Women, Work, and Activism: Chapters of an Inclusive History of Labor in the Long Twentieth Century 9789633864425

Citation preview

WOMEN, WORK, AND ACTIVISM

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 1

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

OR L AB tudies D N S KA ary

R

plin ury isci d nt s t Ce s Tran 1 2 the for

WO

ean rop u E tral Cen

ss B Pre y t i vers Uni

Se o ok

ries

Volume III. Series Editors: Eszter Bartha Adrian Grama Don Kalb David Ost Susan Zimmermann

Published in the Series: Goran Musić, Making and Breaking the Yugoslav Working Class: The Story of Two Self-Managed Factories (2021) Marsha Siefert, ed., Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989: Contributions to a History of Work (2020)

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 2

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

Women, Work, and Activism Chapters of an Inclusive History of Labor in the Long Twentieth Century

Edited by Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, and Susan Zimmermann

Central European University Press Budapest–New York

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 3

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

Copyright © by Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann 2022

Published in 2022 by Central European University Press Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com 224 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019, USA All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher.

ISBN 978-963-386-441-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-963-386-442-5 (ebook) ISSN: 2732-1118

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Betti, Eloisa, editor. Title: Women, work, and activism : chapters of an inclusive history of labor in the long twentieth century / edited by Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli and Susan Zimmermann. Description: New York, NY : Central European University Press, 2022. | Series: Work and labor: transdisciplinary studies for the 21st century, 2732-1118 ; volume 3 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022026019 (print) | LCCN 2022026020 (ebook) | ISBN 9789633864418 (hardback) | ISBN 9789633864425 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Women employees–History–20th century. | Labor–History–20th century. Classification: LCC HD6053 .W644 2022 (print) | LCC HD6053 (ebook) DDC 331.4--dc23/eng/20220718 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026019 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022026020

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 4

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

Contents

List of Acronyms ...........................................................................................................   vii List of Tables and Figures ............................................................................................   xi Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................  xiii Introduction Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, and Susan Zimmermann .......   1 PART ONE TOWARD INCLUSIVE FRAMINGS: WOMEN’S LABOR ACTIVISM IN MEN- AND WOMEN-DOMINATED CONTEXTS Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal from the End of the Nineteenth Century to the 1930s Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves..........................................................   35 The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism from the Early Twentieth Century to the Interwar Period Laura Savelli............................................................................................................   59 Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship: Comisiones Obreras (Workers’ Commissions) in Greater Barcelona during Franco’s Dictatorship and the Transition to Democracy (1964–1981) Nadia Varo Moral ....................................................................................................   81 “Traditionally Reserved for Men”: Australian Trade Unions and the 1970s Working Women’s Campaign for Liberation Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson ........................................   103 PART TWO WOMEN IN MOTION: RETHINKING AGENCY AND ACTIVISM AT THE WORKPLACE AND BEYOND The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks: Women Auxiliaries and the Ship Repair Workers’ Strike (Genoa, 1955) Marco Caligari ..............................................................................................................   125

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 5

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

vi

Contents

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”: Resistance and Protest of Women Workers in the Greek Tobacco Industry, 1945–1970 Thanasis Betas ..............................................................................................................  145 Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state: The Agency of Yugoslav Women Workers in Late Socialism (1976–1989) Rory Archer .............................................................................................................  167 Work and the Politics of the Injured Body: Nurse Activism, Occupational Risk, and the Politics of Care in the United States Elizabeth Faue ........................................................................................................  187 PART THREE HOW THE PERSONAL REVEALS THE POLITICAL: WOMEN ACTIVISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES AND BEYOND Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s Isidora Grubački .....................................................................................................  211 Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies: The Camera del Lavoro (Chamber of Labor) in Milan (1945–1965) Debora Migliucci ....................................................................................................  235 French Trade Unionists Go International: The Circulation of Ideas on the Education and Training of Women Workers in the 1950s and 1960s Françoise F. Laot .....................................................................................................  255 Trade Union Feminism in Lyon: Commissions-femmes as Sites of Resistance and and Well-being in the 1970s Anna Frisone ...........................................................................................................  277 Working Women on the Move: Genealogies of Gendered Migrant Labor Maria Tamboukou..................................................................................................  299 List of Contributors.....................................................................................................  325 Chapter Abstracts ........................................................................................................  333 Index................................................................................................................................  341

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 6

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

List of Acronyms

ACLI Associazioni Cristiane dei Lavoratori Italiani (Christian Associations of Italian Workers) ACSPA Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations ACTU Australian Council of Trade Unions ACUDI Archivio Centrale dell'Unione Donne Italiane (Central Archive of the Union of Italian Women) AEC AIDS Education Committee AFSCME American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees AFT American Federation of Teachers AFULE Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees AHCO Arxiu Històric de Comissions Obreres de Catalunya (Historical Archive of Workers’ Commissions of Catalonia) AHGCB Archivo Histórico del Gobierno Civil de Barcelona (Historical Archive of the Civil Government in Barcelona) AHPCE Archivo Histórico del Partido Comunista de España (Historical Archive of the Spanish Communist Party) AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AJ Arhiv Jugoslavije (Archives of Yugoslavia) ALP Australian Labor Party ALUA Walter P. Reuther Archive of Labor and Urban Affairs AML’H Arxiu Municipal de l’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Municipal Archive of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat) ANA American Nurses Association ARU Australian Railways Union ASCGIL Archivio storico della Confederazione generale italiana del lavoro AStoCLSSGeG Archivio Storico Centro Ligure di Storia Sociale a Genova (Historical Archive of the Ligurian Center of Social History in Genoa) BBC British Broadcasting Corporation CAP Consorzio Autonomo al Porto di Genova (Autonomous Port Consortium in Genoa)

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 7

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

viii

List of Acronyms

CCOO Comisiones Obreras (Workers’ Commissions) CDC Centers for Disease Control CFDT Confédération française démocratique du travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labor) CFTC Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens (French Confedera- tion of Christian Workers) CGdL Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (General Confederation of Labor) CGIL Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (Italian General Con- federation of Labor) CGT Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor) CGT-FO Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière (General Confeder- ation of Labor-Workers’ Power) CIF Centro Italiano Femminile (Italian Women’s Center) CISL Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori (Italian Confederation of Labor Unions) CLGWU Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union COB Comissió Obrera de Barcelona (Workers’ Commission of Barcelona) COJ Comisiones Obreras Juveniles (Youth Workers’ Commissions) CONC Comissió Obrera Nacional de Catalunya (National Workers’ Com- mission of Catalonia) COSH Committee for Occupational Safety and Health CPA Communist Party of Australia CULMV Compagnia Unica fra i Lavoratori delle Merci Varie (Unique Corpora- tion among Workers of Various Goods) CWWN Chinese Working Women Network ECOSOC UN Economic and Social Council ELHN European Labour History Network F1ºM-AHT Fundación 1º de Mayo-Archivo de Historia del Trabajo (May Day Foun- dation-Labor History Archive) FEDFA Federated Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association FGTB Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique (Belgian Confederation of Trade Unions) FSM Fédération syndicale mondiale (WFTU) FU Fundació Utopia-Juan N. García Nieto (Utopia Foundation-Juan N. García Nieto) GAP Gruppi d’Azione Patriottica (Patriotic Action Groups) GEB General Executive Board GLHN Global Labour History Network GWC Garment Worker Center

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 8

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

List of Acronyms

ix

HBV Hepatitis B Virus Health PAC Health Policy Advisory Center HIV Human immunodeficiency virus HMOs Health maintenance organizations HRUM Health Revolutionary Union Movement ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions IFCTU International Federation of Christian Trade Unions IFTU International Federation of Trade Unions IHS Institut d’histoire sociale de la CGT (Institute of Social History of the CGT) IISH International Institute of Social History ILC International Labor Conference ILGWU International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union ILO International Labour Organization, OIT IMT Industrija mašine i traktora (Industry of Machines and Tractors) ITS International Trade Secretariat IWY International Women’s Year LA Los Angeles LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender LO Landsorganisationen i Sverige (Swedish Trade Union Confederation) LPN Licensed Practical Nurse LRBW League of Revolutionary Black Workers MAIC Ministero dell’Agricoltura, dell’Industria e del Commercio (Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Trade) MC Movimiento Comunista (Communist Movement) MCHR Medical Committee for Human Rights MDD Moviment Democràtic de Dones (Women’s Democratic Movement) MLF Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (Women’s Liberation Movement) MRP Mouvement républicain populaire (Popular Republican Movement) NBAC Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, Canberra NGO Non-Governmental Organization NIRA National Industrial Recovery Act NNU National Nurses United NUHW National Union of Healthcare Workers OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OIT Organisation internationale du travail, ILO OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 9

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

x

List of Acronyms

PCF Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) PCI Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party) PPE Personal protective equipment PSI Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party) PSUC Partito Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia) PTT postal, telegraph, and telephone / Postes, télégraphes et téléphone PTTI Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (also Internationale du personnel des postes, télégraphes et téléphones, IPTT) RN Registered Nurse SD Secretaria de la Dona (Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, CONC) SEIU Service Employees International Union SFGH San Francisco General Hospital SM Secretaría de la Mujer (Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, Spanish Con- federation of CCOO) SUA Seamen’s Union of Australia SUNIA Sindacato Unitario Nazionale Inquilini e Assegnatari (National Unitary Union of Tenants and Assignees) TAFE Technical and Further Education UAW Union of Australian Women UDI Unione Donne Italiane (Union of Italian Women) UIL Unione Italiana del Lavoro (Italian Labor Union) UN United Nations UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNISON Union of Public Sector Employees US, USA United States of America VDRPT Verband der Deutschen Reichspost- und Telegraphenbeamtinnen (Union of German Imperial Female Post and Telegraph Clerks) VLC Εργατικό Κέντρο Βόλου (Volos Labour Centre) WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions (FSM) WTUL Women’s Trade Union League WWF Waterside Workers Federation

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 10

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

List of Tables and Figures

Table 1.1. Women’s Mutual Associations between the end of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century .................................................................................   44 Table 3.1. Number of women identified or arrested due to activities related to the CCOO in the province of Barcelona between 1965 and 1969, by professional group and occupation .........................................................................   88 Table 3.2. Women identified or arrested due to activities related to CCOO, COJ, and Sectores de CCOO in the province of Barcelona between 1970 and 1975, by professional group and occupation ..................................................   94 Figure 6.1. Marital status of 2,111 women workers in the Matsaggos factory in the postwar era (percent)............................................................................................ 152 Table 6.1. Family burdens by marital status of women workers in the Matsaggos tobacco factory in the postwar era (percent) ..................................... 153 Table 6.2. Family labor force in the Matsaggos tobacco factory during the postwar era..................................................................................................................... 153 Table 10.1. Women delegates to the Camera del Lavoro of Milan Congresses, 1947–1952 .................................................................................................................... 242 Table 11.1. The growth of interest in women workers’ education in international organizations.................................................................................................................. 270

