The Historic Feminist Victories of the 1980s

on Reproductive Rights and Pay Equity: Looking Back and Forward

This forum commemorates two of the greatest achievements of the modern Canadian feminist movement, when thirty years ago, working closely together with the labour movement, the historic legislative and judicial victories on pay and workplace equity and women’s reproductive rights were both won. This meeting brings two of the leading feminists who acted as the link and buckle with the labour movement in those victories of the mid-1980s together with two women activists who are engaged in a new generation of struggles on women’s reproductive rights and pay and workplace equity to discuss the legacy of these victories and assess their continuing impact and relevance today.

Moderated by Leo Panitch. Presentations by:

• Carolyn Egan was a founding member of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics which sparked the campaign to overturn the federal abortion law by opening an illegal abortion clinic with Dr. Henry Morgentaler. She continues to be active in the struggle for reproductive justice for all women, and is president of the Steelworker Toronto Area Council.
• Mary Cornish is a senior partner in Cavalluzzo Shilton McIntyre & Cornish, a Toronto public interest law firm. As a feminist human rights lawyer, she continues to chair the Equal Pay Coalition, a broad based Ontario civil society coalition which successfully lobbied for the implementation of Ontario’s proactive pay equity laws.
• Stephanie Ross is Associate Professor of Work and Labour Studies in the Department of Social Science and co-director of the Global Labour Research Centre at York University. She is president of the Canadian Association for Work and Labour Studies and has edited two books: Rethinking the Politics of Labour in Canada and Public Sector Unions in the Age of Austerity.
• Anjali Kulkarni is a fourth year medical student at the University of Toronto. She is the current National Officer of Reproductive and Sexual Health (NORSH) with the Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS). Previously she was the co-president of Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) at the University of Toronto.

Recorded in Toronto, 31 March 2015.