workingclasshistory:

On this day, 22 October 1972, feminists in Vancouver, Canada founded SORWUC – the Service, Office and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada. They sought to represent workers in marginalised, low-paying, largely female-dominated sectors that weren’t high priorities for the big business unions. Being dedicated to grassroots organising (e.g., no staff was paid more than the highest wage in a SORWUC contract), rank and file control (e.g., workers directly decided what they wanted in their collective agreements), as well as women’s rights (e.g., defending abortion, sex workers, Indigenous women, daycare, single mothers, etc.), they were targeted by both the bosses and the bureaucrats of the labour movement, and eventually disbanded in 1986.
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