Program

Organizing Working Women: Labour Feminism in the 1970s and 1980s

October 22, 2022 from 10:45am EDT to 12:00pm EDT

Location: Room Y316

Organizing Working Women: Labour Feminism in the 1970s and 1980s (Y316)

Chair: Linda Kealey

This panel will explore various efforts to organize working women specific to the 1970s and 1980s, with particular focus on the connections between labour and feminism. From the late 1960s, many feminists and feminist organizations directed new attention to efforts to organize women who worked outside the home for pay. Some eschewed the existing labour movement, seen as conservative and disinterested in organizing women, and established their own innovative strategies and organizations. These efforts might focus on a certain kind of worker (eg service labour), on a certain city or region, or a particular workplace. Not all these efforts were successful, but it is important to analyze why they emerged, their successes and limitations, and especially the mix of ideas that motivated their adherents.

Joan Sangster, “The Waitresses Action Committee”

“The Waitresses Action Committee” 15 When the Conservative Ontario government announced it was re-thinking its minimum wage policy in late 1976 and early 1977, it suggested that the differential between the minimum wage for most workers and that for servers in restaurants (which was lower) might be widened, rather than reduced or eliminated as many servers hoped. The Waitresses Action Committee (WAC) used this opportunity to mount a public campaign to eliminate the differential entirely and raise the minimum wage for all. The WAC emerged from the Toronto group, Wages for Housework (WFH) and Wages Due (Lesbians); they argued that defending lower-paid, precarious women workers, who had few employment choices and were often supporting families, related to WFH’s goals. The WAC mounted an impressive campaign of opposition to the government’s plan, garnering the support of many feminist and social movement groups (though not the traditional trade unions), and using the press, petitions, and lobbying of MPPs to get their message across. Their campaign included a sophisticated analysis of the gendered and sexualized nature of waitresses’ labour, and the intersection between gender and class in the labour market. Though not successful, their campaign reveals how fleeting efforts helped to build labour feminism, and how feminists were re-thinking and challening women’s working conditions, often outside of the established union movement.

Julia Smith, “Feminist labour activism in Manitoba, 1970– 1990”

“Feminist labour activism in Manitoba, 1970– 1990” Scholars have documented how and why the number of unionized women in Canada increased in the second half of the twentieth century, but there is a lack of detailed historical studies of specific forms of feminist labour activism in particular regions and provinces, including 16 Manitoba, and how the labour and feminist movements interacted and influenced one other during this time period. This paper will present preliminary findings from an ongoing research project on women who combined labour and feminist activism to address issues of gender inequality in Manitoba in the 1970s and 1980s. As in other regions of Canada, in Manitoba the number of women organizing around issues related to work and gender inequality increased significantly during this period, often referred to as the “second wave” of the women’s movement. Some women fought individual battles in their workplaces while others joined large established organizations, such as unions and the Manitoba Action Committee on the Status of Women. Still others formed new grassroots groups, like Winnipeg Women’s Liberation, that were active on a number of issues, including those related to work. Examining the groups and activists who engaged in feminist labour activism in Manitoba during this period will contribute to a more complete history of women, labour activism, and struggles for gender equality in Canada.

Speakers / Panelists

Joan Sangster

Julia Smith