[Partidge: Happy International Women's Day! Meanwhile, that evil Chavez is at it once again, grrrrrr. Women, being paid for voluntary housework?!?!? IT'S POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!!!!!!!!]
Venezuela gives poorest housewives the equivalent of 80 percent of minimum wage.
Global Women's Strike
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The world is beginning to recognise and value women's hidden contribution to society but Venezuela goes further. On February 3 President Hugo Chávez announced that, in recognition for their work in the home, the poorest housewives would receive a monthly income equivalent to 80 percent of the minimum wage — 372,000 bls or about $180. He also announced a 15 percent increase in the minimum wage (which, with the ticket employees get for meals and other essentials, would bring the value of the increase to 835,350 bls or about $400 a month), along with increases in pensions and other low wages. The first hundred thousand housewives will benefit from June, and another 100,000 from July. Chávez said that he aims for up to 500,000 women eventually to get this money.
This is not the implementation of the revolutionary Article 88 of the constitution, which recognises the economic and social contribution of women's unwaged work in the home and on that basis grants housewives a pension. Article 88 still needs legislation to put it into practice.
Rather than wait for this, Chávez has put together the recognition Article 88 gives to housewives' work, with the recent legislation aimed at lifting the poorest out of poverty, and redirected some of the oil revenue to women. Chávez has repeatedly said, women are the poorest, work hardest and are most committed to the revolution.
This is finally a wage for housework, something we have demanded since 1972! It is bound to raise women's wages in Venezuela. We heard about it first from people phoning to congratulate us on this victory, which they assumed was directly associated with our work.
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