Global Women’s Strike is an international multiracial network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work for people and planet - a Care Income.

Co-ordinated by the International Wages for Housework Campaign which was launched by Selma James in 1972 >>>

Selma James

Selma James is an antisexist, antiracist campaigner. In 1972 she put forward Wages for Housework (WFH) as a demand and a political perspective that redefined the working class. The International WFH Campaign she founded coordinates the Global Women’s Strike. She coined the word “unwaged,” which incorporates all workers without wages. She co-authored the classic The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community and is the author of Sex, Race and Class and other pathbreaking writing.

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Global Women's Strike

The Global Women’s Strike and Women of Colour GWS, which have campaigned for financial recognition for unwaged caring work for decades, contributed to the Green New Deal for Europe and jointly called on governments everywhere to provide a Care Income, starting now. As mothers, carers, farmers/farm workers, land and human rights’ defenders, women do most of the work of feeding (starting with breastfeeding) and protecting families and communities, the soil and the environment.

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Wages for Housework

Wages for Housework begins with those of us with least power internationally – unwaged workers in the home (mothers, housewives, domestic workers denied pay), and unwaged workers on the land and in the community.

Wages for Housework is a demand, it is also a perspective, a way of organising from the bottom up, of autonomous sectors working together to end the power relations among us.

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Recent & upcoming events >>>

Book Launch: Wages for Housework – The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise.

By Global Women's Strike | 4th February 2025

A fascinating new book by Emily Callaci about the history of the International Wages for Housework Campaign is being launched in the UK next week (US launch to follow). Wages for Housework The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise features WFH founder Selma James (who turns 95 this year), co-ordinates the Global Women’s…

Save the date: 24 October: International Women’s Strike Actions

By Global Women's Strike | 30th September 2024

Spread the word – Women are rising A Week of Actions When women stop, everything stops. On 24 October 2024, women and allies from around the world will participate in the Global Women’s Strike, commemorating the historic 1975 Icelandic women’s strike, where women halted their unwaged and waged work in the home and outside, in…

Wages for Housework Campaign in major exhibition – Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

By Global Women's Strike | 12th September 2024

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ at the Wellcome Collection (London) explores “the profound impact of physical work on health and the body. It delves into the stories of underrepresented workers and their rights within precarious and unsafe labour environments. From protests to healing practices, the exhibition unveils hidden histories of resistance and collective action.…

Event: London Land Justice Fair, 21 July, 12-6pm

By Global Women's Strike | 3rd July 2024

We’ll be running a stall, and a workshop on land use in the women-led natural farming movement in Andhra Pradesh, India. All welcome!

Webinar : What Mothers and Other Caregivers Want – findings from international survey, May 11

By Global Women's Strike | 7th May 2024

From March 2022 to May 2023, this survey asked 1065 mothers and other caregivers from different generations and in different countries what they want and need. Assumptions are always being made about this, but in fact caregivers are rarely directly asked about how we spend our time, the resources we have or don’t have, or…

Watch our workshop with our sisters from Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming

By Global Women's Strike | 25th January 2024

Speakers: Meerabi Chunduru, Swati Renduchintala, Vijay Kumar, Selma James. Chair: Jyoti Fernandes In the last 20 years, in Andhra Pradesh, India, grassroots women in a secular movement of self-help groups are collectively transforming the food they grow, their families’ health, and increasing their income. They are the largest transition to agroecology in the world, simultaneously…

Mothers Manifesto outside Parliament today!

By Global Women's Strike | 13th December 2023

Dear friends The Global Women’s Strike will be supporting the Mother’s Manifesto on Wednesday 13 December, 9.30-2pm, on their stall outside Parliament while some of them meet MPs inside. We hope you will join us there for all or some of the time. Mother’s Manifesto are a group of mothers who have been campaigning for 18 months to raise awareness of family food poverty and…

Press release: Wages for Housework film All Work and No Pay at Tate Exhibition Women in Revolt.

By Global Women's Strike | 7th November 2023

The Wages for Housework film All Work and No Pay is part of the major Tate Britain exhibition Women in Revolt which opens tomorrow 8 November 2022 and runs until April 2024. The film was made by the Wages for Housework Campaign (WFH) with the BBC community access unit Open Door in 1975. It provided…

Protest: Stand with the people of Haiti! NOT another invasion.

