Activist Structure
The National Committee on the Status of Women is a confederal committee with a mandate to support activists involved in women’s issues. The Committee meets at least three times per year, to exchange and share information. Its central mandate was instituted by vote when the Committee was first established, at the CSN’s 1974 Convention:
- To study the forms of oppression specific to women and to prepare the relevant portfolios;
- To monitor the development of collective agreements in view of the specific issues pertaining to the status of women;
- To present a report on the status of women at each CSN convention and for other portfolios;
- To promote the establishment of committees on the status of women in local unions, federations, and Regional Councils;
- To ensure coordination between these committees and to provide them with the support necessary to carry out their activities;
- To ensure that the CSN, its services, and its governing bodies contribute to and participate in the struggle of women by promoting, among other things, the creation of regional committees, organization of training sessions, dissemination of information, and development of special portfolios on different aspects of women’s oppression and the struggles to be undertaken;
- To initiate campaigns on the specific demands of women;
- To ensure that a particular effort is made, within the framework of the activities of the Committee on the Status of Women, to reach out to and raise awareness among women workers in the industrial sector.
Coordination on the status of women is comprised of the persons responsible for the status of women from all CSN-affiliated federations and Regional Councils, as well as members of the National Committee on the Status of Women–CSN. These representatives meet at least twice per year.
In addition, the National Committee on the Status of Women works with diverse groups of women, among others, in organizing for International Women’s Day and the World March of Women. We also participate in various coalitions, such as the Comité consultatif femmes en développement de la main-d’œuvre, the Collectif 8 mars, the Coalition pour la conciliation famille-travail-études, etc.