Kathleen Kinkead Watson was born on 13 January 1911 in Brisbane. She won a scholarship to University of Queensland when it was located in George Street. Kath Watson wrote poetry into the 1980s. She joined the Communist Party in 1940 and was politically active in the labour movement from the 1940s. She worked in the trade union movement including for the Union of Australian Women in fighting for equal pay. She married Harvey Alfred Pete Thomas and it is by her married name, Kath Thomas, that she is most remembered. Throughout the 1970s Watson continued preparing submissions to the Federal Government on the role and status of women. She died on 3 October 1994.

The Union of Australian Women was a national organisation, formed in 1950. Its aim was to work for the status and wellbeing of women across the world. It was involved in a wide variety of campaigns that concern women, and networked with other women's community and union groups on such issues. The national branch closed in 1995 and the Queensland branch disbanded in 1999.

Objectives - To uphold the rights of organization of labour and to improve, protect and foster the best interests of its members; to improve their cultural and living standards; to protect the interests of workers in the regulation of conditions and labour; to secure socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange; to promote industrial peace and settle disputes; to combine with other unions and organizations with similar objectives; to assist in establishment of labor newspapers and broadcasting and television stations and to maintain a union journal; to provide benefits for members.