THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

HAVE PROUD PAST

WOMEN’S HISTORY -
NEEDED IN CANADA

JUDY WASYLYCIA-LEIS
Federal NDP
Women’s Organizer

“Only A Working Girl”
I know I am only a working

girl,
And Iam not ashamed to say
I belong to the ranks of those
who toil
For a living, day by day.
With willing feet I press along
In the paths that I must
tread,
Proud that I have the strength
_and skill
To earn my daily bread.

These words are part of a
song written in 1985 by Marie
Joussaye. They belong to a
period of history in Canada
that has been almost totally
neglected. This is the history of
working women in the 19th
century who struggléd to im-
fe their lives just as men

id.

It is impossible to this day to
pick up a history book that pro-
vides a complete or even a
partial history of women in
Canada. One can easily be left
with the impression that
women made no contribution
to the Canadian economy and
that their entry into the labour
force is a recent phenomenon.
In fact, one could be led to
believe that women have no
historical roots in the trade
union movement. ;

It is only by piecing together
bits and pieces of history
(songs, poems, memories,

articles, newspaper clippings):

that we can begin to under-
stand the suffering and oppres-
sion that working women en-
dured around the turn of the
_ century. Only then can we
understand the role that
women workers played in or-
ganized labour and reform
movements.
By 1900 work outside the
home had become a necessity
for many Canadian women.
They worked in order that they
and their dependents might
survive. At the same time,
their entry into the labour
force was seen as a way to
meet the demands for in-
dustrial cheap labour. They re-
ceived one-third to one-half
less wages than men for
identical work. This was attri-
buted to feminine weakness,
When they proved themselves
capable of doing work tradi-
tionally done by males, the
skills required were suddenly

down-graded. As Wayne
Roberts in Honest Womanhood
states: ‘‘the skilled work of the
male linotyper became the
nimble work of the female
typist.”

History is silent about these
early working women. Very
little is said about the women
who worked for a pittance as
servants, laundry workers,
waitresses, and garment
workers, who worked longer
hours than were permitted for
men, who worked through the
night around unprotected
machinery with few or .no
breaks, who were beaten and
whipped for disobeying the
owner’s commands. Little is
written about a society where a
sexism dragged women down
to the least rewarding aspects
of the economy and then said,
“But as men we must protect
you — you are far too frail to
vote.”

While it is true that women at
the turn of the century were not
highly organized or active
trade unionists, history tends
to ignore the accomplishments
made by women who were also
struggling to stay alive. Not too
many people know about Marie
Joussaye who tried to organize
a union of domestic servants in
1903, nor about. the women
teachers in Toronto who in 1903

protested the fact that women.

and not the men were required
to perform lunch-room duties.
Not much is said about the
radicalism of women garment
workers as revealed by the
1987 strike in Toronto against a
reduction of piece rates and the
1903 wildcat strike in Toronto
of 73 women who rebelled
against the practice of paying
for their own thread. Such or-
ganizing attempts were far
more pervasive in the early
1900s than our historians have
led us to believe.

The writing of a history of
Canadian women is a monu-
mentous task but must be done
in order to understand that the
gains of today are related to
the struggles of yesterday.
Such a history will also show
that the nineteenth century
concept of women as cheap
labour, easily exploited, and
readily available is still pre-
sent today in the form of em-
ployment ghettos where
women are concentrated in un-
skilled and semi-skilled, low-

paying jobs.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Last spring the parent of a Houston, Texas, high school
pupil received a message from the principal about a special
meeting on a proposed educational program.

It read:

“Our school’s cross-graded, multi-ethnic, individualized
learning program is designed to enhance the concept of an
open-ended learning program with emphasis on a con-
tinuum of multi-ethnic, academically enriched learning

§ using the identified intellectually-gifted child as the agent
or director of his own learning.
_ “Major emphasis is on cross-graded, milti-ethnic lear-

with

of a person.”

main objective being to learn respect for the

e parent wrote the principal:
“I have a college degree, speak two foreign languages

and four Indian dialects, have been to a number of country
and goat ropings, but I haven’t the faintest idea
as to what the hell you are talking about. Do you?” —

NDP leader Ed Broadbent
renewed his call for a new bud-
get that .would create some
jobs after Statistics Canada re-
leased October figures showing
unemployment remains at
record-high levels.

The NDP leader told the gov-
ernment that its $1.2 billion in
tax breaks to corporations and
investors, confirmed in finance
minister Jean Chretien’s mini-
budget, were “ridiculous.”

‘Industry is not using that
money to expand further
because its directors are not

stupid,” Broadbent said.