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 11

2022.07.30. 22:42:08

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 12

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Acknowledgements

Collectively, the editors would like to thank Silke Neunsinger for her long-term involvement in the Working Group Feminist Labor History of the European Labour History Network (ELHN), and her contribution to the organization of the panels the working group brought together at the ELHN conferences in Turin 2015, Paris 2017, and Amsterdam 2019, as well as the conference “New Perspectives in Feminist Labor History: Work and Activism” organized in Bologna in 2019. The papers in this volume were presented at these conferences. Silke also participated in the early stages of the preparation of the present volume. Emily Gioielli’s editorial and native-speaker corrector’s work on the whole manuscript has been invaluable. Her engagement for our volume speaks, more than anything else, to her dedication to our theme and women’s and gender history more generally. Finally, we would like to thank Rory Archer and Goran Musić for their last minute help in discovering an excellent illustration for our book cover, and Rory for acquiring the authorization to use it. Through all the phases of the protracted process of making this volume happen we enjoyed each other’s companionship and the supportive attitude of all contributors. Leda Papastefanaki would like to thank the Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas (IMS/ FORTH), Professor Gelina Harlaftis, for her steady support for the work on this book project. Susan Zimmermann would like to acknowledge the support she received in the final stages of the manuscript preparation from the “Academic Travel Fund in Covid times” at Central European University. Finally, we acknowledge support for the open access publication of the introduction by IMS/FORTH, the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna, and the European Research Council (ERC).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 13

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 14

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Introduction

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, and Susan Zimmermann

T

his book is about a major theme in the history of the laboring classes that continues to be understudied. Its chapters examine women’s activism in men- as well as women-dominated sectors of the world of work and women’s activism within the labor movement and various other male-dominated organizations and institutions on the one hand, and women-dominated networks and women’s organizations on the other. Working women’s activism and organizing aimed at improving both labor conditions in paid and unpaid work and the living conditions of working-class women and their families and communities. In short: women’s activism with a focus on work possesses a rich history. In the following pages, we first summarize what we consider this book’s key contributions to the history of labor and gender. We then give a (however partial) overview of the genealogy of conceptual innovation generated by scholars who have studied the gendered history of work and women’s activism in relation to work and labor. Finally, we discuss the three core themes most prominently addressed in the chapters assembled in this book, highlighting both their centrality to the gendered and global history of labor and the contributions of the individual chapters. Discussing these themes we ask: how can women’s labor activism in a large variety of men- and women-dominated contexts be “thought together,” and how does such an inclusive perspective help bring about conceptual advancement in writing the history of women’s work-related activism? How can the study of the history of women’s work-related activism contribute to advancing conceptualizations of agency and social action? And finally, how can a focus on women activists’ biographies help us develop both inclusive and actor-centered approaches to women’s work-related activism? As we engage with more specialized literature on these large themes and the related findings of the individual chapters assembled in Women, Work, and Activism, we aim to provide deeper insight into and exemplify the overall contribution of the book, which we describe in the following section.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 1

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

2

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

Why this book? The research assembled in this collection, which covers many places and was conducted in a multitude of languages, does more than expand our knowledge on the history of women’s activism focused on work. The book’s larger contributions to gender and labor history can be summarized as follows.1 First, bringing together studies on a large variety of women’s activisms over a long period of time—ranging from, e.g., mutual societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the transnational circulation of ideas on vocational training in the 1950s and 1960s, and female migrants’ activism in the twenty-first century—this collection contributes to an inclusive understanding of the historical and historically shifting contours of women’s activism around work and labor. Second, the book illuminates how a wide array of specific contexts and politics and actors and institutions framed women’s work-place related activism in uniquely gendered ways. This includes examples such as the political work of women communists and other activists among peasant women in 1930s Yugoslavia, the Workers’ Commissions under the Franco dictatorship, the interaction between trade unions and feminist networks in the 1970s, and the relationship between factory management and women workers in late socialism. Third, the chapters build and expand on the rich tradition of feminist2 labor history and the conceptual debates that have shaped and propelled this tradition as they discuss the above and other sites and interactions that have shaped women’s workplace-related activisms in Europe, the United States, Australia, and internationally. The volume makes several contributions to feminist labor history. Importantly, it helps us “think-together” women labor activists’ choices to organize within male-dominated institutions (in the absence or presence of women-specific organizational “infrastructures” available within these institu Our two peer reviewers greatly inspired us to flag some of these contributions more explicitly in this introduction. We hope they do not mind that in doing so, we actually appropriate some of their wording; we also hope that we do not overstate the contribution of this book in this revised version of the introduction. We are grateful for the reviewers’ thoughtful engagement with the introduction and each of the chapters to follow. 2 We are fully aware of the contentious nature of this term. Many women activists belonging to or identifying with the laboring classes or engaged in movements that identified “feminism” with white, middle-class dominated, single-sex organizing and with prioritizing the struggle against gender oppression over the struggle against other oppressions have rejected the term and declined to self-identify as “feminist.” We use the term “feminist” simply because it was chosen by the Working Group of Feminist Labor History of the European Labor History Network (see below). For the purpose of this introduction, we consider it a (rather unfortunate) shorthand for any historiographic and/or political interest in women’s (and sometimes men’s) engagement on behalf of women and their interests however construed; such engagement historically has taken many forms, was shaped by many different contexts, and has prioritized or combined many different agendas. The historical conjuncture that gave rise to the naming of the Working Group Feminist Labor History deserves broader reflection. 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 2

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

3

tions), within women’s cross-class networks, or on their own. The findings of the chapters assembled here suggest that, conceptually, we need to go beyond prioritizing any of these possibilities over others or juxtaposing them as mutually exclusive. Rather, we need to conceive of them as the range of political options that have been available to working-class women and their allies in male-dominated class societies and carefully evaluate how each of these options has been limiting and enabling in its own way and within specific contexts. Another distinctive approach pursued in this book is the careful and precise analysis of how the historical actors, i.e., the women activists themselves, construed and framed their arguments and agendas. Such an approach helps uncover more fully the agenda and agency women activists developed in response to the complex historical realities and frameworks about which they were very knowledgeable and with which they interacted so thoroughly. The deep engagement with the details and complexity as present in the activisms discussed can contribute to the abandonment of earlier argumentative clichés that have often been characterized by masculinist and sometimes also by feminist biases or simplifications. Finally, the book invites labor historians to rethink a number of reigning assumptions, categories, and narratives concerning the labor movement, its constitutive subjects, and their actions, as well as some of the related historiographic wisdom. Making female activists and women’s activism the center of attention, this book, with its contributions on Europe, the United States, and Australia, as well as transnational organizing and interaction, brings an inclusive feminist perspective to labor history. In the past half century, the historiography on labor has been characterized, on the one hand, by complex interaction, or lack thereof, between labor and feminist historians, and on the other, by labor historians writing in (and on) different parts of the world. Classical European (and Western) labor history largely rejected or ignored the conceptual renewal that characterized both feminist labor history and non-Western labor history (as epitomized, for example, by the rich scholarship informed by various trends in subaltern studies). The new global labor history, while even today strongly driven by historians with roots in the West, has in fact built substantively on the advances spearheaded by both non-Western labor histories and feminist labor history from the 1970s onward. At the same time, feminist labor history has been subjected to two types of marginalization within this new era. First, as labor history took its global turn, it looked out for and discovered conceptual rejuvenation and advancement largely within the non-Western world while continuing to overlook the feminist tradition and its advances, some of which were characterized by striking conceptual congruence with, e.g., subaltern studies. The new global labor history, in other words, tends to associate the conceptual innovation on which it is based with the history and historiography of labor

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 3

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

4

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

associated with the Global South3 rather than with the parallel advances made by feminist labor historians in the West. Second, non-Western labor historians have seldom developed a sustained interest in this feminist tradition, associating it all too easily with ongoing Eurocentrism. Overcoming this double stalemate is the fourth important service this volume can render for the community of labor and feminist historians. The collection demonstrates that there is much in common between the conceptual advances made in the past half century by feminist and non-Western labor history. The following chapters, thus, help advance global labor history as a whole. The collection also exemplifies that feminist labor history with a focus on Europe and the West does not by definition entail conceptual Eurocentrism. On the contrary, as it contributes to developing a more inclusive and conceptually revised and enlarged history of labor within Europe, this collection aims to drive home critiques of Eurocentric historiographies of labor to Europe while simultaneously making a contribution to an inclusive history of women’s laborrelated activism wherever it is to be found. The authors of the following chapters engage with a rich array of traditions for studying women’s labor-related activism in both better and less well-known European contexts, the United States, and Australia. The collection cannot do justice to the rich scholarship on the past and present of parallel activism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Yet, it might serve as a contribution to drawing out a map of common trends and major divergences, regional or global cycles and clusters, as well as long-term trends of women’s labor activism around the globe. We consider that research pursued and collaboration built by feminist labor historians around the world is at present reaching a stage that will enable this scholarly community to fruitfully bring together the manifold research results and begin to outline larger-scale global trends and cycles, divergences, similarities, and interactions.4 We use the term Global South to refer to those nations that experienced colonialism or economic imperialism and subsequent underdevelopment from the standpoint of the industrialized market-dominated societies. The term Global North refers to market-based or capitalist economies of the West and similar economies elsewhere. Both terms are rather vague and lack historical depth and, thus, could only with some difficulty be applied to some parts of Europe that figure prominently in this book. 4 Collections with a regional focus such as Kaye Broadbent and Michele Ford, eds., Women and Labour Organizing in Asia: Diversity, Autonomy and Activism (London: Routledge, 2008); monographs such as Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010); collaborative research as conducted, for example, in the research project “Women’s Labour Activism in Eastern Europe and Transnationally, From the Age of Empires to the Late 20th Century (ZARAH),” accessed April 17, 2021, https://zarah-ceu. org/; and scholarship with a focus on global interaction can play an important role here. For the latter type of new scholarship, see Suzanne Franzway and Mary Margaret Fonow, Making Feminist Politics: Transnational Alliances between Women and Labor (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2011); Eileen Boris, Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919–2019 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); Dorothy Sue Cobble, For the Many: American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality (Princeton, NJ: 3

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 4

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

5

Women, Work, and Activism is an outcome of such intensifying networking activities and renewed scholarly interest related to the history of women’s work and working women’s activisms in Europe and beyond. More concretely, the collection builds on the activities of the Feminist Labor History Working Group of the European Labour History Network (ELHN). The latter was established in Amsterdam in 2013 and from the beginning has included this network of historians of women and gender in the world of work among its working groups. The chapters included in this book evolved from papers presented and discussed at the ELHN conferences in Turin 2015, Paris 2017, and Amsterdam 2019, as well as the conference “New Perspectives in Feminist Labor History: Work and Activism” organized in Bologna in 2019.5 The establishment of the ELHN has spurred the revival of labor history in many European countries and stimulated communication and exchange among the scholars involved in the network. It has also co-triggered a new wave of institutionalization of labor history as a field of study. To put it in a wider context, the activities of the ELHN and its working groups reflect, somewhat belatedly, the rise of a new (global) labor history.

