DIGNITY. SALARY. LIFE! MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LABOR RIGHTS AND LIVING WAGES

07 Mar DIGNITY. SALARY. LIFE! MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LABOR RIGHTS AND LIVING WAGES

MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LABOR RIGHTS AND LIVING WAGES, SLAVIJA SQUARE, MARCH 8, 2023, 5:30 PM

Women of Serbia – workers, union members, clerks, professors, teachers, educators, nurses, doctors, housewives, mothers and those who are not, sisters, grandmothers, caregivers, students, activists and many others, ALL TOGETHER INVITE YOU to the MARCH 8 PROTEST MARCH!

On this March 8, we continue our struggle and use this historically and politically important date to point out economic and existential difficulties most women face today.

This year’s demands remain unchanged. We DEMAND that
• The legal regulations ensure, and practice confirm, working hours of no more than 8 hours during the day, non-working holidays and weekends, fair and living wages, and dignified working conditions.
• Non-standard and new digital forms of work be regulated by fair principles and in observance of labor rights.
• By strengthening social and health care institutions and services, society take over the burden of care work. Care work has until now predominantly remained women’s unpaid work, on which the reproduction of the labor force rests.  
• The institutions work adequately and timely on the prevention and appropriate response in cases of gender-based violence.

And we REMIND:
• That the neoliberal state brings women back to the role of mother, caregiver and an unpaid domestic worker, contributes to the overall oppression and stigmatization of women, lesbians, trans persons, Roma women, women with disabilities and members of other marginalized groups, aiming at limiting the freedom to decide about their own bodies and promoting exclusively heteronormative form of family.
• That without adequate salary, dignity and social protection there is no way out of domestic violence, and that daily grim statistics show us that violence against women has not abated.
• That Roma women, women with disabilities and trans women suffer a special level of discrimination during employment and work in Serbia – they work in underpaid positions or are not given the opportunity at all.
• That women are expected to manage the household in times of crisis and to compensate for the lack of basic resources for family with additional work.
• That we constantly witness the collapse of labor rights obtained and the increase of unemployment. Women work in lower paid positions, advance more slowly and carry a far greater burden.
• That public health and education is becoming available only to those who can pay for it.

WE STAND TOGETHER with all our friends from former Yugoslavia in their daily struggles. On March 8, we all march in the same fight for complete gender equality at home, at work, in every place and at every moment.

WE CALL FOR PEACE and appeal to the state to provide support to all victims of wars, repression and natural disasters, and embrace a policy of peace and a sustainable economy instead of the ideology of neoliberal capitalism, which is now endangering our lives.

Come and show that March 8 is a day when women fight, a day when our voice can be heard and the real life of women in Serbia can be seen!

Informal network of feminist and women’s groups and independent activists