Sept 18th Caring Wages Webinar Boasts Internationally Renowned Feminist Leaders and Icons
Published on September, 53 2021
By Marybeth Gardam
Women, Money & Democracy Committee
September 2021
A CARING WAGE: OUR TIME IS NOW is a webinar on Saturday, September 18th that’s been in the works for nearly a year, but the guest speakers that WILPF’s own Mary Bricker-Jenkins has assembled were worth waiting for.
International feminist rock star SELMA JAMES is the outstanding presenter in this webinar that is co-sponsored by the WILPF US Women, Money & Democracy Committee and allies An Economy of our Own and the National Welfare Rights Union. Selma James launched the unfinished debate on “women’s work” in a 1971 radio broadcast. Today, at 92, she continues to press the case for caregiver wages as an essential component of a social order for survival. Her latest book—Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet—deftly and deeply analyses the impediments to and the promise of a system we can and must create. Selma was the founder of the international Wages for Housework campaign in 1971 and continues as the international coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike. Her book is widely available, but she asks that we support independent publishing by ordering from CrossroadsBooksOnline.net. Selma James will be joining us from her home in England, 6pm GMT.
Selma’s message on the need for a living wage for essential caregivers will be clear: Our time is now—IF we organize and fight for it!
Along with Selma this webinar features three more women who have been working nationally and internationally since the 1970s for the right to a fair wage for caregivers, whether the work be done in or out of the home: Pat Albright, Marian Kramer, and Margaret Prescod. See their bio information below.
Last among industrialized nations, the United States has recently (and reluctantly) implemented a stripped-down and sanitized form of a “child allowance” to support caregiving work. Is that a victory? Or is it a deft maneuver to derail the movement for a just caregiver wage – indeed, to derail the movement for the fundamental right to the basic means of survival.
Panelists excavate the historical relationships between “women’s work” and capitalism, between capitalism and the degradation of people and the planet, and the ways that racism and other systems of supremacy are used to thwart action. But that’s not all! Recognizing the power of organized women and men to make history, they guide us to claim our right to do so using the practical steps we have learned to take in our daily caregiving work. Dialog and brainstorming will follow the panel presentations.
Here are all of the speakers
Pat Albright is a low-income single mother with a disability and is a former welfare recipient. She is part of the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network organizing for our work as mothers and caregivers to be valued and paid for. She is a member of the New York State Coordinating Committee of the Poor people’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Selma James launched the unfinished debate on “women’s work” in a 1971 radio broadcast. Today, at 92, she continues to press the case for caregiver wages as an essential component of a social order for survival. Her latest book—Our Time Is Now: Sex, Race, Class, and Caring for People and Planet-- deftly and deeply analyses the impediments to and the promise of a system we can and must create. Selma was the founder of the international Wages for Housework campaign in 1971 and continues as the international coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike. Her book is widely available, but she asks that we support independent publishing by ordering from CrossroadsBooksOnline.net. Internationally esteemed Selma James will be joining us from her home in England, 6pm GMT
Marian Kramer is a civil rights, poverty, and labor activist based in Detroit, Michigan. She got involved with the Civil Rights Movement as a child, attending community meetings and rallies with family members. She emerged as a leader in the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in the 1960s and continues her work today as cofounder, in 1987, and current chair of its successor organization, the National Welfare Rights Union (NWRU). Since the 1960s, the welfare rights movement has organized for the right to an adequate caregiver wage, whether the work be done in or outside the home. Marian is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Alston/Bannerman Fellowship for esteemed, long-time community activists of color.
Margaret Prescod is a decades long community-based women’s rights, anti-poverty and anti-racist campaigner at local, national and international levels. She is the host of “Sojourner Truth” a nationally syndicated drive time public affairs program on Pacifica Radio. She worked with welfare rights leaders in the 1977 Congressionally-mandated conference on women to win a resolution that called for welfare to be called a wage. Margaret has expanded and continued that work through the decades a co-founder of Black Women for Wages for Housework, as a founding member of Women of Color/Global Women’s Strike and as founder of the Every Mother is a Working Mother Network and the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders.
Moderator Mary Bricker-Jenkins is a member of the board of the National Welfare Rights Union and a past Program Chair on the WILPF-US board.
