Global Womens Strike UK

About Us 

We are an international grassroots network campaigning for recognition and payment for all caring work, in the home and on the land.

As part of a dynamic change of direction we demand a guaranteed income for all – of all genders and identities, beginning with mothers, Indigenous peoples and natural farmers – who do the work of:

  • caring for people of every age and condition;
  • protecting and regenerating the land and the water from poisonous chemicals which ruin the soil, the health of those who work it, the nutritional value of the food, and the climate;
  • defending human rights and the natural world, risking their lives;
  • surviving and resisting the climate change we did not cause which, following centuries of imperialist plunder, is endangering lives and livelihoods in the Global South, forcing millions to leave their home and all they hold dear.

For more information about us click here.

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Contact details

Email: gws@globalwomenstrike.net

Address: Crossroads Women‘s Centre, 25 Wolsey Mews, London NW5 2DX.

Phone: +44 20 7482 2496

 

Our History 

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In March 1972, at the Women’s Liberation conference in Manchester, England, Selma James put forward Wages for Housework for the first time. It was one of six demands in the pamphlet Women, the Unions and Work…or What Is Not to Be Done, written for the conference.

It is now 50 years that WFH has been campaigning for financial recognition for the biological and societal work of reproducing the whole human race – whatever else women do.

This caring work goes on almost unnoticed everywhere, in every country and culture. It is rarely prioritised economically, politically or socially, and women are discriminated against and impoverished for doing it.

The WFH Campaign has been shaped by the autonomous organisations that formed within it – women of colour, queer women, sex workers, women with disabilities, single mothers, and a men’s network which shares its perspective on caring and autonomy. It confronts poverty, sexism, racism, deportation, criminalisation, rape, militarism, the theft and destruction of land and the natural world, and other forms of violence and discrimination against any gender. It defends the relationships we choose, and especially the bond between mother and child.

In 2000, the WFH Campaign launched the Global Women’s Strike (GWS). Since 2021 its Care Income Now campaign brings together the care and protection of people and the planet. Its international network over the years has included Canada, France, Germany, Guyana, India, Ireland, Italy, Peru, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda as well as UK and US, and contacts in many other countries.

 

Archives: 50 YEARS OF CAMPAIGNING

For the whole of 2022, the International Wages for Housework Campaign, which co-ordinates the Global Women’s Strike, will celebrate its golden anniversary. We are holding a series of events and launching our 1972-2022 archives at Bishopsgate Institute, London.
Click here to view the archives and follow our exhibition on Instagram here. 

Latest News

Congress: Don’t exclude the most vulnerable children from the Child Tax Credit!

By Global Women's Strike | 26th January 2024

URGENT! Please ask Congressional leadership and your reps to make critical improvements to the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, the bi-partisan bill now under consideration. ⚡ Also call and tweet your members of Congress and Congressional leadership, see below While there are some positive…

Tweets: Congress, don’t exclude the most vulnerable children from the Child Tax Credit!

By Global Women's Strike | 26th January 2024

URGENT: Tax Relief for American Families & Workers Act is being voted on as soon as week of Jan 29. Tell Congressional leaders & your reps to strengthen it to include covering the poorest children in #ChildTaxCredit. ✍ https://actionnetwork.org/letters/congress-dont-exclude-the-most-vulnerable-children-from-the-child-tax-credit/ URGENT! @RepJeffries @SpeakerJohnson @SenSchumer @LeaderMcConnell don’t leave the poorest, most vulnerable children out of #ChildTaxCredit. The…

The compromise Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 leaves out the most impoverished families while giving big tax benefits to corporations

By Global Women's Strike | 19th January 2024

We are mothers, grandmothers and other unpaid family caregivers who have been pressing for reinstatement of the expanded child tax credit (CTC) and for our caregiving work to be valued and supported.  We recognize and appreciate the effort that went into this bi-partisan proposal, but it must not exclude the most impoverished children. Representative DeLauro,…

Letter: to the Government of Ireland, in relation to the proposed wording of the amendments to the Irish constitution on Women and Family

By Global Women's Strike | 29th December 2023

We write as women’s and community organisations with concerns about the proposed wording of the Amendments to the Irish Constitution on Women and the Family, which are to go to referendum in March 2024, and are scheduled to be discussed in the Dáil this week. Having been tasked by the Government with bringing forward proposals…

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…

Urgent: Tell Congress, Include Extended CTC in End Of Year Tax Package!

By Global Women's Strike | 10th November 2023

How long will the richest country in the world tolerate millions of our children in poverty? Urgent action needed to bring back extended CTC, which lifted millions of children out of poverty! The time is NOW to contact Congress because the reinstatement of the expanded Child Tax Credit is being debated as part of negotiations…

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…

Press Release: Mothers and Other Family Caregivers From Across The US Tell Congress to Value Our Work

By Global Women's Strike | 22nd October 2023

Congressional Briefing featuring Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-4), directly impacted family caregivers from across the country and policy experts, followed by Press Conference. October 24, 2023 9-10am Briefing, 10:30am Press Conference. Briefing: Rayburn House Office Building, Rm 2060, Washington DC. Breakfast served. Press conference: House Triangle, United States Capitol

Caregiving is Work Congressional Briefing in DC, Tues 24 October

By Global Women's Strike | 22nd October 2023

Congressional Briefing and Press Conference, Caregiving is Work: Supporting mothers and other family caregivers through the Worker Relief and Credit Reform Act (WRCR) and beyond

Please join us Tuesday in Washington DC! Also being live-streamed on Center for the Study of Social Policy Facebook page

Workshop: How Nature Regulates the Climate & How Natural Farming Can Help

By Global Women's Strike | 8th June 2023

FRIDAY JUNE 9, 10am-4pm (EDT) Crossroads Women’s Center, 5011 Wayne Ave Philadelphia, PA 19144 and by Zoom With: Didi Pershouse, educator, author and soil sponge strategist committed to building healthy communities both above and below ground. Ms Pershouse’s publications include The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities…