Wages for Housework, Minimum Income, Welfare Rights, Social Wage, Money for the Work We Do!,

Why “Wages for Housework”?

There has been a renewed interest in the campaign for Wages for Housework, largely due to the state's abandonment of the basic provisions of resources and institutional support necessary for working-class survival, as well as the predatory privatization and violence that such abandonment invariably entails. Likewise, many related campaigns have emerged under slogans demanding a “social wage” or a “minimum income,” among others. While there may be important differences in the implications of such slogans, we are most interested in their capacity to forge connections between the broad set of demands that struggles for control over reproduction must engage.

Nested within the broader call for “Wages for Housework” was always a host of demands and discrete campaigns concerned with myriad aspects of reproduction: campaigns for direct welfare payments to mothers and other caregivers, anti-racist organizing, campaigns for migrant rights, service worker organizing at specific workplaces, sex worker organizing, struggles against sexual violence, demands for childcare services, and access to abortion, among others.

A renewed call for “Wages for Housework” would not enforce a particular organizational form at the expense of all others, nor would it be confined to unpaid work within the home, although the latter must be central to any campaign. Above all, it would have to avoid the factionalism that so often has characterized movements of the radical left. Our interest in renewing the demand is based on the urgency of networking with scholars and activists already working diligently on campaigns over reproductive labor and engaging in the project of historical-theoretical reflection, debate, and movement building.

Please be sure to sign up for our mailing list at the bottom of this page for updates on campaign events. Below, we post a number of organizations and collectives already organizing for what we would broadly consider “Wages for Housework.”

Organizations

The list of organizations below has just begun! It will grow continually based on suggestions from network members. If you would like to add your own organization or suggest one that would benefit from affiliation with this network, please reach out through the JOIN NETWORK link with a message.

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Contre la Guerre/ Against the War is a coalition of militant activists, trade unionists, and all others dedicated to the democratic process and opposed to the drive for rearmament in Europe and genocide in Palestine. The group has organized numerous conferences and events in Paris and its environs over the past few months. Please check our Upcoming Events page for further announcements.

La grande démission is a coalition of public sector workers dedicated to forging alliances and developing strategies for workers in health, education, social services, and other public sector networks. In addition to regular meetings, the group publishes a journal focused on the history and tactics of service-sector organizing.

Le Mouvement des mères isolées en France is a feminist and anti-racist association whose aim is to defend and protect isolated mothers (also known as “single mothers”) in France, regardless of their immigration or economic status.

Les Comités Autonomes du Travail du sexe au Québec (CATS) is an autonomous political organizing project initiated by sex workers based in Montreal. We advocate for the decriminalization of sex work and the improvement of our working conditions. CATS aims to be an organizing space where all sex workers are welcome regardless of their work environment, whether it be a massage parlor, a strip club, the street, OnlyFans, etc.

MayDay Rooms is an archive, resource, and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories. Their headquarters in London offers organising and event space for activist and self-education groups, and runs a full programme of events including film screenings, poetry readings, “scan-a-thons” for digitising archival material, historical talks, discussion and reading groups, and social nights – all free of charge!

.Pluralizing Social Reproduction Approaches: A Global Perspective is an organization of academics and activists dedicated to pluralizing the study of social reproduction. Much like this network, the group shares resources, promotes events, and connects scholars and activists dedicated to multiple methodologies and perspectives in the study of social reproduction.

Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) is a coalition of artists and arts professionals focused on regulating the payment of artist fees in the nonprofit sector. In addition to offering extensive programming and educational materials to raise public awareness of uncompensated and exploitative labor relations in the cultural sphere, the group offers two specific initiatives. W.A.G.E. Certification recognizes nonprofit art institutions demonstrating a history of, and commitment to, voluntarily paying artist fees that meet the group’s minimum payment standards, and WAGENCY, an informal organizational infrastructure open to anyone in the arts field, designed to increase workers’ individual bargaining power and build collective leverage.

(MORE COMING SOON)