Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 14:57:39 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Int'l Women Count Network challenges UN (fwd)


** Topic: Int'l "Women Count Network" Challenges U.N. **
** Written 12:00 AM  Mar 11, 1997 by mmason in cdp:headlines **
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN COUNT NETWORK

PRESS RELEASE      7 March 1997
Contact:    Margaret Prescod or Anne Neale
            610-668-9886 (thru March 8)    212- 687-8633 ext. 207 (March
            10-21)

Double Day, Half Pay, No Say -- Grassroots Women Challenge 
UN Meeting to Address "Informal Sector": Unwaged and Low-waged Work

Following its historic victory at the 1995 UN Women's Conference in
Beijing in getting governments to agree to measure and value unwaged work,
the International Women Count Network (IWCN) returns to the UN with the
aim of ensuring that women who do unwaged and low-waged work are not
sidelined or left out, as governments and experts at the UN Commission on
the Status of Women (CSW) debate "Women and the Economy" and "Women and
the Environment" (March 10-21, New York). 

"Discussions and decisions on 'Women and the Economy' must include those
of us whose contributions are usually not counted or are undercounted in
traditional definitions of the economy.  Unwaged work is the heart of
every economic sector, formal, informal, waged and unwaged," said Los
Angeles-based Margaret Prescod, head of the IWCN delegation and
Coordinator of the International Network of Women of Color North/South. 
Anne Neale from the Network in the UK agreed and added, "'Women and the
Environment' must include the disproportionate impact of environmental
degradation on specific communities as well as its effect on women's
unwaged and low-waged workload generally." 

The only UN-sponsored preparatory meeting on "Women and the Economy"
focussed entirely on "women's equal access to and full participation in
decision-making in international institutions and transnational
corporations". "We know this point of view will be on the agenda for the
experts' panel on the economy, but have no assurance that issues crucial
to the day-to-day economic survival of most of the world's women will be
addressed, including our overwork and the devastating effect of structural
adjustment programs in the developing world and economic restructuring in
the industrialized world." Ms. Prescod added. 

The WCN in the US is also concerned over the US rejection in Beijing of a
mandate for pay equity for women workers (equal pay for work of equal
value), instead interpreting it as the more limited "equal pay for equal
work."  This little-publicized action is one that US women in paid
employment, as well as organized labor, will want to know about.  IWCN and
others will also press CSW to address extending labor law protections to
domestic and homecare workers; prohibiting discrimination in paid
employment based on marital status, pregnancy or breastfeeding, race or
disability; workplace rights; and recognition of unwaged rural work. 
IWCN's efforts to measure and value unwaged work have received the support
of the AFL-CIO and the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). 

The WCN hopes to make a statement to the CSW session, and will host a
workshop on "Measuring Progress, Valuing Women: Economies, Environments
and Unwaged Work" on Friday, March 14, 3-5 pm Conference Room E at the 
UN. 
Speakers include representatives of governments, UN agencies, and
grassroots women's organizations, and will include reports on progress in
implementing the Beijing commitments to measure and value unwaged work. 

Background

The Commission on the Status of Women -- the UN body overseeing
implementation of the "Platform for Action" agreed at the 1995 UN Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing Conference -- meets in NY from March
10 to 21, and will consider "Women and the Economy", "Women and the
Environment", "Women and Education" and "Women and Power and
Decision-Making." 

IWCN won commitments by governments at the 1995 UN World Conference on
Women in Beijing to measure and value unwaged work in official statistics,
including satellite accounts of the GDP, and to provide resources to
enable countries of the South to collect these statistics.  These
decisions are considered by many to be the most far-reaching on
macroeconomic policy to come out of the Conference.  The 1995 UN Human
Development Report found that unwaged and under-waged work contributes $16
trillion to the world economy, but this is not officially recognized or
recorded.  Since Beijing, IWCN has worked for implementation in different
countries.  Progress on the issue to date includes: 

- Canada: included three questions on unwaged work in its latest national
census
- China:  the Economic Planning Agency is developing a system to estimate
the monetary value of the home care of children and older people to go 
into effect in spring
1997
- Europe: Eurostat conducting a European-wide Time-Use Survey to include
18 countries in Eastern and Western Europe
- Ireland: National Women's Council of Ireland is committed to lobbying
the government and the European Commission to implement the Beijing
language, and to get the same rights for women who do unwaged work as
those who are registered as "unemployed" 
- Japan:  Japanese Institute of Economics has set up a study team on
counting unpaid women's work into the national census
- Philippines: heads of statistical agencies met in January 1997 to set up
parameters to measure and value the unremunerated work of women through a
satellite account
- Spain: legislation to be presented soon in national Parliament and
regional Parliament of Catalunya
- Switzerland: will include questions on unwaged work in next census, and
construct satellite accounts to measure and value unwaged work
- Trinidad and Tobago: legislation passed in 1996 to measure and value
unwaged work
- UK: taking part in Europe-wide pilot time-use survey and beginning to
construct household satellite accounts
- US: Departments of Labor and Commerce have undertaken consultations on
how to measure and value unwaged work

The International Women Count Network, coordinated by the International
Wages for Housework Campaign and Black Women for Wages for Housework, is a
network of organizations and individuals who support measuring and valuing
unwaged work in satellite accounts of the GDP.  Members in Barbados,
Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy,
the Netherlands, the Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania,
Trinidad & Tobago, UK and USA. 

During the CSW session (March 10-21), IWCN can be reached in NY at:
tel:  (212) 687-8633 ext. 207 (day)
      (718) 282-6520 (evenings/weekend)
Fax: (212) 661-2704
e-mail:  72144.1055-AT-compuserve.com

Permanent addresses:
- East Coast: PO Box 11795, Phila PA 19101; tel: (610) 668-9886 fax: (610)
664-8556; 72144.1055-AT-compuserve.com
- West Coast:  PO Box 86681, Los Angeles CA 90086-0681; tel & fax (213)
292-7405;  70742.3012-AT-compuserve.com
- UK: PO Box 287, London NW6 5QU England  100010.2311-AT-compuserve.com
- Caribbean: Mt. Pleasant Rd, Arima, Trinidad (809) 667-5247; c/o Red
Thread, 173 Charlotte St, Georgetown, Guyana (5922) 77481


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