By Global Women's Strike | 9th October 2023

The Global Women’s Strike UK (GWS), Women of Colour GWS and Caribbean Labour Solidarity join with Haiti Action Committee US in defence of the people of Haiti. Join us to demonstrate: Tuesday 10 October 2023, 4.30-6pm at Kenya High Commission, 45 Portland Place, London W1B 1AS. Haiti Action Committee condemns in the strongest possible terms…

Event: Workshop on Autonomy – women, race & immigration, at the Anarchist Bookfair.

By Global Women's Strike | 28th September 2023

Join us at the Anarchist Bookfair in London next week. Workshop: Autonomy – women, race and immigration. Saturday 7 October 1pm – 2:30pm Zilkha Auditorium, Whitechapel Gallery. In 1982, the Wages for Housework Campaign organised the first conference in the UK on women, race and immigration. Insisting on our right to be here is even…

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Current campaigns >>>

Mothers & children of Palestine, we are with you: Learn more

International survey: What Mothers and other caregivers want and need: Learn more

Caring for the land: Learn more

Surviving the Military Dictatorship in Myanmar: Learn more

Our recent news >>>

Tues 20 May – International actions for Haiti. Reparations NOW! London French Consulate

By Global Women's Strike | 17th May 2025

Urgent International Actions for Haiti! Tuesday 20 May 2025 Restitution & Reparations Now! No More US-Made Weapons to Haiti Right to Asylum for Haitian Refugees London protest: 12.30-1.30pm French Consulate 21 Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2EN South Kensington tube The protest for Haiti at the French Consulate in London will be live…

Queer Strike – From our archive*: lesbian visibility in the 70s

By Global Women's Strike | 26th April 2025

On lesbian visibility day, let’s remember Maureen Colquhoun. Ms Colquhoun was the Labour MP for Northampton North from 1974-1979, a time when there were only about 30 women in Parliament. In 1977 she was outed (with her life partner Babs Todd) as a lesbian by the tabloid press and accused among other things of having…

Queer Strike Italy book tour 13-18 April

By Global Women's Strike | 4th April 2025

Dear friends, We are delighted to let you know that a book of Wages Due Lesbians’ archive materials (mainly from the 1970’s/80’s) has been published in Italy by Asterisco Edizioni publishers SALARIO ALLE LESBICHE L’esperienza di Wages Due Lesbians/Queer Strike. It has an introduction from Queer Strike and from the editor Olivia Fiorilli. We are…

Mothers Manifesto Regional Mothers’ Day hunger strikes

By Global Women's Strike | 24th March 2025

GWS will be supporting the Mothers’ Manifesto Regional Mothers’ Day 24hr hunger strikes starting on Sat 29 March. From Mothers Manifesto: Mothers Manifesto are holding one day regional hunger strikes over Mothers Day weekend across the UK. Do join us and please share with friends 💗🙌 We are calling for legislative change to ensure the…

Wed 19 March: Stefania Barca, Book Club “Workers of the Earth” 6pm. Zoom Link

By Global Women's Strike | 19th March 2025

Stefania Barca’s talk with London Mining Network will be on-line via zoom (see link below). It will be a hybrid format so you can also take part in person, by joining on zoom at Crossroads Women’s Centre. All welcome. This exciting book includes a chapter on WFH’s organising against “nuclear housework” and the UK’s nuclear…

Visit Wages For Housework & English Collective of Prostitutes in major exhibition ‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’

By Global Women's Strike | 4th March 2025

Wages for Housework Campaign & English Collective of Prostitutes in major exhibition Dear Friends, As part of International Women’s Week celebrations, we’re planning a group visit to see ‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ at the Wellcome Collection (183 Euston Road London NW1 2BE) on Sunday 9 March at 1pm. If you would like to join us,…

Book Launch: Wages for Housework – The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise.

By Global Women's Strike | 4th February 2025

Ann Snitow Prize Ceremony honoring Margaret Prescod, Tuesday 10 December

By Global Women's Strike | 4th December 2024

Margaret Prescod, Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike and co-coordinator of Global Women’s Strike in the US, is being honored with the Ann Snitow Prize next Tuesday, December 10. Please join us in celebrating this important acknowledgement and hear more from Margaret, by registering for the award ceremony starting at 3pm US Pacific / 4pm Mountain / 5pm Central / 6pm Eastern / 11pm UK.

Event: London Mining Network on Just Transition

By Global Women's Strike | 28th November 2024

We are speaking at this conference, Saturday 30 November 2.45pm, Bernie Grant Centre, Tottenham N15 4RX. Women are central to a Just Transition, resisting mining, corporate greed, and the state/military interests that back them. GWS will talk about what we’ve learned working with women in farming and mining communities in Thailand, and in India.