Four decades after the launch of an ambitious charter, only four of the 10 demands have been met. What went wrong?
The launch of the working womens charter in 1974 was met with exhilaration, says Chris Coates. She remembers crowded conference halls and energetic meetings, and exciting plans to shape the lives of working women. The charter had been drawn up by trade unionists and those active in the womens liberation movement, and was a list of 10 demands, including equal pay, equal access to education, free contraception and readily available abortion, and more women in positions of power in politics and public life.
Coates, a trade union activist, was at Congress House, the TUC headquarters, where the charter was presented to a packed conference room. The idea was to then go and mobilise in local areas, she says. It was a real coming together [of different activist groups], which was probably the first time we tried to do that. I think that was the strength of the charter: trying to link up the ideas that had come out of womens liberation with the organisational strength of the trade union. It was very exciting.
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