A Short Genealogy of Gendered Histories of Labor and Their Relationship to the New Global Labor History As women’s and gender history developed into a historical (sub-)discipline in the Western world from the 1970s onward, rewriting the histories of labor movements and labor activism from a gendered perspective formed one thematic focal point. National historiographies of course tend to follow their own paths and remain at least partly embedded in distinctive cultural, political, and academic traditions and developments in a given country or region. We do not aim here to give an exhaustive presentation of the different historiographical approaches to gendered histories of labor.6 Rather, we wish to point to one Princeton University Press, 2021). Bringing together scholars and scholarship from all corners of the world with a view to survey large themes, such as women and gender politics in trade unions, and to examine sets of common questions may serve as the backbone for our joint endeavor to draw a global map of the history of women’s labor organizing and activism. 5 The activities of the ELHN and Working Group Feminist Labor History, including the panels and the conference the Working Group organized, are documented under https://socialhistoryportal.org/elhn. The Bologna conference was co-organized by the University of Bologna under the leadership of Marica Tolomelli and Eloisa Betti, the SISLAV Genere & Lavoro Working Group, and the ELHN Working Group Feminist Labor History. 6 For different historiographical accounts in Europe, see Efi Avdela, Le genre entre classe et nation: Essai d’historiographie grecque (Paris: Syllepse, 2006); Françoise Thébaud, Écrire l’histoire

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 5

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

6

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

common trait that has characterized the relationship between women’s and gender history and labor history across the globe. In many parts of the world, historians nurturing an interest in the history of women were instrumental in bringing women and gender into the history of labor. Developments in India, a country whose labor historians have played a leading role in advancing and globalizing the field and which is also noteworthy for the role subaltern studies have played in rejuvenating labor history, are a case in point. Until the 1980s, Indian labor history, in line with labor history in other countries, was characterized by the equation of the “history of workers with labor movement history” and a “labourist modernization narrative.”7 As labor history from the 1940s onward occupied itself mainly “with strikes and unionization,” the attention earlier accounts had paid to “women workers as a special category eroded.”8 Just as most historians specialized in the field of labor history, early subaltern studies “largely ignored gender ideologies and women as historical subjects.”9 From the 1980s onward, it was scholars interested in the history of women who made the question of women’s work and the relationship between gender, class, and other themes into one of the focal points of interest.10 Two edited volumes published in 1989 on women in colonial India comprised chapters on women’s work and labor activism, including various groups of agricultural workers, the textile industry, and other sectors. The volume Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History edited by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid—described in a review article published in 2013 as a “watershed” in Indian women’s and gender history11—also included the editors’ conceptual discussion of the relationship



7



8



9



10



11

des femmes et du genre (Paris: ENS éditions, 2007); Leda Papastefanaki, “Labor in Economic and Social History: The Viewpoint of Gender in Greek Historiography,” Genesis: Rivista della Società Italiana delle Storiche 15, no. 2 (2016): 59–83. Ravi Ahuja, “Preface,” in Working Lives and Worker Militancy: The Politics of Labour in Colonial India, ed. Ravi Ahuja (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2013), x–xii. Samita Sen, “Gender and Class: Women in Indian Industry, 1890–1990,” Modern Asian Studies 42, no. 1 (2008): esp. 83. Samita Sen is the author of the pioneering study Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), which built on her PhD thesis defended in 1992. A recent account of the state of the art of labor history in India summarizes that “[u]ntil quite recently there was no serious engagement with questions of gender and women’s work in labour history writing in India.” Rana P. Behal, “South Asia,” in Handbook Global History of Work, ed. Karin Hofmeester and Marcel van der Linden (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018), 43. Mytheli Sreenivas, “Women’s and Gender History in Modern India: Researching the Past, Reflecting on the Present,” in Making Women’s Histories: Beyond National Perspectives, ed. Pamela S. Nadell and Kate Haulman (New York, London: New York University Press, 2013), 172. See, for instance, Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex and the Woman Worker (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977); Louise Tilly, “Paths of Proletarianization: Organization of Production, Sexual Division of Labor and Women’s Collective Action,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 7, no. 2 (1981): 400–417; Alice Kessler-Harris, Out of Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). Sreenivas, “Women’s and Gender History in Modern India,” 170.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 6

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

7

between gender, class, and colonialism, and their statement that possibly the value of the collection lies more “in the fact that it sets out to interrogate the very nature of feminist questioning” rather than “in its provisional answers.”12 Samita Sen’s seminal study Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry published in 1999 highlighted the material and gendered connection between industrial work and agricultural work in villages and the power of gendered ideology in devaluing and marginalizing women’s industrial work.13 In the state-socialist world of Eastern Europe and partially in parallel political settings dominated by Marxist or Marxian worldviews, the last decades before the fall of state socialism in 1989/1990 similarly saw a continued and sometimes growing interest in the history of women’s labor activism. In contrast to developments in the Western world, works written and professional activities unfolding in these latter contexts did not partake in the making of women’s and gender history as a self-reliant (sub-)discipline of historical study. Here, authors with a sustained interest in the history of women challenged the male centrism of the dominant Marxian and Marxist frameworks of the study of work and the labor movement. They examined women’s gendered status in the world of work and showcased their contributions to workers’ struggles and sometimes their precarious status in trade unions and the labor movement while barely questioning the overall priority of class as an analytical category. Still, through their focus on women and in some cases the “underdeveloped” societies of Eastern Europe, these studies widened the horizon of what counted as work and workingclass struggle—focusing, e.g., on struggles around reproductive work or casual labor—and explicitly critiqued the male bias in the history and historiography of working-class organizing.14 In the Western world, the new (sub-)discipline of women’s and gender history established itself, among other things, as a critique of those varieties of social history that invariably focused on class as the determining feature of both Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, “Recasting Women. An Introduction,” in Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, ed. Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999), 5; the other volume is Jayasankar Krishnamurty, Women in Colonial India: Essays on Survival, Work and the State (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983). 13 Sen, Women and Labor in Late Colonial India. In her article “Gender and Class” published in 2008 and cited above, Sen emphasizes the active role played by trade unions, i.e., working-class politics in tandem with gender ideologies, in marginalizing women’s work. 14 Eloisa Betti, “Generations of Italian Communist Women and the Making of a Women’s Rights Agenda in the Cold War (1945–68): Historiography, Memory, and New Archival Evidence,” in Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, ed. Anna Artwińska and Agnieszka Mrozik (London: Routledge, 2020), 82–101; Alexandra Ghit, “Professionals’ and Amateurs’ Pasts: A Decolonizing Reading of Post-War Romanian Histories of Gendered Interwar Activism,” European Review of History: Revue Européenne d’histoire 25, no. 1 (2018): 21–44; Susan Zimmermann, “In and Out of the Cage: Women’s and Gender History Written in Hungary in the State-Socialist Period,” Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History 8, no. 1 (2014): 125–49. 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 7

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

8

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

social stratification and labor activism.15 The new feminist history of labor aimed for conceptual and historical-empirical renewal not in terms of replacing class as a key category in historical scholarship on work and labor; rather, it sought to establish gender, against the dominance of class, as another irreducible and self-reliant analytical category conceptualized on equal footing with class. In 1989, German historian Gisela Bock described this move, and summarized the state of the art in women’s (labor) history, as follows: The frequent equation of the notion “social” with “class-based” or “class-specific” . . . has contributed to the view that other social relations—for instance those between races and between the sexes—are something non-social, pre-social, or even “biological.”. . . In fact, neither class nor gender refer to homogeneous groups and even less to necessary bonds of solidarity, but both class and gender are important contextspecific and context-dependent categories and realities of social relations between and within social groups. Thus, women’s history also deals with class, and there are important studies of women workers, workers’ wives, middle-class and noble women. Many of these focus on, and attempt to solve, three problems: the different conceptualization of class for men, where the main criterion is their relation to capital, production, the market, or employment, and for women, where it is their relation to the men of their family, particularly husband and father; secondly, the different and gender-based experience of class which, in the case of women, includes their work for family members; thirdly, relations between women of different classes, which may be different from those between men.16

The 1970s and the 1980s indeed had seen the flourishing of scholarship that imbued the field of working-class history with studies that focused on women workers and their activism.17 Born as a critique of traditional working-class and social histories, the new women’s and gender history of labor early on engaged in lively debates regarding its own approaches and findings, propelling further conceptual breakthroughs. In the introduction to a pathbreaking volume published in 1985, editor Ruth

For a critique, see, for instance: Sheila Blackburn, “Gender, Work and Labour History: A Response to Carol Morgan,” Women’s History Review 10, no. 1 (2001): 121–35; Efi Avdela, “Work, Gender & History in the 1990s and Beyond,” in Gender and History: Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Leonore Davidoff, Keith McClelland, and Eleni Varikas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 110–23. 16 Gisela Bock, “Women’s History and Gender History: Aspects of an International Debate,” Gender & History 1, no. 1 (1989): 18–19. 17 To take France as an example, see, among others, Michelle Perrot, Les ouvriers en grève: France 1871–1890 (Paris: Mouton, 1974); Marie-Hélène Zylberberg-Hocquard, Femmes et féminisme dans le mouvement ouvrier français (Paris: Les éditions ouvrières, 1981). 15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 8

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

9

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

Milkman aptly captured the limitations of some of the early scholarship. Discovering instance after instance of women’s labor activism, many of these studies were “essentially descriptive in nature,” while others supplanted “old myths of women’s lack of interest or involvement in labor struggle by new myths” about the “virtually limitless potential for women’s activism in the labor movement—a potential thwarted primarily by the .  .  . hostility of male-dominated unions.” Some of the early work had thus produced a “highly romanticized conception of women’s labor history.” The studies published in the 1985 volume moved beyond the “early, essentially compensatory literature” in three respects, Milkman explained. The chapters sought to “specify the historical conditions which have encouraged women’s militancy and those which have impeded it”—i.e., Milkman identified the volume as an initial contribution to the historicization of women’s labor activism, a process that is still ongoing today and to which Women, Work, and Activism aims to make its own contribution. The 1985 volume also highlighted how “the mobilization of women has been especially effective when it has utilized organizational forms and techniques very different from those typically employed by men” and explored how these forms were “rooted in women’s own distinctive culture and life-experience.” Considering the new research on female activists and functionaries within strongly male-dominated contexts and institutions especially in the post-1945 period, some of which is showcased in the present collection, this early finding, based largely on research on earlier periods, might need nuancing and invites further thought. Finally, the 1985 volume began “to explain, rather than simply describe, the long history of male unionists’ poor treatment of women.” The book was innovative also in that it included studies on the interwar period, an “almost” unearthed scholarly territory at the time. A decade later, in another pathbreaking volume, historians Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose described the prospects of engendering “working class and labor history” against the backdrop of the linguistic turn that dominated historiography in many parts of the world at the time. While focusing on Western Europe, the volume included two chapters on the early Soviet Union and European communism, respectively, and examined the pre- and post-1918 period. As it ventured beyond labor’s politics and workers’ activism, the collection expanded the historical terrain with a number of chapters focusing on changing and entangled labor relations and state policies and legal framings of gender and class. In their introduction, Frader and Rose described what they considered “a new agenda for working-class and labor history”: 18

Ruth Milkman, “Editor’s Preface,” in Women, Work and Protest: A Century of US Women’s Labor History (Milton Park, NY: Routledge, 2013 [1985]), xi–xiv.

