[asia-apec 1159] Women's Conference Against APEC - Media Release

[Gatt Watchdog]

AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND APEC MONITORING GROUP
PO BOX 1905 CHRISTCHURCH or PO BOX 106 233 AUCKLAND
EMAIL: notoapec at clear.net.nz

MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE
19 June 1999
ORGANISERS DELIGHTED AT INTEREST IN ANTI-APEC WOMEN'S CONFERENCE
APEC AGENDA SLAMMED: "WE ARE NOT COMMODITIES"

Organisers of the "Beware The Miss-Leaders" Women's Conference Against APEC
are delighted at the high interest in their meeting, which began today in
Wellington on the eve of the official APEC "Women Leaders Network" Meeting.

"Unlike the APEC Women Leaders Network Meeting, our conference is open to all
women.  Women from right around Aotearoa - and overseas - have travelled here
to take part in this important meeting to look at the real issues relating to
the narrow more-market APEC agenda, the human and environmental costs of the
free trade, open investment, free market model of development," said an
organiser, Leigh Cookson of the APEC Monitoring Group. 150 women attended
today's session.

"This ideology is visibly falling apart day by day, so it's all the more vital
that we work to build genuine alternatives.  Women are not commodities to be
bought and sold in the market place," she said.

Today's session kicked off with a powerful presentation from a panel of Maori
women, Mereana Pitman, Leonie Pihama, and Jessica Hutchings on the links
between the colonisation of Aotearoa, its impact on Maori women, and the
globalisation agenda promoted by APEC.

"They have tried to commodify everything.  And now it is banks, multinational
corporations and the state, acting together, that are the new
colonisers," said Mereana Pitman, of Ngati Kahungunu.

Leonie Pihama, a Ngati Mahanga educator and lecturer at Auckland University,
challenged the government's attempts to encourage Maori to support APEC:

"Indigenous Peoples are clearly a threat to the APEC and wider globalisation
agenda.  We see that particularly clearly here in Aotearoa.  The intense
public relations programme that the government is currently engaged in is
evidence of the desire to have all people in this country support APEC and the
ideologies that underpin globalisation.  That includes Maori."

Debbie Stothard, a Bangkok-based co-ordinator of ALTSEAN (Alternative ASEAN
Network on Burma) spoke of the impact of the APEC agenda on Asian women.

 She said:

"Being more committed to trade than the rights of human beings is the ultimate
hypocrisy".

Trade Union Federation President Maxine Gay spoke of the "high cost of
fashion" to women workers.  She said:

"Jenny Shipley says that APEC and the Employment Contracts Act will bring
prosperity to New Zealand workers.  What a joke!"

Ms Gay said that government support for "free trade" through APEC and the
GATT/WTO and its support for a "flexible" labour market through the Employment
Contracts Act "combine to ensure that not only women garment workers, but all
women manufacturing and service workers are caught in a downward spiral of
wages and conditions."

Annie Newman and Luci Highfield of the Service and Food Workers Union outlined
how privatisation, labour market deregulation and contracting out had impacted
on women workers in cleaning and healthcare jobs.

"APEC is about deregulation - reducing workers to a tradeable commodity.  You
cannot get a more "tradeable commodity" than the worker whose future lies in
the hands of two bodies who conspire to produce a cheap fast machine that
can't answer back.  The government is responsible.  The employers are
responsible.  They are powerful and workers are their prey", said Annie
Newman.

Day Two of the conference starts tomorrow (Sunday) at 9am with
Radha D'Souza, Indian human rights lawyer and labour unionist of Asia Pacific
Workers Solidarity Links giving an overview of the implications of the APEC
agenda on women workers in the Asia-Pacific, and strategies to oppose this
agenda.

Linda Hill, feminist activist and writer from Auckland will speak on the
links between class issues and feminism. There are also sessions on campaigns
to rebuild the women's movement and improve lives of working women, building
feminism within the Trade Union movement,  strategies for dealing with the
"Miss-Leaders" (like the APEC "Women Leaders") here and internationally, and
building and strengthening the sisterhood internationally.

For further comment contact: Leigh Cookson (021) 217 3039