Louise Net - UNI Africa Women´s

Unity is strength no matter in which corner of the world you work in we feel your pain.

On behalf of the whole of Africa I must say that women are beginning to take up their rightful positions and place.
They are more vocal and they are leading many union activities and community activities.
The Decisions Of life programme has given a lot of women in the services sector a voice and this is a sector that is dominated by women. But often it is older women who have had years of experiences and we have preached the mentoring process to them and not the mothering process.

We have also had a lot of workshops on their rights to choices- such as right to the female condom, it’s your body and you have the right to choice.
I have been very fortunate because of my involvement in the HIV/AIDS project through the partnership with UNI- Global to take the matter of Aids further into companies and to help the workers to understand the benefits of Global agreements and alliance structures.
We have partnered with the Domestic Workers to have a summit on their convention and what it will mean for the hundreds of domestic workers around the world.
We have many campaigns that we are running and some of the UNI MATERIAL designed by the department is often use to share with other affiliates at the gender meetings in the federation.

There is a collective effort n Africa to grow membership and to grow women committees. And this is being done on regular basis reports are sent and we have designed a mapping exercise to see what positions our women hold in their unions and what are they doing.
This will give us an idea to see how UNI has grown women into decisions making bodies.

We still have challengers on reports not coming in on time but we have mechanisms to deal with this matter.
Flexible working hours and labour brokers is a big challenge for us but were having a National strike on 7 March to deal with matter on labour brokers.
Women are the fore runners of labour brokers especially in the services sectors.
Sexual harassment is still a big problem and we need to constantly educate our members and work that UNI Has done on this matter is outstanding.
Fair play for fair work is a slogan we go by and UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL.
Unity is strength no matter in which corner of the world you work in we feel your pain.

AMANDLA – POWER TO THE PEOPLE