Campaigns and direct action

Campaigns are organised efforts by individuals or groups to achieve a goal, often to influence a decision, for example whether a bill should become a law. Campaigners may use a wide range of different approaches – from researching and publishing information, pressuring political figures, to holding demonstrations and protests in public spaces.

Direct action seeks to achieve a goal directly through actions such as a boycott, strike, trespassing, or a ‘sit in’ – rather than through negotiation with elected representatives.

Sometimes direct action can involve civil disobedience, where people break a law deliberately because they believe that law is unjust. For example, some women’s suffrage campaigners refused to pay their taxes because they believed they should not have to do so while they didn’t have the vote, and could not say how their taxes were spent.

In some cases, women have committed violence or criminal damage as part of a campaign. In 1983, as part of an organised series of actions taking place nationally, anti-pornography campaigners paintbombed a video shop in Hackney.

NURSERY NURSES CAMPAIGN, 1975

Nursery staff were among the lowest paid of council employees, working long hours in understaffed nurseries with no maternity leave or childcare provision of their own.

When the council withdrew an agreed pay increase, 80 women nursery workers took industrial action supported by local unions. They refused to collect fees from parents or work any unpaid overtime until their demands for higher pay, more staff and shorter hours were met.

A committee found Hackney Council at fault and forced them to keep the pay increase. The nursery nurses unanimously accepted a 36 (rather than 40) hour week and back-dated pay.

The women saw the campaign as part of fighting for better nursery conditions. At the time there were 1000 children on the waiting list for local nurseries. Better pay and working conditions would mean more staff, enabling them to take on more children.

Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

“The women looked cold and tired but determined and we were impressed by their sacrifice and grateful for the opportunity to show our solidarity.”

In 1981, the British Government agreed that American nuclear cruise missiles could be housed at an RAF base at Greenham Common in Berkshire. In September that year, 36 women chained themselves to the base’s fence in protest against nuclear weapons.

For the next 19 years women protested at the site, forming an almost permanent peace camp, repeatedly breaking into the base and cutting down the fences, a part of which is shown here.

A large group of women from Hackney joined the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, and played a major role in many of the protests. Some of these went on to establish a temporary women’s peace camp in front of Hackney Town Hall in 1984.

POLICE RELATIONS

“It is the experience of trying to keep families together and protect them against police incursions and racist attacks, that has led black women — as mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, to the forefront of political protest.”

Women have been prominent and active in local campaigns for justice from the police for members of the African and Caribbean community.

Trevor Monerville was 19 in 1987 when, after being held in Stoke Newington Police Station, he sustained injuries requiring him to be put on a life support machine. His aunt, Annette Monerville, led the campaign demanding a public inquiry and justice for Trevor.

In 1985 the Clapton Park Action Group was formed by mostly Black women. They campaigned against the police presence on the square of Clapton Park Estate used by their children.

Anti-nuclear road blocks, 1984

Twice in March 1984, traffic was brought to a standstill at Dalston Junction by Hackney Greenham women. They wanted to draw the public’s attention to the nuclear cruise missiles at the Greenham Common Airbase and preparations for their deployment.

On each occasion women had banners and leaflets telling drivers and pedestrians about the potential presence on public roads of cruise missile launchers.

Police arrived and threatened the women sitting in the road with arrest. However each blockade ended peacefully, with protestors successfully completing their planned 10-20 minute demonstrations.

EAST END SISTERS UNCUT

Sisters Uncut is a direct action group opposing cuts to UK government services for domestic abuse survivors.

In 2015 the group attracted worldwide attention by staging a ‘die-in’ on the red carpet of the Suffragette film premiere while wearing these jumpsuits. With the chant ‘Dead Women Can’t Vote’, they used the publicity of the night to remind the world that in the UK, two women every week were still killed by current or former partners.

In 2016, East End Sisters Uncut transformed an empty council flat in Marian Court, Homerton, into a community centre as a protest against the lack of social housing available for women escaping domestic abuse in East London. One of the campaign’s key slogans was ‘How can they leave when there is nowhere to go?’

Hackney Abortion Campaign, 1970s

Hackney Abortion Campaign (HAC) fought for the right of women to choose if and when she has a child. They campaigned against forced sterilisation, called for freely available contraception, and for abortions to be available locally on the NHS.

In 1977 Hackney Council arranged for housing for homeless young pregnant women to be provided by ‘Let Live’, an anti-abortion charity that had been found to give biased advice. The HAC gathered around 150 people to protest outside council meetings, and the council overturned their decision.”

When in 1977 William Benyon introduced a bill to amend the Abortion Act, HAC campaigned against it and picketed outside the MP’s London home. After eight months of public debate the bill was defeated.