18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 9

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

10

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

By making gender (and race/ethnicity) a focal point of analysis, historians can begin to interrogate the conceptual categories of work and workers. When these categories are made problems . . . for study rather than deployed as preformed and unitary identities, scholars . . . will produce a less unified and more multifaceted view of working people’s lives. By focusing on how the categories “work” and “workers” were constituted by historical subjects, moreover, scholars will glimpse how these subjects attempted to manipulate their social words, and the technologies of power that they used in doing so. To make sense of these fundamentally political activities, scholars will have to examine how discourse worked to constitute political identities. By examining these discourses, historians will be in a position to determine the inclusions and exclusions that are central to the creation of political identities, and to the making of solidarities.19

Even this brief review of key conceptual insights present in a few internationally influential early publications demonstrates that as women’s and gender history emerged as a field of historical inquiry in its own right, historians of gender and labor reflected on the relationship between gender and class (and other relational categories). They aimed to conceive of these categories as context-dependent and malleable rather than simply mirroring material circumstances. And they developed a complex, manifold, and stimulating debate on the conceptual horizons and fault lines of the field. In doing so, women’s and gender history contributed early on to the conceptual foundations of what would come to be labeled “global labor history” later on. The publication of Frader and Rose’s edited volume in 1996 took place in a period of marked change in the historiography. Labor history was in a period of sharp decline in the Western and the former state-socialist world. Initially, postcolonial studies, women’s and gender history, and the linguistic or cultural turn had contributed to destabilizing the inherited varieties of labor history rooted in an often schematic and implicitly male- and Western-centered class analysis of proletarianization and material circumstances. As demonstrated above, women’s and gender historians had begun to break conceptual ground for a rejuvenated labor history that would be based, among other things, in a rethinking of the relationship between class and gender. Yet, whatever the conceptual (and political) commitments and scholarly aims of early feminist labor history, the transition to a new historiographical conjuncture would devalue labor history as such and effectively “drown out” early feminist contributions too. In an often-quoted phrase, Stuart Hall in 1996 described the transition as a shift from the “abandonment of deterministic economism” to a “massive, gigantic and eloquent disavowal. As if, since the economic in its broadest sense, definitively does not, as Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose, “Introduction,” in Gender and Class in Modern Europe, ed. Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 32.

19

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 10

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

11

it was once supposed to do, ‘determine’ the real movement of history ‘in the last instance’, it does not exist at all!”20 Feminist labor history with a focus on women’s activism, however, carried on even during this period of decline in the broader field of labor history. This research had long developed a non-deterministic historical understanding of (female) workers’ agency. Aiming to integrate gender into the history of class formation in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Anna Clark insisted on the transformative capacity of women’s experience as militant activists even during times when political language called for domesticity. Pamela Graves described the changing agendas and political alliances of women in the British labor movement in the interwar period. Anneliese Orleck and Dorothy Sue Cobble both used collective biography to detail the agency of labor women activists—many of whom were from immigrant backgrounds in a range of settings in the United States—and to specify their distinctive class and gender politics. Cobble also highlighted how a focus on working women’s activism fundamentally revises received wisdom about the two waves of women’s activism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, proposing a very different periodization.21 Samita Sen’s Women and Labour in Late Colonial India cited above was also published in this period. The new historiographical conjuncture of the 1990s that overshadowed both earlier advances of women’s and gender history with a focus on work and labor activism and the ongoing scholarly work in the broader field would not last forever. The revival of feminist labor history and the coming of the global turn in the Global North became markedly visible in the two conferences “Labouring Feminism and Feminist Working-Class History in North America and Beyond” and “Labouring Feminism and Feminist Working-Class History in Europe and Beyond: An International Conference” held in Toronto and Stockholm in 2005 and 2008, respectively. In its spring 2008 issue, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society published a cluster of contributions on women’s labor activism in the period since the 1980s, out of which four focused on the Global South, five on the United States and Europe, and one on transnational activism. Stuart Hall, “When Was the ‘Post-Colonial’? Thinking at the Limit,” in The Post-Colonial Question, ed. Ian Chambers and Lidia Curti (London, New York: Routledge, 1996), 258. 21 Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Pamela Graves, Labour Women: Women in British Working-Class Politics, 1918–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); Annelise Orleck, Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working-Class Politics in the United States, 1900– 1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995; republished as open access in 2017). An important volume advocating a thoroughly critical reevaluation of the “waves of feminism” metaphor is Nancy A. Hewitt, ed., No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010). 20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 11

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

12

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

By the second decade of the twenty-first century, labor history as such was back not just empirically and conceptually but also institutionally as manifested, for example, in the ELHN founded in 2013 and the Global Labour History Network (GLHN) founded in 2015.22 Today, the new paradigm of global labor history certainly can be considered, at least from the perspective of internationally visible and transnationally connected (and mostly English-language) scholarship, the dominant one in the field of labor history.23 The rise of global labor history was triggered by many factors: the changing structure of the global labor market that occurred in conjunction with the deindustrialization of huge areas of the Western world since the late 1970s; the development of new migration trajectories affecting the composition and characteristics of the labor force nationally and internationally, including the gendered processes of mobility and the feminization of some labor sectors; the decline of global Western hegemony which has given rise to much more sustained interest in the history of the Global South and other non-Western regions; the global financial crisis of 2008; and last but not least, the upsurge of “atypical,” informal, and combined labor relations worldwide, including the West. This multidimensional socio-political constellation was instrumental in bringing about the inclusion of many forms of labor and workers’ agency into the new global labor history as well as stimulating interest in the historical development and interaction of many different types of labor relations. As the history of proletarianization and the workers’ movement in the West and its earlier historiographies came to be provincialized (while not yet fully historicized), concepts developed by labor historians working with different interests, geographies, and histories gained global traction. This reorientation, while taking up and expanding on conceptual advances triggered in the decades before the “gigantic disavowal,” has proceeded unevenly. On the one hand, the new global labor history has incorporated key conceptual innovations in the realm of the history of work and labor initially promoted by postcolonial and subaltern studies, women’s and gender history, and (yes!) representatives of the cultural turn. Both subaltern studies and women’s and gender historians had underlined the need to think more inclusively about the history of the laboring classes, their organizing and collective protest, the constitution of activist identities and the subjectivities of working people, the continued involvement of most working people in multiple and often precarious and unstable labor relations and in unpaid labor, and the role of the state and other institutions in shaping the history of labor. Both traditions had intensely discussed the conceptual implications of their findings for labor history.24 While Information on ELHN and GLHN and other networks and institutions can be found on the Social History Portal, accessed April 10, 2021, https://socialhistoryportal.org/. 23 A foundational conceptual statement is Marcel van der Linden and Jan Lucassen, Prolegomena for a Global Labor History (Amsterdam: IISH, 1999). 24 Foundational texts for the new labor history connected to subaltern studies include Ranajit 22

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 12

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

13

there has been some debate around the continued focus on labor commodification and commodified labor in some of the new labor history,25 there is no doubt in the 2020s that unpaid care, family, and subsistence work, and the ongoing historical tension around the commodification of such work oriented toward “social reproduction” is back on the scholarly agenda26 and accepted as a relevant dimension of the global history of labor, at least in principle. On the other hand, within the new historiographical conjuncture, some among those counter-traditions of labor history that had moved beyond the false universalization of Western and masculinist “models” of proletarianization and the reification of histories of male-dominated organizations and struggles of the overwhelmingly male working-class as the history of the working class fared better, while others fared worse. Feminist labor history in the broad sense discussed here certainly belongs to the latter group. The reasons are manifold and certainly cannot be reduced to the tendency of benevolent negligence of women and gender in the new history of labor—even though such a tendency certainly has been discernible in the past two decades. Likely not a single new labor historian would deny the relevance of the category of gender for labor history as a broad theme. Yet, substantial engagement with the gendered history of women’s work and activism for the larger part has remained the prerogative of specialists; i.e., it is a terrain that continues to be plowed by feminist labor historians, whose most recent work is made available in this collection in an exemplary manner. Beyond the continuing lack of practical commitment of representatives of the new labor history who do not specialize in women’s and gender history, other factors have also contributed to the limited engagement of the new labor history with both gender as a category of analysis and the conceptual contribution of feminist labor history, both old and new. One of these factors is the stated interest and necessity for global labor history as a field to stimulate and Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983); and Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal 1890–1940 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). 25 Dorothy Sue Cobble, “The Promise and Peril of the New Global Labor History,” International Labor and Working-Class History 82 (Fall 2012): 99–107, made an important contribution to this debate. She did so in response to Marcel van der Linden, “The Promise and Challenges of Global Labor History,” International Labor and Working-Class History 82 (Fall 2012): 57–76. Other responses to van der Linden’s contribution in the same volumes aptly capture other important elements of the debate. 26 See among others, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Dirk Hoerder and Silke Neunsinger, eds., Towards a Global History of Domestic and Care Workers (Leiden: Brill, 2015); Raffaella Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela Martini, eds., What is Work? Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family, and Business from the Early Modern Era to the Present (New York: Berghahn, 2018); Manuela Martini and Leda Papastefanaki, “Introduction: Des économies familiales adaptatives en temps de crise dans l’Europe méditerranéenne,” The Historical Review/La Revue Historique 15 (2018): 9–22; Eileen Boris, “Subsistence and Household Labour,” in Hofmeester and van der Linden, Handbook Global History of Work, 329–44.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 13

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

14

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

integrate work focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As discussed earlier, against this background, conceptual advances generated by Western feminist labor historians tend to be overshadowed by the interest in the parallel advances made by labor historians from the Global South simply because the former have been rooted in research mostly focusing on the Western world. Concluding his essay on the state of the art in and the future of global labor history published in 2012, Marcel van der Linden reflected on the relationship between the necessary globalization of the field and the prospects of European labor history. Obliterating the European (and more broadly Western) feminist labor history tradition, van der Linden relegated the renewal of European labor history to the future. He argued that it “will take quite some time yet before we can trace out all the far-flung corners” of the new world of the history of labor “on our mental maps. When we begin to succeed in this, we will also be able to renew our understanding of the original terrain of labor and working-class history in Europe and North America.”27 Second, research on the gendered history of work and labor activism in Eastern Europe has fallen prey to a double marginalization. The histories of women’s work and labor activism written under state socialism were grossly devalued after the systemic change in 1989/1990. To be sure, this work had been largely ignored by the Western new labor history, including the feminist variety, before 1989, too: for being old-fashioned or as a result of being inaccessible in terms of the language of publication. When, after the historiographic slump of labor history in the 1990s, the gendered history of labor in Eastern Europe began to attract renewed attention, the focus was on the state-socialist period in the first place. The international community harbored scant interest at best in the history of labor, gendered or not, in the bygone state-socialist system, whose longer-term historical relevance was thrown into question. The ongoing interest of Western historians of labor in the Soviet Union, who after the end of the Soviet Union could suddenly access a wealth of new sources, was a partial exception to this trend.28 Meanwhile, many of those belonging to the community of historians researching state-socialist labor history developed a somewhat inward-looking attitude.29 Linden, “The Promise and Challenges of Global Labor History,” 72. In her response entitled, “The Promise and Peril,” published together with van der Linden’s piece, Dorothy Sue Cobble already pointed out that “[u]nfortunately, van der Linden’s portrait of ‘traditional labor history’ renders invisible [the] pioneering work of women’s labor history.” Only a year after this exchange, the ELHN was established upon the invitation by Marcel van der Linden and the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. 28 For an overview, see Susan Zimmermann, “Eastern Europe,” in Hofmeester and van der Linden, Handbook Global History of Work, here 135. 29 Zimmermann, “In and Out of the Cage,” 138–44; Adrian Grama and Susan Zimmermann, “The Art of Link-Making in Global Labor History,” European Review of History/Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no. 1 (2018): 9–10. 27

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 14

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

15

Last but not least, the meager interest in women’s labor activism as a specialized theme within the gendered history of labor in particular can be attributed to an additional, third factor. After the dismantling of the classical “labourist modernization narrative” and witnessing its attempted replacement by culturalist approaches and concepts indebted to discourse analysis in the 1980s and 1990s, more than a few historians, even when engaged in attempts to revive labor history, opted to pause the study of labor activism.30 If classical labor history tended to prioritize histories of the labor movement and its activism, the new global labor history has repositioned this large theme as only one among many others, arguing that labor history “encompasses a much larger intellectual territory than we were previously taught.”31 In other words, the reconceptualization of labor activism and the enlargement of the very concept of the political as spearheaded by feminist labor history starting in the 1970s tended to fall into oblivion as masculinist labor history aimed to move beyond the shortcomings of the traditional history of the labor movement. When new labor historians began to (re-)include the political history of labor after the millennium, they began to pay attention to workers’ organizing and activism in all parts of the world,32 and owing and contributing to the transnational and global turn in historical scholarship, there is important new research on the varieties of labor internationalism.33 Sitting in the blind spot between male-dominated activism in class-based movements and middle-class dominated activism in women’s movements, women’s labor activism has remained understudied in this new literature.

