Today on Sojourner Truth, we celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month 2021 with an in depth discussion with two grassroots women's movement leaders: Marian Kramer of the National Welfare Rights Union and Selma James, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign.
The NWRO led the way for access to welfare benefits for thousands of single mothers who were previously denied. In 1965, Johnnie Tillmon of Watts, California, and President of the NWRO said: "If I were President, I'd start paying women a living wage for doing the work we are already doing child raising and housekeeping. And the welfare crisis will be over. Just like that. Housewives would be getting wages, too." The NWRO led a women's movement that pressed for the right to welfare and for increased money for impoverished caregivers, who were referred to as welfare mothers. They protested across the nation including against the Vietnam war. The NWRO was central in the organizing and success of the first Poor People's Campaign, which was called by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. months before his assassination.
The NWRO experienced tremendous growth and popularity, more than doubling in membership from 10,000 in 1968 to 22,000 in 1969. Some say the organization had as many as 100,000 members by 1969. They believed the state had a responsibility to provide for all of its citizens in need. In 1987, the National Welfare Rights Union (NWRU) picked up the torch and continued the work of the NWRO, pursuing social justice for all members of society, especially those who have been excluded, like women and mothers. Marian Kramer and other leading members of the NWRU continue to mobilize poor and low-income people, public assistance recipients, caregivers, and the unemployed.
On the other side of the Atlantic in the UK, aware of the importance of the welfare rights movement, Selma James founded the Wages for Housework Campaign in 1972. She was the first to put forward the demand for wages for housework at the third National Women's Liberation Conference in Manchester, England. For decades, the International Wages for Housework Campaign has organized with unwaged workers in the home (such as mothers, housewives, and domestic workers denied pay), and unwaged subsistence farmers and workers on the land and in the community.
On March 8, 2000, at the request of Irish women who were organizing a strike of women in Ireland the Wages for Housework Campaign called for a Global Women's Strike, demanding payment for all caring work. Women from more than 60 countries around the world participated in the protest and continue to be active today. Today, Global Women's Strike has joined with the Green New Deal for Europe and has launched a global campaign for a Care Income Now! to be paid to those who are caring for people and/or the environment.
