part-time work, equal pay, real unemployment rates, women and job creation, and sex segregation of the labor market. Direct Action/July 5, 1983 most vulnerable in today's El Salvador. We also maintain trade with small farmers outside the liberated areas. Those whom we trust get special passes and go in and out of our towns selling food.
Another committee is in charge of education. We are doing the best we can to develop a system of education. This is hard, however, because we have no
Children, as well as adults who cannot read and write, are assigned to schools. Some have no parents and we try as soon as possible to integrate them into other awful lot of "uncles" and "aunts" in the liberated
Reality forces our children to grow up fast. They face big problems as soon as they learn to walk. They have to take cover themselves and try to find food. Their parents may be dead, or they may not have enough themselves.
But this also means that children take a very active part in building the new society. After school in the morning, they take part in production along with everyone else in the afternoon. We take their ideas and suggestions seriously, because children in El Salvador are our
Just now we are conducting a literacy campaign in El Salvador. We go around the villages and teach people to read and write. As soon as some have learned, we go on and let them teach the others in the
Another committee is in charge of weddings, funerals, and christenings.
There has been a big advance in cul-
Theater is thriving. amateurs but we learn to share our experiences through theater and music. Theater is a good way of reflecting the advances in various villages.
committee also handles group training for children. They have to learn not to let themselves become isolated, even though their parents have been kill-
Many need support and comforting, and there is a strong solidarity among us against the enemy.
We have no direct need for courts today, because nobody has to be tried. If there is a fight, we settle it in a friendly way. Nobody is going to steal from their brothers and sisters who are fighting those who rob us all!
A committee handles self-defense. We are building a militia among people involved in production and its members get military training. This militia is directly linked to the liberation army.
THE NEED FOR
MEDICINE AND MEDICAL AID
Public health is a big problem for us. We need a lot of help in this area. We have very little access to any kind of medicine. We have learned how to produce quinine and other drugs needed against malaria. We have recently had a campaign of education on how to protect spread among us.
We make our own alcohol, not to drink but to disinfect wounds. We collect all the medical supplies we have in rooms set aside in the villages. In these places, training by liberation army doctors when they come by.
When we elect people to the committees and to participate in the leadership society we are building, we do not choose them on the basis of political labels, although many of those elected may be members of various political
Those who have inspired the greatest confidence are elected. A representative from the FMLN/FDR is in the leadership of every local administration to strengthen the unity between us and the leadership of the liberation struggle.
### REGIONAL PEOPLE'S POWER
The structures of people's power are most developed in Chalatenango in northern El Salvador. In this area a month ago we had an election to a regional government, to which the various PPL sent a representative. There are 31 towns and villages in Chalatenango, and 27 of them belong to the PPL.
We hope we can develop such regional leaderships in the other areas as well, although that is difficult, caught as we are in the middle of a war. But as soon as the other controlled areas are consolidated, we will apply the experience of Chalatenango and organize new regional governments.
The objective is to build a national government based on direct representative of people's power.
Despite all the horrors of the war, we may have to face an invasion from the
Reagan's objective is to kill us all, because the U.S. has no other way to stop our struggle for freedom. pressed, but we are not going to give up.
We are continuing to fight back, and life in the controlled areas is giving us a new confidence. Because most of us have never experienced the sort of human dignity that we share today in building the new El Salvador.
HELP THE PEOPLE COMING BACK TO THEIR VILLAGES
We are very grateful for your solidarity and we hope you will continue, because our children have bloated bellies, and we get sick and need medicine. The junta's army burns our homes and supplies and we need clothing and tools, everything
The need is great and is becoming greater and greater as more people come back from the refugee camps in Honduras. We hope you will help the people who are coming back to their villages by increasing your solidarity.
We are convinced that when the world knows what sort of society we are building in the controlled areas, solidarity will continue to grow.
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