Katrina Faccenda - Celebrating International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year, it is a day of collective global activism and celebration that belongs to all those committed to forging women's equality.

To mark this year’s International Women’s Day, we asked three activists from across our movement to tell us what the day means to them. In the final blog post in our International Women’s Day series, Katrina Faccenda from the East & North Scotland General Branch shares her story. Katrina is active as a TSSA representative on the Scottish Labour Party.

"I have been a TSSA member on and off for a long time but only became active in the union in the last 6 years.

The most inspirational women to me is  Rosa Luxemburg - she was an activist and a thinker who was more than able to take on the men.

International Women's Day is above all a day when we need to remind people that this day is our day, a day that predates the adoption by the UN and corporate sponsors, a day initiated by women socialists and trade unionists, and that it should always be a call to action as much as a celebration of what we have achieved.

Women have had to fight to have their voices heard within the movement from the Match Women in the 1800's to the machinists at Daghenam and the Glasgow City Council equal pay campaign, women had to organise and fight to make the moment take up their struggle and recognise their rights.

Fundamentally we need a strong, open and inclusive women's organisation in the TSSA where we can coordinate key demands in all sectors such as eliminating once and for all the gender pay gap and workplace safety especially for those in public-facing jobs. We also need to develop political skills as well as organising skills to help members participate in STUC/TUC and to raise union demands in political parties they are active in."