In Leeds, UK, dozens demanded an end to austerity and equal pay for equal work

Story Transcript

JAISAL NOOR: Around the world, thousands marked International Women’s Day by striking, marching, and rallying for equality. In Leeds in the United Kingdom, dozens rallied against austerity, and to demand women get equal pay for equal work, among other concerns.

MOHUA: Different reasons for people to be here, like domestic abuse, sexual violence, harassment in the workplace. Unwaged work–so we’re talking about childcare, caring for older people. Devalued work, as well, so you talk about nursing in favor of medicine. I think it’s so many different things that people are fighting for at the moment.

GABRIELLA: Of course, women have been paying the highest price when it comes to cuts to public services. Both because women actually often work in the public sector, so they have been the first to lose their jobs as a result of austerity, but also because women are among the most vulnerable groups that have been deprived from access to very fundamental services.

JAISAL NOOR: Women recently went on strike in Glasgow, Scotland for equal pay for equal work, and were victorious.

AMY COUSENS: We saw in Glasgow last year was that for decades women were being subjected to very unequal policy around equal pay. They were essentially being paid differently. You know, they said enough was enough. And they organized, they went on strike. 8,000 women strong went out onto the streets of Glasgow, and they went on strike. And they shut that city down.

Undeniably, the austerity has come from the Tories. But actually, before 2008, we saw Labour policy introducing things like tuition fees and kind of scaling back, kind of starting the privatization of the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn has been a welcome change to the late Labour leadership. He has been outspokenly against austerity and he is for things like nationalizing certain sectors of the economy, like the railways, and for free education.

But what we say is that if he is truly in favour of working class people, then he needs to take a stance now.

JAISAL NOOR: For The Real News, this is Jaisal Noor reporting from Leeds, in the United Kingdom.