Ahuja, “Preface,” xi; Miguel A. Cabrera, Postsocial History: An Introduction, trans. Marie McMahon (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004): 95–104. 31 Linden, “The Promise and Challenges of Global Labor History,” 72. 32 With a view to South Asian and Indian labor history, Ahuja stresses that historians continued to study activism but tended to avoid generalization beyond their empirically rich case studies or to connect them “with larger political processes and . . . the politics of the labor movement.” Ahuja, “Preface,” xii. 33 See, e.g., David Berry and Constance Bantman, eds., New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism: The Individual, the National and the Transnational (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); Holger Weiss, ed., International Communism and Transnational Solidarity: Radical Networks, Mass Movements and Global Politics, 1919–1939 (Leiden: Brill, 2017); Stefano Bellucci and Holger Weiss, eds., The Internationalisation of the Labour Question: Ideological Antagonism, Workers’ Movements and the ILO since 1919 (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). 30

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 15

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

16

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

Toward an Inclusive History of Women’s Work and Activism In this section we introduce some of the state of the art in the old and new scholarship on women’s activism in relation to work and labor and the contribution of Women, Work, and Activism to the study of labor activism as an important theme for both labor and gender history. The chapters brought together in this collection demonstrate that conceptual advances do not stem from the study of the “far-flung corners” of the world beyond Europe alone but can be found in traditions, ongoing debate, and renewal within feminist labor history with a focus on Europe and beyond. The chapters are arranged in three large thematic clusters. In the following section, we present the chapters as embedded in and contributing to traditions and conceptual debates and advancements in feminist labor history as related to each of the three large themes introduced above. It is important to note that many chapters provide thought-provoking insight and colorful detail in relation to more than one of the three themes. We point to some of these multiple connections below. WOMEN’S LABOR ACTIVISM IN A MULTITUDE OF MEN- AND WOMEN-DOMINATED CONTEXTS Bringing together scholarship on women’s work-related activism in a wide range of institutional and organizational contexts and discussing the terrain and repertoires of action available to women in both women-only and male-dominated contexts, this volume contributes to an inclusive understanding of the history of this activism. Taken together, the chapters highlight that in writing the history of working women’s labor-related activism, we must transgress the historical dividing lines between the labor movement and the women’s movement because working-class women organized and acted in both these movements as well as, sometimes, in organizations of their own. Similarly, we need to follow the activism of these women through an array of different types of organizations and institutions as these emerged and evolved in different historical contexts. Working women aimed to pursue their cause within both movements and institutions as they could access them, and their activism was shaped by and contributed to the historically changing contours of these movements and institutions. The chapters of this book contribute to the drawing of a map of the historically changing range of possibilities encountered and/or practices displayed by working women as they struggled to improve their lot and achieve their goals. As discussed above, women’s activism in relation to work and labor was a key theme of Western and Eastern European women’s and gender history in

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 16

2022.07.30. 22:42:09

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

17

the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. Feminist labor historians have explored different traditions of women’s protest as (paid and unpaid) workers and housekeepers in industrial disputes, strikes, and political struggles.34 Women as workers in the workplace and at home, even in isolated male-dominated patriarchal communities such as mining communities, created diverse networks of solidarity and informal support, while in some cases they forged new political identities through feminism and socialism.35 In the past two decades, historians have begun to more systematically explore the transnational and international dimensions of the histories of women’s labor activism.36 This new historiography, however, has remained rather marginal to both the evolving new labor history and the new historiography of women’s movements and activisms alike. In a sense, the new transnational gender history and global labor history have replicated the historical marginalization of women’s labor activism within male-dominated workers’ activisms and organizing and in cross-class women’s organizing and activism, respectively. The development of our knowledge of women’s labor activism has progressed unevenly. Although in the early decades, when in labor history as a field the focus was still strongly on “the” narrowly conceived labor movement, historians with an interest in women and gender uncovered the history of women within male-dominated trade unions and labor movements. By contrast, recent research on working women’s activism on the international plane has foregrounded the independent organizing of women activists, i.e., contexts in which working-class women established their own organizations independently from male-dominated, class-based organizations and middle-class-dominated women’s organizations. The pronounced interest in the short-lived International Federation of Working Women (1919–24) is a case in point.37 In terms of research on how women struggled to bring working-class women’s agendas into both single-sex, cross-class women’s organizations and activisms and mixed-gender, working-class organizations, a lot remains to be done. In his enchanting new monograph on the Berlin-based trade unionist Paula Thiede (1870–1919), Uwe Fuhrmann has asserted—with reference to Germany—that See, among others, Jaclyn J. Gier and Laurie Mercier, eds., Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to 2005 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2006), 171–80; Rossana Romano Barragán and Leda Papastefanaki, “Women and Gender in the Mines: Challenging Masculinity Through History: An Introduction,” International Review of Social History 65, no. 2 (2020), esp. 215–20. 35 Valerie Gordon Hall, “Contrasting Female Identities: Women in Coal Mining Communities in Northumberland, England, 1900–1939,” Journal of Women’s History 13, no. 2 (2001): 107–31. 36 See, e.g., the relevant studies cited in footnote 4. 37 Dorothy Sue Cobble, “A Higher ‘Standard of Life’ for the World: U.S. Labor Women’s Reform Internationalism and the Legacies of 1919,” The Journal of American History 100, no. 4 (2014): 1052–85; Lara Vapnek, “The 1919 International Congress of Working Women: Transnational Debates on the ‘Woman Worker,’” Journal of Women’s History 26, no. 1 (2014): 160–84.

34

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 17

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

18

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

“even regarding the overarching themes ‘gender and class’ or ‘women and trade unions,’ only a few pertinent works can be counted, especially for the period to 1933, and most of them have been published a couple decades ago.” Fuhrmann considers it “virtually ludicrous that a biography such as Thiede’s,” who was a leading female trade unionist and President of the Association of Male and Female Letterpress and Lithograph Workers of Germany for a long period of time, “has not attracted [scholarly] attention for so many decades.”38 One obvious reason for this state of affairs is the fact that new labor history, including its feminist variant, has aimed to move beyond the study of “the” classical labor movement to which trade unionists such as Paula Thiede belonged. Additionally, it might be argued that in the wake of the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s to 1980s, gender historians developed a strong interest in women’s autonomous, i.e., single-sex and non-party/trade union organizing and activism, leaving behind the traditions of the “old” Left including its socialist and communist varieties. This fact might help explain the present comparatively scant interest in women’s participation in mixed-gender and more traditional, masculinist contexts. At the same time, there is a long and ongoing tradition of feminist labor historians’ debate on the complex history of women’s “separate” and mixed-gender organizing in the world of trade unionism and beyond.39 One of the factors nourishing this debate was the hostility with which the male-dominated labor movement and trade unions has regarded working-class women’s “separatism” since the nineteenth century. The present collection brings together new research on women’s mixed- and single-sex organizing and activism within as well as beyond the classical labor and trade union movement and in a number of contexts barely studied so far. Taken together, these contributions are innovative in a number of ways and also invite us to think anew about a number of overarching questions. First, several authors discuss in an open-ended manner how women working within male-dominated movements and organizations operated within these contexts to advance their agenda; how working in these male-dominated contexts impeded their work; and how it shaped what they could and could not do. The authors find great variety depending on the context and the forms of organization, which included yet were not restricted to separate women’s platforms within larger male-dominated movements. These chapters also begin to sketch common tendencies that might form a relevant point of reference for feminist historians’ broader joint endeavor Uwe Fuhrmann, “Frau Berlin”: Paula Thiede (1870–1919); Vom Arbeiterkind zur Gewerkschaftsvorsitzenden (Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2019), 15, 225. 39 Dorothy Sue Cobble, “Rethinking Troubled Relations Between Women and Unions: Craft Unionism and Female Activism, Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 519–48; Linda Briskin, “Union Women and Separate Organizing,” in Women Challenging Unions: Feminism, Democracy, and Militancy, ed. Linda Briskin und Patricia McDermott (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 89–108; Broadbent and Ford, Women and Labour Organizing in Asia. 38

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 18

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

19

to draw a global map of the history of women’s labor organizing and activism. They suggest that until well after 1945, the visibility and influence of women in male-dominated contexts increased slowly and that some of their hardest struggles were about both manifest gender discrimination in the world of work and political issues and agendas repeatedly marginalized because they were deemed relevant for women alone, among them maternity-related matters or women’s vocational training. Second, several chapters show that the changing political constellation in the era of the new women’s movement from the 1970s onward seems to have set things into motion. They highlight the strong and multifaceted and hitherto barely explored impact of women’s new autonomous activism on the gender politics and women’s organizing within trade unions and other male-dominated institutions of labor beginning in the 1970s. This impact of the autonomous women’s movement (to use a term en vogue at the time), or at least the visibility and traceability of the impact of women’s “autonomous” organizing, was a new phenomenon in the history of the labor movement, and it would have lasting consequences. Third, the growing knowledge about women’s mixed- and single-sex labor organizing, as it helps to historicize our thinking on this activism, also invites us to engage (anew) with important overarching questions. What has been the role of working-class women and their allies when they “invaded” the male-dominated labor movement and put pressure on it from the outside, bringing about gendered change in this movement and its institutions in the long run? What are the consequences of the varieties of women’s mixed- and single-sex organizing in terms of shaping the agenda-setting and politics of labor movements and the trade unions? Do we witness historical waves of women’s separate organizing, or is there a secular trend by which women’s autonomous organizing for labor issues has lost (some of ) its significance, not least because of the pressure women brought to bear on male-dominated labor movements and institutions? Are there important long-term trends and patterns concerning how women’s labor activism aimed to bring together gender and class issues, and what are they? The chapters in this book begin to address some of these questions. Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves describe the discrimination faced by women in mixed-gender mutual societies from the late nineteenth century to the 1930s. They note the resistance within societies to accommodating women’s childbearing needs. They discuss women’s greater equality in single-sex societies and their advocacy for the needs of mothers. Laura Savelli in her chapter explores the role played by activist women working in the post and telegraph sector to advance demands and suggestions within the international trade union, the Postal Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI), and within the feminist movement with regard to women’s work and working women’s rights from the end of nineteenth century to the interwar period. Savelli argues that through

