It is difficult, if not outright impossible, to fully appreciate the legacies of women labour activists in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe and beyond. Their efforts have taken many shapes: strikes, petitions, community organizing, research, international campaigning, and party and trade union work. They collaborated with men and organized separately. Sometimes their activism prompted long-lasting institutional change; achieved tangible improvements such as better pay or working conditions; or laid the groundwork for future campaigns. But many efforts were sidelined and forgotten, failed completely, or were violently repressed. For many women labour activists, their contributions were not marked by bold headlines or large-scale reforms. Some tended to underplay their own efforts. Often the impact of their activism was felt most in unexpected places: in the warmth of a communal soup kitchen during a strike, in a childcare centre set up by a women’s co-operative, or in the evening schools organized by trade unions where women workers learned to read and write.

Strike at the Widzew textile factory in Łódź, Poland, 1927 (Source: NAC)

Changes in the Workplace and Beyond

Women’s labour activism happened everywhere and took many forms. Some of the best-documented cases of labour activism occurred in the workplace: Dissatisfied with their wages, working conditions, and hours, women workers protested. In 1964, hundreds of women working at the Berec Battery Factory in Istanbul went on strike. Most were migrants from rural Turkey or the Balkans working in harsh and hazardous conditions. Their strike lasted forty-one days, and it allowed workers to secure better wages and benefits such as child allowances and maternity bonuses. But its significance went beyond economic measures. The union supporting the strike created a sense of community, even organizing weddings and theatre trips during the strike. For the women involved, many of whom had never participated in public protests before the strike, the experience offered visibility and a sense of belonging.

Others besides workers engaged in activism. In 1930s Cluj, Romania, a young social work student named Salvina Sturza thoroughly documented the lives of female tobacco workers. Her detailed report revealed women’s poor pay, the lack of childcare, and dangerous working conditions. Although intended as academic research, Sturza’s work had an activist bent too, as it made the difficult lives of working mothers visible. The interviews Sturza conducted showed clearly how women juggled factory shifts with caregiving responsibilities, and revealed how common illness and exhaustion were among working women.

Exclusion and Different Forms of Organizing

Women’s labour activism also unfolded beyond labour organizations. In rural Hungary during the final years of World War I, peasant women led food riots in response to rising prices and dwindling supplies. With their husbands at war, women were left to manage agricultural labour and household survival. During their protests, they stormed town halls and food depots, creating powerful precedents of collective action. Though often dismissed as emotional outbursts at the time, these uprisings demonstrated how working-class women challenged state failure and economic inequality, demanding basic provisions to sustain their families and communities.

In Austria’s textile industry in the aftermath of World War II, many migrant women, especially those from Yugoslavia and Turkey, were brought in as a low-wage labour force. Even when local trade unions nominally represented them, these women were largely excluded from leadership roles, and their concerns, such as insecure contracts and balancing the challenges of labour migration with family responsibilities, were sidelined. Still, many found ways to organize. They set up worker support clubs and participated in language classes and legal training. These grassroots efforts gave them tools to understand their rights and support one another. While their exclusion from mainstream unions limited their formal power, they still managed to carve out alternative paths to representation and mutual aid.

Peanut and scent pedlars in Bulgaria, 1923 (Source: Topfoto)

Linking Work and Home

Women’s activism extended beyond the workplace and into the home, responding to women’s gendered position and interests. In the early twentieth century, rent strikes in Vienna and Budapest became a form of urban labour protest. Women led these actions, confronting landlords, forming tenant committees, and drawing attention to unlivable housing conditions. Some rent strikes even mirrored industrial actions, with tenants electing “shop stewards” and staging demonstrations that utilized domestic items – like banging kitchen pots – in order to express their frustration.

In Poland during the interwar period, women labour inspectors pushed for the creation of childcare facilities in factories. Their work led to the establishment of over 100 nurseries, especially in state-run industries. Despite resistance from private employers, these women forged coalitions with associations and groups of social reformers to ensure that working mothers had support. Their success was the result of difficult negotiations and persistent public campaigning.

Changing Political Attitudes and Campaigns for Equality

Political thinking responded to the changing historical context, and this impacted the legacies of activism. In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and under pressure due to rationalization, the old jobs of many skilled male workers disappeared in the 1930s, and in some places, new opportunities arose for formally unskilled women workers. In response to this shift and the alarm expressed by men-dominated trade union circles, trade union women and those affiliated with social democratic parties strongly reasserted women’s right to paid work. At an international conference held in Vienna in 1931, women delegates from across Europe challenged efforts to dismiss married women from their jobs, arguing that working-class women’s incomes were essential for household survival. Traces of such advocacy during the 1930s could be felt in the period after 1945, when women’s principal right to gainful employment slowly achieved full recognition.

Decades later, women’s unpaid family work moved – not for the first time – to centre stage. In 1970s Austria, tensions arose between feminist groups and women in trade unions. Feminists advocated for state recognition of unpaid domestic work and supported radical demands like a 35-hour workweek. Trade union women worked within male-dominated institutions and favoured incremental reforms. Despite their differences, both groups collaborated on campaigns for, among other things, reproductive rights and workplace protections. Their uneasy alliance helped broaden the agenda of labour politics to include gendered concerns.

108th (Centenary) Session of the International Labour Conference, Geneva, 10-21 June 2019 (Source: © Crozet / Pouteau, ILO)

Ongoing Challenges

Many of the problems women activists addressed have not disappeared. Unpaid domestic labour remains undervalued even though it is essential to families and economies, and women are still discriminated against in their paid labour, often because of their unpaid reproductive labour commitments. Some demands including equal pay and accessible childcare remain only partially fulfilled or are under threat due to changing political and economic conditions.

The legacies of women’s labour activism are visible in various forms. Over time, demands such as improved maternity protections, expanded childcare services, workplace regulations, and the social recognition of women’s contributions – sometimes first formulated and most certainly tenaciously pursued by women labour activists – transformed into policy fields in their own right. Changes and improvements emerged from long, often fragmented struggles. In many of these stories, it wasn’t the political elite leading the charge; it was shop stewards, agricultural labourers, factory workers, and seamstresses. It was women who acted not as “heroes” in the grand sense but as organizers of everyday life.

The legacy of women’s labour activism in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe and beyond is not one story but many. It includes moments of triumph, resistance, exclusion, persecution, and endurance. Whether through rent strikes, factory protests, social research, or negotiation, women created social change in large and small ways. Their activism continues to inform struggles for fair work, equal rights, and dignity in everyday life.