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Throughout history, women have stood up to be counted and make their voices heard.

On International Women’s Day, we celebrate the achievements of women through the ages, including those who fought for equal rights, fair pay and safer workplaces.

���˿��� Bitesize takes a look at four times in history when women went on strike to raise their concerns and demand fair treatment.

The Match Girls Strike

In the late 19th-Century, London’s East End was a place of deprivation and poverty. It was here that many of the teenage girls and young women who worked at the Bryant & May matchmaking factory lived.

Girls as young as 13 would work long days, standing on their feet and with only two scheduled breaks. Anyone who went to the toilet outside of those breaks would have a fine deducted from their wages. Fines were also given for talking and having an untidy workspace. The match workers were also at risk of physical injury from operating machinery and inhaling white phosphorus.

In 1888, the social reformer Annie Besant wrote an article about the terrible working conditions at Bryant & May, having interviewed several workers. After it was published, the factory tried to pressure the women into saying that Annie was lying. They refused to do so and one woman was fired. In response, 200 match workers went on strike on 5 July 1888.

Word of the strike action quickly spread and another 1,400 East End workers walked out in sympathy. Annie helped to organise a strike fund to support these young women, a Union of Women Matchmakers was established and around 50 girls visited parliament to discuss their plight.

With so much bad publicity around, Bryant & May were forced to negotiate and eventually reach an agreement. All fines were abolished and pay improved.

The Grunwick Dispute

In the hot summer of 1976, women were back on strike in London, but this time it was workers from the Grunwick photo processing laboratory. Most of the staff were migrants of South Asian origin who had taken on low-paid factory jobs in order to help support their families.

Forced to work overtime with little notice and often disrespected by her employer, one day a worker called Jayaben Desai had enough. Together with her son, she walked out of the Grunwick factory and set up a picket line outside.

Soon enough, Jayaben was joined by 137 other strikers from the 500-strong Grunwick workforce. Together, they joined a trade union and travelled across the country to address workers in other factories.

At the peak of the strike, 20,000 people turned up to support these women on the Grunwick picket line. The strike was drawn out over two years, and eventually, the trade union leadership withdrew their support. Jayaben and some fellow strikers even went on hunger strike, but when this did not succeed, the strike was brought to an end.

While the strikers were never given their jobs back and the trade union wasn’t recognised, future employees at the factory were able to benefit from higher pay and pensions, thanks to their actions. According to researchers, the strike also helped to challenge stereotypes of South Asian women being passive and subservient.

Uprising of the 20,000

Across the Atlantic Ocean in New York City, another charismatic leader was emerging in November 1909. When Clara Lemlich addressed a crowd of thousands of garment workers, predominantly young Jewish women, in Yiddish, she inspired them to go on strike in protest about long hours, low pay and poor workplace safety.

The next day, over 15,000 New York garment workers walked out of work demanding a 20% pay raise, a 52-hour workweek and extra pay for overtime. Numbers then continued to grow, resulting in the name ‘Uprising of the 20,000’. Strikers were subjected to intimidation and violence on the picket line but did receive support from wealthy suffragists.

In the end, the factories agreed to demands for higher pay and shorter hours, but the strikers were unable to secure closed shop agreements.

Sadly, their success was overshadowed by a tragic fire at the Triangle garment factory in March 1911 which killed 146 workers. Some women had been unable to escape because fire doors had been locked, going against the workplace safety changes the strikers had been pushing for.

The Women’s Day Off

On 24 October 1975, 90% of Iceland’s female population either didn’t go to work or refused to do any housework. Instead they attended rallies, calling for equal rights with men. It was known as the ‘Women’s Day Off’.

The largest of these took place in Reykjavik’s Downtown Square, with 25,000 women in attendance. That’s pretty impressive given that Iceland’s population was only around 220,000.

This strike is also known as the ‘Long Friday’, reflecting how it felt for some of the men tasked with taking on the work and childcare traditionally done by women.

By drawing attention to the importance of their role within society and their economic power, Icelandic women were able to influence public opinion. In 1976 a law was passed to ban wage discrimination due to gender, in an attempt to tackle the 40% gender pay gap. In 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir became the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a head of state.

This article was published in March 2022.