Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 01:09:44 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-FEM: Moving on!


In trying to move on from the recent flamewars I would like to present and 
interesting development here in Sweden on working class women. Naturally my 
thanks to Jerry and others for defending me from a viscious neo-Stalinist 
provacation. And I apoligize to all for the harsh but neccessary words.

With the dismanteling and plunder of the Swedish welfare state moving along 
at and increasing speed the public sector which in fact has provided 
hundreds of thousands of jobs and economic independence for women is in the 
forefront.

Cuts,privatisation, has caused women now to turn upon one another as the new 
wild west raw capitalism ideals are being extended into and taking over of 
this once state and commune owned sector which was fiananced with tax money.

A clear tendency is developing in this sector whichs tends to devide women 
and turn these one time "sisters" into a battleground where each category of 
women workers is trying to defend its own turf at the expense of other women 
workers categories! The bougeoisie who have the tactic historically of 
devide and rule have been helped enormously by the trade union bureaucrats 
in this case women in order to rather see the bosses as the common enemy 
have literally declared war on each others trade unions and worker 
categories. It is the age old story of a shrinking labor market imposed by 
capitalist austerity and the trade union bureaucrats get sucked into, hooked 
line and sinker the tactics of putting women in the position of fighting 
each other! Naturally this kind of stuff does not apply just to women but 
has always been a problem in our common struggle against the fatcats..

Naturally this is also linked to that there is various different levels in 
the workers movement involving low paid jobs, middle level jobs and higher 
paid jobs. In the hospital sector for example we have the cleaning ladies at 
the bottom of the pyramid, the ordinary hospital workers who do the dirty 
work like changing bedpans
and sheets, a little futher up the pyramid we have the assistant nurses and 
at the top nurses. Above this is the doctors (men mostly) and the hospital 
administration (men Mostly) and the politicians..

The nurses in this case the top of the women's pyramid in this sector of 
people that actually do work are the cream of the work force. Highly 
trained, lowly paid in relation to other equivalent work forces jobs, with 
enormous responsibility over life and death decisions being taken every day. 
In a strike last year   where the nurses rightfully went out on strike for 
higher loans and were sold out by the trade union bureaucrats who on 
principle hate strikes especially when they are directed at a Social 
Democratic government who is responsible for the cuts in the first place, 
one saw quite clearly how the leadership tried to use this strike not only 
to fight for higher loans but in order to attack their sisters and other 
trade unions a little lower down on this pyramid! 

In fact the fight which started over pay and working conditions wound up 
being a fight for higher pay in exchange for sacking normal hospital workers 
and assistant nurses and employing more nurses on a one to three ratio. 
Meaning that the nurses would take on the jobs of normal hospital workers 
and assistant nurses if they got a big pay raise and employed one nurse for 
every three of the other worker categories that would get the sack!

This immediately led to and attack from the union i belong to which 
organises the cleaning ladies, normal hospital workers and assistant nurses! 
The nurses are organised in a white collar trade union federation which 
organises the middle and upper management work force...

In other words we have a big conflict here which has a lot of tactical 
complications which involve hundreds of thousands of women workers. In this 
case I believe that the nurses were using their "trade union" organisation 
in order to to climb even higher on the pyramid by stomping with both feet 
downward on other women and trade unions  who are the backbone of the 
hospital sector. This is connected to the technical development and putting 
machines and a couple of nurses in place of 5 or 6 of the lower categories. 
Sort of and Ian Rand envionment in the hospital. 

However this line represents women's liberation for a small group of women 
at the expense of other womens groups who are thrown out on the dole. Taken 
and put back behind the stove and no economic independence.

So how do we deal with this kind of problem? What do the "Marxists"-"Feminists"
have to say about this real and burning issue for tens of thousands of women 
just here in Sweden not to mention the rest of the industrialised world. 
Although I am quite sure this tendency can be seen in numerous other 
countries. It is linked naturally to the fact that in west Europe alone we 
have 30 million unemployed with the end of the post world war economic boom 
and now a new round of imperialist rivilry standing at our doors. It also 
raises the question of how women because of the war and the post war boom 
were needed in the labor force and now when their is no place to expand are 
being driven out of the labor market along with a lot of their class 
brothers.. In the US by the way this is not exactly the same. The Dems and 
the Pubs in fact have gone even a step futher! Not only have they forced a 
lot of people out on the dole but they are not turning "welfare" into 
"workfare" which means that those who once recieved welfare now will take 
the jobs in the public sector over sort of a permanent underclass to serve 
the rest of society with work for the right to recieve food stamps!

"Phalic symbols" and "pricks" in all their ara but I think that there are 
for more serious things we should be dealing with on this list if we are 
interested in fighting for poor and working class people.. So hopefully this 
will help in order to get some threads going which actually can be of help 
to poor and working class women and not a waterhole for university types who 
see this discussion as something of a sort of personel raising my *own* 
conciousness session..

Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
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