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 19

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

20

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

their trade union activism in national and transnational settings, women workers organized in the PTTI contributed to the improvement of working conditions for women and the recognition and addressing of gendered difference in the world of work within the communications sector. Examining a later period, Debora Migliucci analyzes women’s participation in the Labor Chamber of Milan in the twenty years following World War Two through the biographies and careers of key activists. She shows how these women acted entirely within the existing men-dominated organizations. They did not question the basic orientation of these organizations, nor did they aspire to replace them with alternative forms of organizing. Migliucci’s contribution offers a carefully contextualized, precise account of how women activists, although encountering severe difficulties as they endeavored to acquire visibility and power, still managed to impact trade union policies. In her contribution, Nadia Varo Moral explores the relationship between women workers and Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) in Spain during the Franco regime and in the transitional period (1964–1981), highlighting the tensions and the gendered notion of membership in women’s participation in Comisiones Obreras. Varo Moral claims that the patterns of women’s engagement in the union and their militancy, which changed over time, can be explained with reference to the gender segregation of the labor market and their relationships with anti-Francoist political parties and the feminist movement. Moving from the European context to Australia, Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson show how gender asymmetries characterized trade union life and activism in the Oceanic context as well. Substantial changes occurred in the 1970s, when growing demand for a female workforce in maledominated sectors, the pressure of feminist movements, and the implementation of ILO conventions against women’s discrimination, taken together, facilitated the emergence of a trade union environment more sensitive and willing to address women’s grievances. Led by women activists and trade unionists, these developments culminated in the adoption of the Working Women’s Charter, which committed the trade unions to the improvement of women’s access to the labor market and equal labor conditions at the workplace. Change manifested itself also in the election of the first woman to the national executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and, in the early 1980s, the enactment of equal employment opportunity legislation. Anna Frisone’s chapter on trade union feminists’ efforts to bring about women-friendly change in the General Confederation of Labor (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and make the large French trade union federation more amenable to women’s needs makes a similar argument about the importance of the importation of feminist ideas into the world of trade unions in the era of the new women’s movement.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 20

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

21

WOMEN IN MOTION: RETHINKING AGENCY AND ACTIVISM The conceptualization of the agency of women and other dominated groups as they engage in activism to bring about social change and improve their position and the position of the dominated group to which they belong has long occupied gender studies scholars. Gender theory and history has moved beyond simplifying ideas about how the experience of oppression, or the emerging consciousness of oppression, “automatically” generates agency that enables individuals and groups to struggle for social change.40 Yet, the debate on what comes next continues. A broadly conceived theoretical notion of human agency as “a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past (in its habitual aspect), but also oriented toward the future (as a capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment),” can be useful.41 Such an approach can, on the one hand, help bypass the long-lasting and controversial debate on how agency is tied to dimensions like self-hood, motivation, will, purposiveness, intentionality, choice, initiative, freedom, and deliberation, and on the other, the extent to which agency is limited by structures, power relations, and, of crucial interest for the present volume, gender relations. In other words, we can go beyond a dichotomist understanding of agency as simply opposed to the notions of passivity or adaptation to given circumstances, institutional structures, and the existing social order. It is not our purpose, in the introduction of this book, to give an account of the wider sociologically and historically informed debate on the semantic field covered by the concept of agency since the 1990s. Nevertheless, we should at least mention that Western democracies and liberal systems have been, for a certain time, the privileged fields of interest to detect and define women’s agency. One important reason has been the ongoing scholarly bias privileging the Western experience, if not Western concepts and “values.”42 Thanks to the widening of spatial horizons (which for a long time have been narrow in the Western world in particular) and the rise of concepts challenging Western-centric feminist approaches—a process that built up momentum in the context of the first World Conference on Women of the United Nations and the parallel conference of Lois McNay, “Agency,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, ed. Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 39–60; Claudia Leeb, Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism: Toward a New Theory of the Political Subject (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 41 Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische, “What Is Agency?” American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 4 (1998): 963. 42 Francisca de Haan, “Continuing Cold War Paradigms in Western Historiography of Transnational Women’s Organisations: The Case of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF),” Women’s History Review 19, no. 4 (2010): 547–73. 40

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 21

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

22

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

nongovernmental organizations held in Mexico City in the summer of 197543— we witness a growing awareness of the entanglements of women’s activism with variegated social, cultural, gender, and racializing contexts and socio-political systems. This has enabled gender scholars, including gender historians, to develop concepts that help overcome previously presupposed clear dividing lines between grassroots and institutional action, social movements as agents of progressive change versus institutions that preserve inequality and subordination, and social systems that allow or suppress progressive social action.44 As a consequence, more nuanced and, at the same time, more reflexive and less normative scholarly attitudes toward multiple patterns of women’s agency in the long twentieth century have begun to enable a deeper understanding of how women faced manifold structural and cultural framings, including both the limitations and spaces of opportunity with which they had (and have) to engage in their daily lives. Conceptual challenges to Eurocentrism, the demise of Cold War paradigms, and the rise of global history, which has responded to post-colonial, cultural, and other “turns,” together have enabled a significant widening of, or at least facilitated the engagement of, the international community with research contexts around the world, where new questions have been asked and new approaches are tried out. Studies on feminism and women’s agency in non-Western countries have allowed for the widening of concepts and categories with the aim to arrive at adequately inclusive working definitions of women’s agency and activism. This research has addressed contexts as different as women-led campaigns, protests, and actions unfolding within the apparatuses of workerist or state-socialist states,45 or the rethinking of the concept of women’s agency in Muslim societies and contexts.46 An original debate developed around the concept of “state feminism,” which identified so-called “femocrats” in the “progressive-socialdemocratic” states mainly in Scandinavia as subjects to be included in an enlarged concept of women’s activism and gendered social movements. This concept can be helpful to study women involved, for example, in trade union activism within the state-socialist state.47 Jocelyn Olcott, International Women’s Year: The Greatest Consciousness-Raising Event in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 44 Laure Bereni and Anne Revillard, “Movement Institutions: The Bureaucratic Sources of Feminist Protest,” Politics & Gender 14, no. 3 (2018): 407–32. 45 Natalia Jarska, “A Patriarchal Marriage? The Women’s Movement and the Communist Party in Poland (1945–1989),” Kwartalnik Historyczny 125 (English language edition), no. 2 (2018): 7–37. 46 Sirma Bilge, “Beyond Subordination vs. Resistance: An Intersectional Approach to the Agency of Veiled Muslim Women,” Journal of Intercultural Studies 31, no. 1 (2010): 9–28. 47 Zheng Wang, Finding Women in the State: A Socialist-Feminist Revolution in the People’s Republic of China (1949–1964) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016). 43

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 22

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

23

There are a number of additional conceptual tools that hold promise for the study of women workers’ social action in offices and factories within (and beyond) non-liberal contexts, concepts which, however, have neither been developed with close attention to women nor employed in our field of study in a systematic manner so far. We could mention Alf Lüdtke’s studies of Eigensinn48 here and James Scott’s notion of the hidden transcripts and “infrapolitics” mobilized by subordinate groups, which represent “a critique of power spoken behind the back of the dominant.”49 In his chapter, Rory Archer points to the potential relevance of Scott’s concept for capturing women’s everyday resistance at the workplace, yet simultaneously warns that the binary distinction between public and hidden transcripts might once again reinforce the false dichotomy between official and informal spheres of action, which all too often has characterized the historiography on socialist countries. The concept of Eigensinn focuses on the insistence of workers in the enterprise on their own common perception of and engagement with the authority structures to which they are subjected. It can help—yet is not in itself sufficient, argues Thomas Lindenberger—to explain both rebellion and the lack thereof. It aims to capture modes of action that cannot be reduced to resistance, accommodation, or anything in between these two classical poles of social and political action. While contributing to the functioning of the system of workplace-related domination, Eigensinn-based action simultaneously constitutes the sand in the gears of the exploitation machinery and marks the limits of domination.50 The concept thus points to the necessary enlargement of what counts as political and helps to think anew about how workplace-related social action and agency can be captured conceptually. The chapters assembled in this book contribute to a more inclusive understanding of women’s activism precisely through the shift of focus from a broader social field of women’s activism to the labor environment to explore how women acted and thus developed their agency through worker’s organizations and labor conflicts. All contributions discuss women’s activism covering the period of the long twentieth century. This temporal frame coincides with the rise of industrial Alf Lüdtke, Eigen-Sinn: Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis in den Faschismus (Hamburg: Ergebnisse Verlag, 1993). While Lüdtke has studied in detail the role of masculinity in the eigensinnig action of men, he has not done a parallel inquiry for women. Mark Pittaway used the concept to study male skilled workers in 1950s Hungary and drew attention to the relevance of skill and male gender for his findings. Mark Pittaway, From the Vanguard to the Margins: Workers in Hungary, 1939 to the Present (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 49 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), quote xii. 50 We follow here Thomas Lindenberger’s apt discussion of the concept and its historical genealogy. Thomas Lindenberger, “Eigen-Sinn, Herrschaft und kein Widerstand,” Version: 1.0, in Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, September 2, 2014, http://docupedia.de/zg/Eigensinn. 48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 23

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

24

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

work, which in many places produced sharp divisions of roles, or altered preexisting ones, and strengthened gender stereotypes, often with adverse effects on women’s potential to act in the public sphere. At the same time, the private sphere was construed as the site of women’s (politically inconsequential) action.51 Yet, as we know, women were marginalized but not excluded from a labor market and production systems that heavily relied on the cheap and highly exploitable workforce they offered. In reality, the world of work thus became a critical context for the unfolding of women’s agency. In addition, working women often found themselves on the vast peripheries of the labor market. Drawing on forms of “social engagement informed by the past (in its habitual aspect),” women here tried to find their place within trade unions dominated by men or, when they were not admitted or had no chance to find representation, they founded womenonly unions, often building on patterns of existing labor unions. The chapter by Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves illustrates how these dynamics played out in the Portuguese case. At the same time—and the chapter by Baptista and Alves also illustrates this point—women never merely adopted inherited habits and modes of action. Rather, women’s activism was also “oriented toward the future (as a capacity to imagine alternative possibilities) and toward the present (as a capacity to contextualize past habits and future projects within the contingencies of the moment).”52 Debora Migliucci’s chapter beautifully exemplifies the multifaceted interplay between these different time orientations. By virtue of their steadfast determination and ability to act on different scales and within different frameworks, these women trade unionists were able to sharpen unions’ sensitivity concerning women’s issues to achieve relevant goals for improving women’s working lives in the present and future. At long last, the chapter implicitly questions the often-presupposed dogma of the weak agency of women in male-dominated trade unions by stressing how influential women’s engagement could be even though gendered hierarchies and power relations did not fundamentally change until recent times. Based on rich historical material, Rory Archer’s chapter questions the typical Western-centered concept of agency by focusing on strategies and struggles for the improvement of women’s work and life conditions within Yugoslavia’s socialism from the second half of the 1970s to the breakdown of the regime. While aware of the strict rules of social behavior and organizational forms at the workplace imposed on workers within this social order, Archer challenges the For an initial effort to rethink these and related insights from a global perspective, which however remained tied to an (implicitly Eurocentric) culturalist approach when discussing non-European sites of the history of women’s work, see Alice Kessler-Harris, “Reframing the History of Women’s Wage Labor: Challenges of a Global Perspective,” Journal of Women’s History 15, no. 4 (2004): 186–206. 52 Emirbayer and Mische, “What Is Agency?” 963. 51

