Unions Tasmania will hold a rally and march tomorrow, Monday the 1st of March, to mark International Womens Day for 2021. We will be joined by women and men from across the community in raising our voices for gender equality.
The global theme for IWD this year is Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World. Speakers at the event will cover a range of issues including the importance of women in leadership to drive structural change for gender equality, sexual violence against women and an inclusive COVID-19 recovery.
Last year was a tough year for all of us but it had some particularly harsh impacts on women, said Unions Tasmania Secretary, Jessica Munday. Women were overrepresented in low paid and insecure work and were shouldering the majority of the caring and domestic labour before the pandemic struck. This meant that workers in insecure jobs in customer-facing female dominated industries like hospitality and retail were most affected by initial job losses.
As we move forward, we need to make sure that women are central to our COVID19 recovery plans. We renew our calls for the Federal Government to establish permanently free, publicly funded early childhood education and care to assist with recovery, said Ms Munday.
Ms Munday said that it was past time that the Government acted on sexual harassment in the workplace and that recent allegations of rape and assault in the nations Parliament indicate an urgent need for widespread cultural change.
We also call on the Government to take urgent action to implement all 55 recommendations from the Australian Human Rights Commission Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report (2020), said Ms Munday.
Speakers include Jessica Munday, Alina Thomas CEO of Engender Equality, and Pru Peschar, a Social Worker and Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) Junior Vice President.
Details
When: Monday 1 March 2021
Where: Parliament Lawns, Hobart
Time: 12:15pm
Media are invited to obtain comment from speakers at 12:15pm ahead of the event commencement at 12:30pm.
For further information: Jessica Munday 0417 454 809
