100 Campaigns that Changed the World

In a really fascinating example of litigation-led campaigning, a group of senior women in Switzerland argue that - because they suffer more from frequent and intense heatwaves - Switzerland must do its bit to keep global heating below 1.5ºC. KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Senior Women for Climate Protection) is a group of elderly women in Switzerland, initially formed by a group of 40 in 2016, but now numbering more than 2,500. After exhausting all national options, they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court’s decision this April (2024), has set a crucial legal precedent that establishes States’ human rights climate change obligations..

The interview is with KlimaSeniorinnen's Elisabeth Stern, a retired ethnologist who worked at the Pestalozzi Foundation Children’s Village for intercultural education. She taught ethnology at the University of Zurich, worked as a research associate at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare and as a Senior Lecturer for intercultural management competence at the University of St. Gallen. She was the co-director of an environmental company for the financing of environmental projects.

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Stop Funding Hate is a pressure group which asks companies to stop advertising in, and therefore stop providing funds for, certain British newspapers that it argues use "fear and division to sell more papers". It was launched in August 2016, by a group of people who came together online to highlight how some British newspapers were using hate and division to drive sales. This was a time of unprecedented amounts of negative headlines about migrants and refugees in newspapers: particulary the Sun, Daily Mail and the Express.

The guest in this episode is Richard Wilson who is the Director and co-founder of Stop Funding Hate. He previously worked for Amnesty International UK and the Child Poverty Action Group, and has been involved in human rights campaigning since 2001. Richard is the author of two books – Titanic Express (2006) and Don’t Get Fooled Again (2008).

Richards highlights some important lessons about what the campaign has done, its effectiveness, what success looks like and also about the campaigns longer term plans.

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Yaseen Aslam is a great example of a 'lived experience' campaigner. He started working as a private taxi or ‘minicab’ driver in London in 2006 and moved to taxi firm Uber when the company launched its Uber X service in 2013.

Between 2015 and 2021, he and other Uber drivers campaigned to ensure that the company treat its drivers as “workers” which entitles them to more rights than independent contractors. Uber had a position that the drivers were self employed 'contractors'. They maintained this position throughout years of legal proceedings and appeals that took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Eventually, in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Uber drivers and allowed them the entitlement to a basket of rights such as the minimum wage, working-time protections and holiday pay. As a result, the company has been forced to announce new benefits for drivers including a pension plan and holiday time.

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This spisode features an interview with Angela Madden, the Financer Director and Chair of WASPI - the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign.

In 1995 the John Major government raised state pension age from 60-65 to bring in line with men. In 2011, a new Pensions Act was introduced that shortened the timetable to increase the women's pension age to 65 by two years but also raised the overall pension age to 66 by 2022. Both the 1995 and 2011 changes came as a shock to many, with women discovering that they would have to wait up to six years longer for their state pension, potentially affecting their retirement plans.

In 2015, WASPI was formed by five women to argue for the government to provide transitional payments to women born in the 1950s receiving their pension after the age of 60. They also call for compensation to women who now receive a state pension but had to wait longer.

In March 2024 the Parliamentary Ombudsman (PHSO) ruled that WASPI women should get apology and compensation. The women are still waiting for any compensation and the campaign continues. Find out more at https://www.waspi.co.uk/

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In the 1970s and 80s, 4,689 British haemophiliacs were treated with blood products contaminated with HIV and Hepatitis C. More than half of them have died. At the time, the medication was imported from the US where it was made from the pooled blood plasma of thousands of paid donors, including some in high-risk groups, such as prisoners. If a single donor was infected with a blood-borne virus such as hepatitis or HIV then the whole batch of medication could be contaminated. Official documents presented to the inquiry revealed this therapy was given as part of clinical trials.

Jason Evans is my interviewee on this episode. He is the Director and Founder of the campaigning organisation Factor 8, which is seeking justice for the familes impacted by the scandel. Jsson is also the lead claimant in the Contaminated Blood Products Group Litigation currently before the High Court and a Core Participant in the Infected Blood Public Inquiry. Jason's Father, Jonathan, died when Jason was just four years old, in October 1993. Jonathan was infected with both Hepatitis C and HIV from infected Factor VIII blood products. Growing up without his father, it was during his teenage years that Jason began to understand the circumstances around how his father came to die from AIDS.

You can find out more about the scandel and the campaign here. There is also an excellent TV documentary.

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The British Anti-Apartheid Movement was at the centre of the international movement opposing the South African racial segregation system, Apartheid . By the late 1980s the UK Movement had unleashed a number of campaigns and branches and become one of the most powerful international solidarity efforts in history.

In this interview we feature three prominent UK anti-apartheid activists and organisers from the time: Chitra Karve, who was an Anti-Apartheid Movement staff member from 1986 to 1989 and helped organise the 1988 Nelson Mandela: Freedom at 70 campaign, Suresh Kamath who was formerly Vice-Chair of the Movement, and helped to organise the Mandela freedom concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1990, and Tim Oshodi who was Chair of the London School of Economics AA Group and took part in an occupation of the LSE, and was a member of the Black Solidarity Committee.

The three interviewees give some really fascinating insights into what was one of the most important and ultimately successful campaigns of the 20th Century, and reflect on what what went well, what went wrong and what contemporary campaigners can learn from their experience. 

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