Historical record of
women's mobilization

By B. FERNEYHOUGH

The turn of the century saw the
presence of women in, industry
here in Quebec reach significant
proportions and ever since, the
number of women workers as
well as the proportion they form
of the total labor force has gone
up. In 1901 close to one-fifth of
the labor force was women; to-
day in Quebec they form well
over 30%; in'the United States
over 45% of the workers are
women.

It was the struggle of the
women in textile factories on the
American continent that won
for them a recognized position
in the international world of
labor. Few earned more than $12
a week for a 60-hour week, or
more.

From 1901 on they began or-
ganizing — in Montreal, Valley-
field, Magog — throughout Que-
bec wherever textile industries
were established. At the same
time textile and clothing work-
ers in New York, Chicago, Lo-
well and Lawrence, Massachu-

‘ setts were also fighting militant

battles for wage increases and
against sweatshop conditions.
Many of these women workers
were mere girls. A member of
La Ligue des Femmes du Quebec
remembers going to work at the
age of 9. In 1912 she was on
strike, and on the picket line en-
countered police attacks, the po-
lice mounted on horses trained
to press into and among human
beings. She and her young asso-
ciates on the picket line ran in
and out among the horses chal-
lenging and jeering at the police.

_ Many were hurt or arrested.

Between 1909 and 1912 this
militant struggle reached its

height. Here in Quebec, a Royal
Commission was set up in 1908
to inquire into Industrial Dis-
putes in the Cotton Factories of
the Province of Quebec. Do-
minion Textiles in Montreal and
Montreal Cottons in Valleyfield
had announced a 10% wage cut
in the spring. ;
Meanwhile in the eastern USA
a similar struggle was develop-
ing against low wages and
sweatshop conditions and ruth-
less use of women and children.
In New York in 1909, one such
struggle involved 20,000 waist-

- makers. ‘Sixty percent in the

trade were women and 70%
were between the ages of 16 and
25 years old. They worked 56
hours a week in seasonal work,
speeded up in dirty firetraps

known as ‘sweatshops’. ‘Learn- -

ers’ wages were $3 to $6 a week.
The highest paid to operators

was $18.” So reports Elizabeth.

Gurley Flynn, one of the leading
spirits in this struggle, in her
book, ‘‘The Rebel Girl”.

146 Died That Day

This strike started in two
shops, one the notorious Triangle
Shirtwaist Company: These
struggles were known as “the
girls’ strikes,” because of the pre-:
dominance of women, ard the
youth of the strikers.

It was the Triangle Shirtwaist
Company that has the infamous
responsibility for raising the con-
ditions in the textile factories to
a national scandal, and that re-
sulted in the international recog-
nition of the struggle of women
workers at the Copenhagen Con-
gress of the Socialist Interna-
tional in 1910.

As Elizabeth Gurley Flynn re-

ports it: “... we of the IWW
held meetings to discuss: labor
problems in the East. One night,
I recall, we arranged a debate on
the organization of the clothing
workers . . . should they go into
the AFL or the IWW (Industrial
Workers of the World)?... As
we came out of the hall, we saw
a strange sight, a uniformed po-
liceman stumbling along the
street weeping .. . He said he
had just come from a most hor-
rible sight’— a fire in the Tri-
angle Shirtwaist factory, high up
in a loft building off Washington
Square. The doors were locked
and jammed. Young girls leaped
from the windows, their bodies
aflame like torches, and were
dashed to death on the pavement
below. One hundred and forty-
six workers, mostly women and
girls died that day — March 25,
1911 — in the heart of New York
City. The reason the door was
locked, we heard later, was to
search the girls as they left, lest
they take a shirtwaist, and to
keep organizers out. No one went
to prison, there was no news-
paper clamor for punishment of
the guilty after this holocaust—”

International Women’s Day

It was in such militant rank
and file struggles of harassed
and plundered workers, men and
women, that the seed of the mili-
tant women’s working class
movement took root. It was at
the International Socialist Con-
gress in Copenhagen, Denmark,
where “Big Bill” Heywood was
a delegate that March 8 was un-
animously voted International
Women’s day. -

Since then the international
women’s movement has grown

Women’s Lib and the working class

e Continued from Page 5
a decline for the women who
had been raised to see their role
in society as wives and help-
mates of successful professionals
and technical experts.

Suddenly these women faced
the necessity of entering the
work force themselves, invari-
ably at much lower levels than

their male friends. Many of the -

confusions of the Women’s Libe-
ration Movement of the late
1960’s were a reflection of a kind
of “collective identity crisis” of
women seeking to find their
place in a rapidly changing so-

‘ciety.