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 24

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

25

implicit notion of agency as a “process of social engagement” by pointing to less formal activities and strategies of accessing welfare to secure women’s well-being in the workplace. In many cases, women acted individually, and they avoided resorting to the institutions of self-management or party organizations. Although some might consider it problematic to regard action carried out by single individuals as a form of labor activism, Archer’s contribution points to the unpredictable use of non-formal activism even under conditions of a system of rather strictly organized social control and management of work relations. Paradoxically, it seems that in the case of Yugoslavia, where the social order was based on the vision of the primacy of collectivism, women developed a form of collective agency when they acted outside of the organized structures of the socialist state. Archer’s chapter links to some elements of Marco Caligari’s contribution on the role of women, particularly women members of the Italian Women’s Union (Unione Donne Italiane, UDI) whose support was critical for the success of a strike initiated by the ship repair workers of Genoa which lasted for almost four months in 1955. While Archer argues that individual action taken by women workers can be understood as women’s work-related agency as well, Caligari draws attention to the intersection of activism in the private and the public sphere, describing a form of women’s activism that was capable of transforming traditional roles by subverting their normative functions. Wives, mothers, and sisters—of course these three categories are related to the private life and the socially conservative tasks of the family as an institution—became crucial supporters of their relatives, the ship repair workers, making possible the long duration of the strike, which in turn enhanced its chances for success. Women have played a decisive function in supporting strikes, but they have also displayed a great capacity to initiate and carry on labor struggles on their own, deploying a high degree of autonomy and self-organization. This is the case tackled by Thanasis Betas in his chapter on the resistance and protest of women workers in the Greek tobacco industry between 1945 and approximately 1970, which was characterized by a clear gendered cleavage between the female workforce and the male management. Betas’s special focus on the workplace in this industry contributes to a better understanding of workers’ demands and helps to grasp and highlight the informal practices of women’s resistance in Greece after World War Two. Comparable forms of women’s action come to the fore in Elizabeth Faue’s contribution on women working in the US health care system, when the spread of HIV/AIDS in the second half of the 1980s posed a threat to their own health and labor conditions.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 25

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

26

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

WOMEN ACTIVISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES In the past few decades, an increasing number of studies belonging to different clusters of research have pointed out the relevance of individual biographies for understanding the history of the political activism of women as a group.53 By taking into consideration the biographical paths of female activists around the globe,54 the relevance of the connection between the local and the global becomes visible.55 The concept of global and transnational lives,56 for instance, which was introduced for the study of merchants, missionaries, and imperial officials, has proved to be useful also for the study of women belonging to national and international organizations, especially those belonging to the left-wing political milieu,57 as well as for the study of migrant women workers.58 Studies foregrounding the experience and action of subaltern women or focusing on the Global South have made a crucial contribution to developing a de-centered global perspective.59 There is fascinating new scholarship on how female activists belonging to dominated minority communities such as the Maori in New Zealand pursued the interests of both these communities in general and women See, for instance, Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin, eds., Women and Social Movements, International: 1840 to Present, Database, Alexander Street Press and ProQuest Company; Francisca de Haan, Krassimira Daskalova, and Anna Loutfi, eds., A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries (Budapest: CEU Press, 2006); Thébaud, Écrire l‘histoire des femmes, 58–59, 71–78. For a pioneering article on women’s history through the biographical approach, see Eleni Varikas, “L’approche biographique dans l’histoire des femmes,” Les Cahiers du GRIF 37–38 (1988): 41–56. 54 Francisca de Haan, Margaret Allen, June Purvis, Krassimira Daskalova, eds., Women’s Activism: Global Perspectives from the 1890s to the Present (London: Routledge, 2013). 55 Clare Midgley, Alison Twells, and Julie Carlier, eds., Women in Transnational History: Connecting the Local and the Global (New York: Routledge, 2016). 56 Brice Cossart, “Global Lives: Writing Global History with a Biographical Approach,” Entremons: UPF Journal of World History, no. 5 (2013), accessed April 18, 2021, https://www.raco. cat/index.php/Entremons/article/view/266751. 57 See the chapter on women in Brigitte Studer, The Transnational World of the Cominternians (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and most recently for both male and female Cominternians, her Reisende der Weltrevolution: Eine Globalgeschichte der Kommunistischen Internationale (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2020). 58 Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta, eds., Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives: Italian Workers of the World (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2002); Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American Women and Their Lives (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998). 59 Clare Anderson, Subaltern Lives: Biographies of Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World, 1790– 1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Tonio Andrade, “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory,” Journal of World History 21, no. 4 (2010): 573–91; Marcia C. Schenck and Jiyoon Kim, “A Conversation about Global Lives in Global History: South Korean Overseas Travelers and Angolan and Mozambican Laborers in East Germany during the Cold War,” L’Atelier du Centre de recherches historiques 18 (2018), https://journals.openedition.org/acrh/8113#tocto1n2. 53

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 26

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

27

within these communities in local, national, and international settings. In doing so, these activists “shifted their speaking positions on the internal politics of gender” within their communities “according to the pressure of other issues and of particular audiences.”60 These complex strategies and combined agendas can be captured well through a focus on how individual protagonists negotiated the struggle against various axes of domination in their writing and action. The same is true for the history of women’s workplace-related activism, where women needed to negotiate the critique of male dominance within (and beyond) the working-class communities to which they belonged or with whom they identified with the defense and protection of these dominated communities. As demonstrated in some of the chapters in this collection, left-wing female activists repeatedly moved between and combined activism within male-dominated labor movement organizations and networks—where class interests were regularly put first—and cross-class women’s organizations and networks in which gender interests were foregrounded.61 Suzanne Franzway and Mary Margaret Fonow have convincingly argued that their activism thus has served as a “bridge” between different social movements,62 even while the position of these women, who were simultaneously active on both sides of this bridge, might have remained insecure and subject to politics of domination. The role of individuals has turned out to be important also for improving our knowledge about the organizations to which they contributed. In turn, reconstructing the path of individual women belonging to mixed-gender organizations allows us to understand women’s roles and opportunities in these male-dominated contexts.63 This has been particularly true in the case of trade unions and labor movement organizations.64 Women here played significant roles among officials and activists, yet this contribution often remained disguised or neglected. Biographical study helps correct this (historiographical) marginalization. Even in biographical dictionaries of the labor movement, which developed as a proper genre during the twentieth century, women have traditionally received Patricia Grimshaw and Hannah Loney, “The Local and the Global in Women’s Organizing in the Pacific Region, 1950s–1990s,” in Midgley, Twells and Carlier, Women in Transnational History, 163–79. 61 For a systematic elaboration on the relationship of women’s and labor movements to women representing or identifying with the class and gender interests of ordinary working women, see Susan Zimmermann, Frauenpolitik und Männergewerkschaft: Internationale Geschlechterpolitik, IGB-Gewerkschafterinnen und die Arbeiter- und Frauenbewegungen der Zwischenkriegszeit (Wien: Löcker Verlag, 2021), chpt. 12. 62 Franzway and Fonow, Making Feminist Politics. 63 See, for instance, Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, eds., Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 64 Susan Zimmermann, “Framing Working Women’s Rights Internationally: Contributions of the IFTU Women’s International,” in Bellucci and Weiss, The Internationalisation of the Labour Question, 95–117. 60

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 27

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

28

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

limited attention among labor leaders and activists both at the national and international levels.65 These reference works, in other words, have reproduced the historical marginalization and invisibility of female labor activists. More recently, though, some collective editorial projects have begun to alter this situation, producing biographical dictionaries of women’s activists as well as of women in male-dominated professions (e.g., science).66 The biographical approach also helps make visible women workers who were active at the frontlines of industrial conflict and labor mobilization, claiming labor and social rights for women. The stereotype attached to the history of working women, supposedly less involved in strikes, rallies, and factory/land occupations, has been challenged by research conducted on primary sources, including memoirs and interviews.67 The latter not only provide rich details related to the context and results of women’s actions at the workplace but also help to understand their subjective and personal standpoints and approaches, which were, in turn, extremely important for shaping their actions.68 For instance, the study of women’s actions and experience in male-dominated workplaces through the lens of their biographies brings to light a diverse history of women’s actions and reactions to variegated circumstances ranging from inaction or exclusion of certain strata of workers through large-scale, intra-group solidarity to open resistance to both male and employers’ power. Competition between male and female workers has been a long-lasting factor preventing solidarity as well as pushing female labor leaders to the margins. Research into historical biographies can help provide evidence of women’s individual and collective roles in such settings, enabling interpretations that go beyond stereotypes. The chapters gathered in this collection provide new insight regarding the relationship between female biographies and women’s activism in the world of work, both at and beyond the workplace during the long twentieth century. Maria Tamboukou’s chapter retraces the long genealogy of migrant female workers’ experiences in the garment industry, looking at the trans-local connections See, for instance, A. Thomas Lane, ed., Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995), and the collaborative on-line project: Biographical Archive of the Labor Movement, accessed April 17, 2021, https://archiviobiograficomovimentooperaio.it/. 66 De Haan, Daskalova, and Loufti, Biographical Dictionary; Joyce Harvey and Marilyn Ogilvie, eds., The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century (London, New York: Routledge, 2000); Valeria Babini and Raffaella Simili, eds., More than Pupils: Italian Women in Science at the Turn of 20th Century (Florence: Olschki, 2007). 67 See, among others, Daniel Armogathe, ed., Jeanne Bouvier, Mes mémoires: Une syndicaliste féministe, 1876–1935 (Paris: La Découverte/Maspero, 1983); Maria Tamboukou, Gendering the Memory of Work: Women Workers’ Narratives (London: Routledge, 2016). 68 Luisa Passerini, “A Memory for Women’s History: Problems of Method and Interpretation,” Social Science History 16, no. 4 (1992): 669–92; Luisa Passerini, Memory and Utopia: The Primacy of Intersubjectivity (London: Equinox, 2007). 65

