Unpublished. The word keeps coming up to qualify the call for a strike on March 8, 2024. For the first time, five trade union organizations, the CFDT, the CGT, the FSU, Solidaires and the UNSA, are calling to be “all in strike and in demonstration” for this International Women’s Day. More than 170 actions, rallies and demonstrations are planned across France. In Paris, Marseille, Lyon or Strasbourg, the meeting was set for 2 p.m. A way of encouraging people to strike for the whole day, rather than walking out for an hour or stopping work at 3:40 p.m., a symbolic time put forward in recent years to highlight the pay gap between women and men.
“The connection between women's rights demands and the strike movement is not new,” notes historian Fanny Gallot, who recalls that the origin of this historic day dates back to March 8, 1917, the date of a workers' strike. workers in Saint Petersburg (then called Petrograd). The date was taken up by feminist organizations in the 1970s, but the idea of a feminist strike gained new visibility in the mid-2010s. In October 2016, Argentina launched a call for a “women’s strike” to denounce the femicide of Lucia Perez, raped, tortured and murdered at the age of 16.
The following March 8, organizations from more than fifty countries mobilized for “a day without women.” That of 2018 in Spain is historic: thousands of women take to the streets, more than 300 metros are stopped, radios lose their female voices. “If we stop, the world stops,” the activists chant. If feminist collectives do not yet dare to hope for such a mobilization in France this year, “the fact that our slogan is taken up by more unions and by political parties already shows that we have reached an important milestone” , underlines Arya Meroni, of the Feminist Coordination.
The reasons for this unprecedented union involvement? In a mess, “inflation which has plunged more and more women into precariousness”, “an awareness around sexist and sexual violence, in particular with the [Gérard] Depardieu affair”, but also “the recent victory around abortion", quotes Julie Ferrua, national secretary at the Solidaires trade union. The mobilization against pension reform in 2023 also has a lot to do with it. “She highlighted salary and pension inequalities to the detriment of women,” notes Myriam Lebkiri, responsible for gender equality at the CGT confederal office. And helped to facilitate connections between organizations through frequent inter-union meetings.
A “context of a ‘brawl’”
The day of March 8 presents a “broader union arc”, since it is the first time that the CFDT and the UNSA have joined the call for a strike. A way of “allowing as many people as possible to attend these demonstrations”, explains Béatrice Lestic, national secretary of the CFDT. She highlights a "context of 'brawl'", with a questioning of women's rights in France", but also "expected discussions with the government, in particular on questions of equal pay, the new birth leave mentioned , and salary transparency”. The rallying of the unions is “very well received” by feminist organizations, assures Arya Meroni, of the Feminist Coordination, for whom the objective remains to “stimulate a mass movement”.
Another major issue of March 8: the domestic worker strike. Because women not only work in offices, factories, hospitals: the vast majority of them also take care of children, the house, the elderly – and take on the mental load that goes with it. In a call for a “feminist strike”, parallel to that of the unions, but joined by the CGT, the FSU and Solidaires, the signatory organizations demand “time to live” and “equal sharing of tasks”.
“We are witnessing a paradigm shift within unions, with an awareness of the fact that work does not stop at the duty of an employee, but also extends to the private sphere,” describes Maëlle Noir, member of national coordination of the collective
This observation has not yet become apparent to the CFDT, which is not among the signatories of the call for
Getting out of a “masculine vision of work”
For historian Fanny Gallot, “questioning how we struggle as a mother or as an unpaid worker can help de-center the protest.” According to her, “the militant ethos in the unions is historically very masculine, is based on the fact of being fully available, of banging your fist on the table, in a combative and virile vision of quite exclusionary protest”. Long left on the margins of unions, formerly perceived as "bourgeois, Parisian, disconnected from the working classes", the feminist struggles which permeate organizations today could "allow us to rethink union strategies by moving away from a masculine vision of work" , says Ms. Gallot, who has just published Mobilisée! A feminist history of popular protests (Seuil, 2024, 288 pages, 22.50 euros).
There is also the question of all those who work in “care” professions, from nurses to childminders or home helpers. In these predominantly feminized jobs, “the guilt of absence is significant, and salaries are already very low, which creates a double difficulty in going on strike,” according to Julie Ferrua, of Solidaires. This nurse at Toulouse University Hospital notes this year that the mobilization goes beyond “convinced activists” and that “more and more non-unionized colleagues also want to go on strike”. However, some received summons, ordering them to come and work to provide a minimum service.
In practice, the challenge remains “to build a movement that starts from these most precarious realities,” defends Arya Meroni. As well as bringing an “intersectional perspective” into the struggle, adds Maëlle Noir, from