This. period of the modern
women’s movement in Canada
has largely come to an end. Most

of the original members of the
Women’s Liberation Movement
have by now come to accept
their new role in the work force
as permanent and inevitable, and
have taken jobs in offices or

gone back to school to get train-°

ing for life-long careers. What
survives of the Women’s Libera-
tion Movement are a number of
small educational and service
projects involving students and
increasing numbers of young
working women, especially cleri-
cal workers and teachers. Today
the Canadian women’s movement
consists of a number of separate
groups working around specific
issues related to women’s op-
pression.

Besides the educational and

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1974—PAGE 6

service projects (abortion coun-
selling, day care organizing,

. legal aid, etc.), long-established

organizations such as the Cana-
dian Congress of Women and the
Voice of Women continue their
work. In addition, professional
and middle class women are be-
coming organized into provincial
and national committees dedi-
cated to seeing the recommenda-
tions of the Royal Commission
on the Status of Women imple-
mented.

_ Despite the differences in ide-
ology and emphasis of these
various groups, they~ share
enough common -concerns that
the possibility exists of bringing
them together in a_ united
struggle for women’s rights.
However, the building of a strong
and effective movement around
women’s issues, as with other is-
sues, depends on the whole-
hearted involvement of the trade
union movement. The biggest
stumbling block in the path of
such a movement at the present
time is the lack of organization
of working women. In 1968, only
18% of women in the labor force
were unionized, compared to
31% of men. Once the working
class movement as a whole takes

' up the fight for women’s rights

important progress can be made
toward building the unity neces-
sary for an effective movement
for women’s liberation.

“The women’s movements against the abortion laws, agains
compulsory childbirth and for state supported 24-hour dayce
centers have attained mass proportions on a national scale . « «

and spread with the advance of
the international working class
and socialist movement. This
movement is varied and has
many aspects; but the heart and
vigor of it remains the struggle
of working women for dignity
and respect, for the right to work
on the basis of equal opportunity,
equal pay for equal work, full
citizenship rights, educational
opportunity and for protection of
the .family and the welfare of
children . . . and for peace.

Quebec’s Struggles

Today in Quebec the fighting
women of United Aircraft — “we
are wives and strikers too; the
financial, physical and moral
well-being of the whole family is
at stake,” as one woman said re-
cently — are organizing by the
side of their husbands, some-
times having to persuade the
husband that the struggle re-
quires this active unity of men
and women.

Since 1921 when women won
the vote in Canada, more and
more women have become active
in political life. In the 1972 fede-
ral elections over 70 women were
candidates; and of the four
elected 3 were from Quebec.

The women’s movements
against the abortion laws, against
compulsory childbirth, and for
state supported 24-hour day care
centres have attained mass pro-
portions on a national scale.
Women play a leading role in

the mass movement against if
flation. The trade union move
ment in Quebec has officially “
knowledged the rights of womé
to recognition as partners
struggle and leadership.

But while the movement
grows, many battles lie ahea

prejudice dies hard and
greed of the exploiting class

in’

creases. The hard eyes, and G,
tones of the defenders of pl
lege, like the spokesmen

United Aircraft

Corporatio®

make us all aware that on
solidarity and determination ‘ i
win our liberation from opp!

sion,.and war.

A United Celebration

e
Earlier this month La Lie
des Femmes du Québec sent 0”

a call to all women’s organlz
tions urging unity in the ©
bration of international wome
day. When however, they leat® 4e
that the women of the t@
union movement were plait
to take the initiative in a sim if
manner, and were extending
vitations to all groups, La L rf
des Femmes du Quebec deci
to throw in their lot with

ele
ns
ed
ning
jlaf

ue

them

and to join in solidarity with ia

other groups to make Mare
International Women’s Day 08
a great step forward in unifyi ‘
the many aspects of the wom
movement into a single force f
-the realisation of
woman in the new Quebec,

from discrimination.

197

en
fot

the fret

—

T

refreshments,

Celebrate International Women's Day

Housewives and Working Women
_Your Struggles Are One

- On Friday, March 8, women of the trade union movement
and of all other mass women’s organizations in Montred!
and throughout the province of Quebec are called togethe!
at the Assembly Hall of the St-Edouard Church, corner ©
St-Denis and Beaubien Streets, Montreal, to celebrate the!
victories and to renew their solidarity in the coming figh
for the new woman: in the new Quebec.
The women of the three trade union centres — Con
federation of National Trades Unions, Quebec Federd-
tion of Labor, Quebec Teachers Corporation—in unity wit
the Centre de la femme, the women of the committee fof
les garderies de la liaison populaire, the women’s commit-
tee of the popular organizations of Chileans, Haitians, Can —
adian Indians, and other national groups, La Ligue dé
Femmes du Québec and others are preparing a program
of theatre, speeches, and other. entertainment, including

The Féte begins at 7.30 p.m. Preparations are being made
to provide for the care and supervision of children. All who
support the women’s struggle for full citizenship without dis
crimination, and for improved conditions and greater 5

_ curity of the family in a new Quebec freed from exploitatio"
and foreign control, are welcome.
. Remember—You are welcome.

_-