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Report of the Working Women's Charter Conference.
60 women gathered in Manchester in June to discuss the future of the Working Women's Charter Campaign. The numbers indicated the difficulties facing the Campaign-previous conferences drew 5 times the number. There was a good span of experience and representation from unions like NUT; NATHE, ASTMA, COHSE, NUPE, CPSA and NALGO. Many of these women had little previous contact with womens liberation movement campaigns and saw the conference as an opportunity to discuss ways of taking up women's oppression in their unions. After a valuable exchange of experiences and an honest assessment of the Charter Campaign most went away confident about the future.
NEGATIVE It was evident from the conference attendance that women from socialist feminist groups and women's liberation groups have developed a negative cynicism about the campaign and have begun to ignore it. It was felt that this trend had to be reversed. The Campaign needed new life and support rebuilt.
A resolution was adopted which tried to tackle some of the problems. It was agreed that the Charter still raised important issues and laid the basis for a fight around these in the trade unions. Some women pointed out that this was particularly important with the retreat on these issues in the labour movement with speeches about the sanctity and security of family life.
However, it was felt that ideas about the Campaign itself needed a radical overhaul. Local and trade union Charter groups have become redundant as socialist feminist groups, women's action groups and women's campaigns in unions have mushroomed. Groups set up exclusively around the Charter demands are no substitute for these. Any attempt to make them so is doomed to fail.
Instead the Conference agreed to win existing women's groups in the community, colleges and unions to a fight around the issues raised by the Charter as a compliment to their other activities. This allows women's liberation groups to strengthen their links with women in unions, the workplace and the community. It also provides a basis for wider issues of women's oppression to be raised during struggles on single issues, like equal pay or maternity.
NEW LEASE OF LIFE The most important decision of the Conference was to relaunch the Charter paper as a link and backup to the diverse struggles of women around these issues. A conference has been called for the Autumn to re-launch the paper. The doors of the conference will be opened wide to allow participants of activists in the unions and women's movement to take feminist issues to a wider audience of women particülarly working class women in the community and workplace.
During the conference, the delegates of Workers Power and the ICL withdrew from the Campaign. But the majority of the Conference felt that we'd at last got ourselves out of a rut. It is hoped that, however negative about the past, socialist feminists will help us build a new future. Come to the Conference Support a new newspaper aimed at the unions!
Mailings and information about the conference can be obtained from P.O. Box 50-London N.1. (WWCO)
Open planning meetings will be advertised in WIRES.