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

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. Through a collection of over 150 items, including historical objects, contemporary artworks, films and new commissions, the exhibition explores the working practices across the globe and the enduring fight for workers’ rights.”

The Home section of the exhibition includes magazines, flyers, press releases, songs, photographs, and posters documenting the political and intersectional focus of the International Wages for Housework campaign (IWFHC) from the 1970s to today. IWFHC and our autonomous organisations (Black Women for Wages for Housework, English Collective of Prostitutes, Wages Due Lesbians & WinVisible) revolutionised the recognition of unwaged caring work and led to the pathbreaking UN decision (at the Third & Fourth World Conferences on Women, Nairobi 1985, Beijing, 1995) to measure and value women’s unwaged work in every country’s economic statistics. Our materials show the breadth of our campaigning which includes anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-deportation, health and environmental justice, mothers and other carers, women with disabilities, queer women, rape survivors, sex workers and domestic workers.

Among our exhibits you can see the campaign against the PENTA 1 Trial (Paediatric European Network for the Treatment of AIDS), which Black Women for Wages for Housework and IWFHC were part of. PENTA 1 trialed the use of the AZT drug in babies and children under 16, in the UK and Europe. Trials of the drugs were approved and led by the Medical Research Council (MRC) from 1987. This campaign demanded that the trials be stopped because they were conducted without the informed consent of the mothers, who were mostly of African descent and were threatened with deportation if they did not agree to take part. At the time, AZT, manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, was the only drug used for the treatment of AIDS in Britain.

The Street section of the exhibition includes an installation by Lindsey Mendick replicating the Holy Cross Church which the English Collective of Prostitutes occupied for 12 days in November 1982 against ‘police illegality and racism’, as well as other material about the movement to decriminalise sex work by the ECP and SWARM.

‘Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights’ is open Tuesday to Sunday 10am until 6pm. Entry is free. It runs from 19 September to 27 April 2025.