Instead, he urged the

‘ government to use the money

“in the form of direct job
creation or as a tax break to
the consumer.”

Broadbent called on Chretien
to bring down a pre-Christmas
budget that would have job
creation as its central focus.

Canadian Labour Congress
secretary-treasurer Don Mont-
gomery pointed out that the
statistics showed increases in
unemployment in the Mari-
times and Quebec. He said the
increases in those areas would
only add to the feelings of their
people that
getting richer while the poor
are getting poorer.”

Montgomery scored the gov-
ernment for spending hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars
on an advertising campaign for
the Canada Employment and
Immigration Commission, the
new department created by
amalgamating Canada Man-
power and the Unemployment
Insurance Commission.

“It is sad that the govern-
ment thinks the people of
Canada will- fall for Madison
Avenue tricks while at the
same time, they are seeing
their jobs being snatched away
from them,” he said. “It is an
insult to their intelligence.

“The hundreds of thousands
of dollars that are being spent
in a foolish attempt to brain-
wash us into thinking unem-
ployment is not a problem
should have been invested in
creating jobs. If enough jobs
are created, then unemploy-
ment won’t be a problem.”

Montgomery called for the
development of a long-term in-
dustrial strategy. ‘‘The
Canadian Labour Congress in-
sists that the economy be

planned in a way that will
create and maintain jobs.”

“the rich are

Cyril Symes (NDP -Sault
Ste. Marie) reminded the gov-
ernment that the tax breaks to
corporations, which would sup-
posedly create jobs, are use-
less in preventing thousands of
layoffs by the same corpora-
tions.

“If we are going to deprive
the public treasury of $1.2 bil-
lion in corporate taxes, some
condition should be attached to
that kind of tax break,” he
said.

‘“‘The result of all these kinds
of tax breaks and concessions
has been more lay-offs, more
expansion by the miltination-
als outside of Canada, and the
highest unemployment we
have had since the depres-
sion.”

Broadbent unveiled a
“Canadian Jobs First’ eco-
nomic strategy that, combined
with the NDP’s recently-an-
nounced emergency job
creation program, could create
350,000 new jobs.

“This kind of strategy .. .
would work to prevent the
bleeding off of jobs in some of
the most important
(economic) sectors and lay the
basis for a permanent increase
in employment levels in these
sectors,’”’ the NDP leader said.

Broadbent said the adoption
of the policy in sectors like the
auto industry, shipbuilding,
textiles, the electrical industry
and footwear products would
result in saving or creating up
to 50,000 Canadian jobs which
would otherwise go elsewhere.

“In the auto industry, we
have been shortchanged in
terms of the distribution of
jobs, investment, and research
and development expendi-
tures, and this year we face a
$3 billion deficit in our parts
trade,” he said.

“The federal government
could reverse the process of

DECEMBER, 1977

decline in this industry and
produce 20,000 new jobs for
Canadians if it told the major
automakers they had to do a
fair share of their production in
Canada, and forced them to
draft and live up to concrete
plans aimed at reaching this
goal.”

The NDP leader pointed out
there were 5,000 jobs lost last
year in the shipbuilding in-
dustry. That decline could be
reversed if the government
pledged that all Canadian fleet
requirements, including
‘ferries, ice-breakers and
modernized coast guard equip-
ment, would be met from
Canadian shipyards.

Broadbent said the flood of
textile imports has resulted in
a situation where less than half
the Canadian market is sup-
plied by domestic manu-
facturers, at the same time as
exports are stagnant.

He called on the government
to keep import quotas at the
1975 level and pledge to reserve
75% of the Canadian market
for domestic manufacturers
within five years. Broadbent
pointed out that prevailing
western European practice
was to reserve 85% of the
domestic market for non-im-
ports.

Broadbent said similar
action in the radio and televi-
sion manufacturing sector
could restore the 30,000 jobs we
have already lost in this in-
dustry over the past 8 years
and save maybe another 5,000-
10,000 jobs not yet lost.

The NDP leader also called
for import quotas on low-cost
footwear imports which have
captured just under 70 percent
of the Canadian market. The
quotas, he said, should be an-
nounced before Christmas and
become effective in January.

In mining, Broadbent urged
that the government take up
the NDP suggestion to stock-
pile nickel production until
world demand picks up.

This would avoid the 4,000
layoffs recently announced by
International Nickel and save
the taxpayer more than $30 —
million in estimated UIC and
tax loss costs, he said.

C2 See ee

LIGHTER SIDE

Monologue: A conversation
between a husband and wife.