The National Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations was an organisation representing women active in the labour movement in the United Kingdom.
The organisation was founded in 1916 by the National Federation of Women Workers, Women's Co-operative Guild, Women's Labour League, Women's Trade Union League and Railway Women's Guild, as the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations (SJCIWO). It aimed to represent women workers, by helping them gain representation on relevant bodies at the local, national and international level.[1][2] It became closely aligned with the Labour Party, and the Chief Women's Officer of the party acted as the group's secretary.[3]
In 1931 Dorothy Elliott chaired the committee and she was also the lead for the National Labour Women’s Conference. She advocated minimum wages for a million workers who were in domestic service and catering. The policy was adopted by the Labour Conference that year but it went no further.[4]
By 1932, the group's constitution stated that the following organisations could become affiliates: "the Labour Party, the Trades Union Congress, the Women's Co-operative Guild, and the Railway Women's Guild; and organisations affiliated to the Labour Party or the Trades Union Congress, of which a substantial number of the members are women, which are national in character, and are accepted by the committee".
In 1941, the group was renamed as the Standing Joint Committee of Working Women's Organisations', and then in 1952 it adopted its final name.[1]
By 1993, the group's members believed that its purposes were better served by other organisations in the labour movement, and it dissolved.[5]
Secretaries
edit- 1916: Mary Longman
- 1917: Marion Phillips
- 1932: Mary Sutherland
- 1960: Sara Barker
- 1962: Constance Kay
- 1967: Betty Lockwood
- 1975: Joyce Gould
- 1985: Anne Wilkinson
Chairs
edit- 1916: Mary Macarthur
- 1921: Margaret Bondfield
- 1923: Florence Harrison Bell
- 1925: Ellen Wilkinson
- 1928: Jennie Lee
- 1930: Clara Rackham
- 1931: Dorothy Elliott[6]
- 1931: Barbara Ayrton-Gould
- 1932: Susan Lawrence
- 1934: Eleanor Barton
- 1935: Anne Loughlin
- 1937: Anne Godwin
- 1938: Grace Colman
- 1940: E. Martin
- 1943: K. M. Shade
- 1944: Florence Hancock
- 1946: Margaret Allen
- 1949: Mabel Crout
- 1952: Jessie Smith
- 1967: Millie Miller
- 1969: T. Hinchey
- 1971: J. Lipson
- 1983: Rita Stephen
References
edit- ^ a b Gordon, Peter; Doughan, David (2013). Dictionary of British Women's Organisations, 1825-1960. London: Routledge. pp. 105–106. ISBN 9780713040456.
- ^ Boone, Gladys (1968). The Women's Trade Union Leagues in Great Britain and the United States of America. New York: AMS Press. pp. 26–42.
- ^ "Labour Chief Woman Officer's Papers". Archives Hub. Jisc. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
- ^ Bartley, Paula (2023-06-08), "Elliott [married name Jones], Dorothy Mary (1896–1980), feminist and trade union activist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.112182, ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 2023-08-31
- ^ Peter Barberis, John McHugh and Mike Tyldesley, Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations, pp.462–463
- ^ Bartley, Paula (2023-06-08), "Elliott [married name Jones], Dorothy Mary (1896–1980), feminist and trade union activist", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.112182, ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8, retrieved 2023-08-31