Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday October 07 2016, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the strikes-that-work dept.

Poland is a very Catholic country and the Roman Catholic Church is very much against abortion. The government is also very anti-labor union.

The Committee for a Workers' International (socialistworld.net) reports

[Poland already] has one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in Europe, allowing abortion only in the case of rape, a threat to the health or life of the woman, or deformation of the foetus. In practice, even when these conditions are fulfilled abortion is often prevented by doctors who exploit the so-called "conscience clause" and impose their own religious beliefs on patients by refusing vital treatment.

This law was forced through at the beginning of the 1990s [...] (over 70% of the population was against an abortion ban and supported [...] abortion on demand).

[...] [Recent] plans to impose a total ban on abortion have sparked a massive uncontrolled explosion of anger in Poland. On Monday 3 October a strike of Polish women was called, inspired by the example of Icelandic women, who held a nationwide strike in 1975. [...] Even the police's conservative estimates talk about 98,000 people demonstrating in over 143 separate protests across the country. These are easily the biggest ever protests in defence of abortion rights in Poland, far exceeding the protests in 1993, when the current ban on abortion was introduced.

[This week's strike]

[Continues...]

[...] [In response to the proposed ban, and] inspired by the 1976 strike of women in Iceland, the idea was raised of organising a strike of women. This was not called by any of the trade unions, instead the idea came from within the movement by women who had no previous trade union or strike experience. However, due to the anti-trade union laws and the difficulty of organising a legal strike even by a trade union, women were not encouraged to actually strike, but rather to take a day off work on what was nicknamed Czarny poniedzialek (Back Monday).

Unfortunately many women were prevented from taking part in this strike because they [have lousy employment] contracts and have no right to a day off on demand. For example, Lidl supermarket chain threatened to sack staff who took a day off on Monday.

Finally, on the day of the strike, OPZZ, one of the three major trade union federations, expressed its support and pledged to defend its members from victimisation, should they decide to participate in the protest. Thanks to this, many public administration workers, particularly in local government, were able to strike. A number of theatres and small businesses announced they would close that day to allow their staff to participate. Many more women who had no option but to work dressed in black to express their support for the strike.

[...] Around 10,000 gathered outside parliament in the rain. There were no speakers, but the mood was loud and angry. There were rumours that several thousand protesters marched to Teatr Polski, the theatre where Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the ruling party Law and Justice, was having a meeting.

[...] Law and Justice has been taken completely off guard by the movement. It did not plan to introduce a change in the abortion law, at least not this year, but was forced into taking a position by more right-wing elements and the church, who organised their own "citizen's [initiative]".

Due to the scale of the movement, Law and Justice has reacted by announcing that it will prepare its own compromise draft law, which will probably allow abortion in the case of rape and a threat to the life of the woman, but not in the case of a deformity of the foetus. This, of course, is not a compromise at all, but represents a further tightening of the ban and is completely unacceptable. However, it shows that the government is beginning to feel the pressure.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @06:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @06:10AM (#411366)

    Zero?

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @08:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2016, @08:54AM (#411405)

    WWII, at least. The amount of stolen gifts German soldiers offered their wives is massive.

    • (Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday October 08 2016, @02:10AM

      by tftp (806) on Saturday October 08 2016, @02:10AM (#411669) Homepage

      The gifts were massive indeed, but they did not start the war. The concept of lebensraum [wikipedia.org] did - and it was easily sold to eager masses, to men and women alike. Soldiers - their families, actually - believed that they will get a large property in Russia and many hundreds of slaves to work that land. That belief was very firm in the first year or maybe two; later it became pretty obvious that all the property the soldiers can hope for will be much smaller and approximately 6' beneath the surface.

      As women represent about 50% of the population themselves and have strong influence over the other 50%, they could (just as described in that play) put some serious opposition to the war. By and large they did not [wikipedia.org]. Many wanted the spoils of war just as much as the men; a significant number signed up - without being required to - and became guards and other personnel of death camps. Power over others is a feeling that many men know, but it is not alien to women either (see Abu Ghraib.) Some even say (from King Arthur's tales) that the thing that a woman wants most is the power over a man. Certainly they got that in camps.