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 28

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

29

shaping women’s lives at the dawn of the twentieth century as well as at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Tamboukou refers, for instance, to the biography of Rose Pesotta, a Jewish anarchist labor organizer in the garment industry, revealing the controversial (and neglected) role of anarchist women in the US labor movement. Several life stories of present-day migrant and refugee women workers illuminate women’s role in labor mobilization, as well as the continuum between home and work that has characterized female migrants’ life in the informal economy and family workshops in Turkey. The chapter by Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves shows how important activists such as Sara Beirão and Laurinda Alembre contributed directly to the development of a specific discourse on the relationship between mutualism and women workers’ protection in Portugal in the interwar period. Isidora Grubački’s chapter analyzes how rural women’s labor was of major importance for feminists and women activists in Yugoslavia in the 1930s. The life and work of Darinka Lacković brings to light the role of a woman activist as an organizer of domestic schools for peasant women in interwar Yugoslavia, showcasing the impact the work of one dedicated individual could have. Juxtaposing the approach of Lacković and her circle to the activism of a group of young communists, who similarly targeted peasant women’s work and education, Grubački argues that both groups were united in their support for peasant women’s empowerment but radically diverged on how they conceptualized the need for education for these women. Françoise Laot’s chapter reveals the crucial role of three French trade unionists, Madeleine Colin, Rose Étienne, and Simone Troisgros, who contributed to the development of adult education and vocational training in both the national and international context in the post-World War Two era. Laot adopts a biographical approach, which serves as a vital method for understanding the transnational connection and the circulation of ideas among different actors. In doing so, the chapter also contributes to gendering the history of international organizations, namely the ILO and trade unions, highlighting the role of French female trade unionists in the international discussion on adult women’s education. Debora Migliucci’s chapter mentioned earlier traces the biographical paths of the female trade unionists in the Milan Chamber of Labor, exemplifying the connection between micro-history or individual history and national and international history. From the biographies Migliucci examines, we gain crucial new knowledge about the role of the anti-fascist movement and World War Two in generating personal and family backgrounds that enabled and pushed these women to become union activists and, later on, officials. Local and national activism are linked, in the chapter by Anna Frisone, through the biography and tragic fate of leading French unionist Georgette Vacher. The biographical path of Vacher is fully mined for its relevance thanks also to the memories of Vacher’s colleagues, who were interviewed by Frisone. Vacher’s biography, set in the wider framework of female unionists’ mobilization

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 29

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

30

Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, Susan Zimmermann

in Lyon, shows the difficulty women labor activists faced when dealing with strongly male-centered union hierarchies. It demonstrates the essential role the commission-femmes of Lyon, led by Vacher, played in promoting women’s collective empowerment and making politics vis-à-vis the CGT. Important elements of the history of French trade union feminism, especially in the public and tertiary sectors, are captured through the story of Georgette Vacher. Biographical accounts of working-class women illuminate the intersection of class and gender vis-à-vis political participation as demonstrated in Rory Archer’s chapter on Yugoslav women workers in late socialism. The biography of Mirjana shows the controversial relationship between her identity as an unskilled worker and her political commitment, which eventually led her to hand in her party membership card. The life story of Ljiljana, by contrast, reveals the choice of not participating in self-management institutions and the League of Communists as a way to maintain space for “entrepreneurial self-initiative.”

Epilogue amid the Pandemic As we submit this book to the publisher, the world is undergoing a deep and unpredictable economic crisis and a new wave of unemployment and loss of work opportunities unleashed by a viral pandemic. Worldwide, working-hour losses for 2020 relative to 2019 are estimated to reach 8.8 percent, the decline in labor income is 8.3 percent, and the number of persons outside the labor force increased by eighty-one million, resulting in a reduction of the global labor force participation rate by 2.2 percent.69 Today, “[i]n contrast to previous crises, women’s employment is at greater risk than men’s, particularly owing to the impact of the downturn on the service sector. At the same time, women account for a large proportion of workers in front-line occupations, especially in the health and social care sectors. Moreover, the increased burden of unpaid care brought by the crisis affects women more than men.”70 Indeed, globally, “women have been affected by employment loss to a greater extent than men. At the global level, the employment loss for women stands at 5.0 percent in 2020, versus 3.9 percent for men. . . . Across all regions, women have been more likely than men to become economically inactive, that is to drop out of the labour force, during this crisis.”71 The current crisis is dramatic for everybody—though in varying forms and to varying degrees. If we consider the critical importance for women ILO, “ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the World of Work. Seventh Edition. Updated Estimates and Analysis,” January 25, 2021, accessed April 9, 2021, https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/covid-19/. 70 ILO, “ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the World of Work. Fifth Edition. Updated Estimates and Analysis,” June 30, 2020, accessed April 9, 2021, via www.ilo.org › wcms_749399. 71 ILO, “ILO Monitor COVID-19 Seventh Edition.” 69

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 30

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History

31

of the involvement in paid work, one major context in which women struggled to obtain a socially recognized and respected place in public and private life, we can expect particularly harsh effects on social relations around the globe resulting from a new tendency toward women’s marginalization and the additional burden put on them in the sphere of “social reproduction.” All contributions included in this volume testify to the crucial role of work and labor for the shaping of the agency of women, the recognition of their social role and status, and the evolution of more humane, respectful, egalitarian interpersonal relationships in all realms of life, “private” and “public.” They also make a case for the argument that historically, the struggles of women themselves have been the crucial driving force for the step-by-step overcoming of fundamental cultural, economic, and social obstacles that have produced the centuries-long exclusion of women from all kinds of polis or res publica, regardless of their widely varied contexts. Historical variety notwithstanding, there is a profound common foundation that has characterized the status of women in society. The tremendous achievements during the long twentieth century in terms of women’s improved civic, political, social, and economic rights are not a definitive conquest. Recent developments represent a threatening scenario, and the picture becomes even more frightening if we consider the possible futures of gender relations which have become, against all odds, more egalitarian and democratic in many places in the past few decades. Policymakers, political parties, trade unions, economic and cultural institutions, and—to use a term invoked constantly in the historical battles around women’s work—“the women themselves” must take extremely seriously the issue of women’s equity and advancement in the world of work. Of course, this is not the only issue at stake in the period of global crisis we are currently in, but it is certainly a crucial one. We hope that our volume makes a modest contribution to both the scholarship and the struggle.

The open access publication of this introductory chapter has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 833691 - ZARAH); the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas; and the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 31

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 32

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

PART ONE TOWARD INCLUSIVE FRAMINGS: WOMEN’S LABOR ACTIVISM IN MEN- AND WOMEN-DOMINATED CONTEXTS

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 33

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 34

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal from the End of the Nineteenth Century to the 1930s Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

T

his chapter contributes to recent research on the history of women’s work and activism by analyzing women’s involvement in Portuguese mutual societies from a gendered perspective. The goal is to understand the place of mutual societies in the struggle for women’s rights as well as the nature of discrimination that prevailed in mixed-gender associations. This chapter also examines women-only associations as spaces for networking and collaboration among working-class women and feminists, which helped women attain a voice in the mutualism movement, permitting them to articulate their demands on welfare issues that targeted both women and their children. Through this analysis, we demonstrate that only in women’s mutual associations were the ideals of democracy and equality advocated by mutualism applied to women. However, a few women participated in mutualism congresses during the First Republic (1910–1926), and some even attained prominent positions in the assemblies, albeit without any known public interventions into debates, according to the available sources. At the end of the nineteenth century, women entered different sectors of the labor market. However, according to the 1867 Portuguese Civil Code, they were dependent on a male “head of the household,” who then reproduced the legal subjugation of women in society, the labor market, and in the social activities of the entire associative movement. Women were deemed legal “minors,” and only after 1933 did some women, specifically those with a secondary school or university-level of education and with their own income, gain the right to vote and stand for election. This study examines the period from the foundation of the first women-only societies in the 1880s (toward the end of the monarchy) to the 1933 “Mutualism Week” organized by the Newspaper O Século (The century), in which women participated (at the beginning of the dictatorship).1 In Portugal, the monarchic regime ended on October 5, 1910, when the democratic First Republic was established. This regime lasted until May 28, 1926, with the establishment of the National Dictatorship. The dictatorship ended on April 25, 1974. In 1933, the fascist regime called “Estado Novo” was founded.

1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 35

2022.07.30. 22:42:10

36

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

Throughout the dictatorship, the entire associative movement—co-operatives, class associations, and mutualism societies—was subject to state control and faced restrictions. Concerning mutual societies, at the national level, we distinguish among men-only mutualist societies (those that specifically excluded women from membership), mixed societies (those that accepted both men and women as members), and women-only mutualist societies (fourteen such societies on mainland Portugal and the archipelago of Madeira). However, due to civil regulations that extended to mutualist associations, in both mixed associations and women’s associations, married women needed authorization from their husbands before they could be accepted as association members. Our research is based on evidence from documents found in association archives, mutual association statutes, biographies of mutualist men and women, government legislation, and reports and articles published in newspapers. Within the historiography, the concept of mutualism expresses that which is mutual, implying reciprocity and exchange. The Portuguese mutualist Vasco Rosendo explained that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a mutualist ideologue, argued that the words “mutual, mutuality, mutation, which have as synonyms, ‘reciprocal’ and ‘reciprocity’, come from the Latin mutuum, which means loan (of consumption) and in a broader sense, exchange.”2 As in other European countries, notably Spain, France, and Britain, mutualism in Portugal constituted a strong movement of mutual help among members of associations, especially working-class members, as a strategy for dealing with difficulties arising over the course of life. The history of mutualism and workers’ movements demonstrates how these points intersected in the international sphere starting in the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. Faced with problems associated with economic insecurity and deprivation, and in the absence of a welfare state, mutualists organized themselves in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, the United States, Brazil, Chile, India, Indochina, and Morocco; in general, they were better organized in cities and more industrialized areas.3 Mutualist aid has been considered an ethical principle of reciprocity globally. In his book From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State, David T. Beito argued that the influence of mutualism extended across racial lines and to immigrants and women.4 However, in reference to women, French historian Michel Dreyfus considers Proudhon to be a “mutueliste” and not a “mutualiste” because of his (Proudhon’s) position that the house and family should be the sanctuary of women.5 This sexist conception, Vasco Rosendo, Montepio Geral (Lisbon: Montepio Geral, 1990), 25. Michel Dreyfus, “The Labour Movement and Mutual Benefit Societies: Towards an International Approach,” International Social Security Revue 46 (1993): 19–27. 4 David T. Beito, From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 3. 5 Michel Dreyfus, Les Femmes et la Mutualité Française (Paris: Éditions Pascal, 2006), 21. 2 3

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 36

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

37

advanced by a man who had tremendous influence on the French workers’ movement, had long-lasting consequences in terms of male domination in the international mutualist movement. Mutual societies aimed to provide a system of welfare and mutual assistance for their members, who paid fees that gave them access to different forms of support: when sick or otherwise temporarily unable to work, for funerals, the provision of pensions for the heirs of deceased members, healthcare, unemployment, old age and widow pensions, and, in a few societies, benefits for childbirth.6 To be accepted as members of mutual associations, men and women had to display good moral character and civic-minded behavior, be in perfect health, and submit to a medical exam. This research falls within the framework of global and international social history studies, the very purpose of this book as detailed in the introduction. Mutualism accompanied the situation at the international level as described in Women´s ILO Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present.7 We also highlight the book A Global History of Consumer Co-operation, which describes one expression of the workers’ movement and contains a chapter about consumer co-operatives in Portugal.8 Additionally, Workers of the World by Marcel van der Linden proposes a new theme in the history of work: the transnational and supranational facets of labor; it also includes two chapters about mutualism that focus on the various iterations of mutualism adopted by different countries.9 The present study contributes to this scholarship by analyzing women’s involvement and participation in the work of mutual societies. For Portugal, women have been absent in the scholarship save for a pioneering study by Miriam Halpern Pereira that examines the provision of subsidies to pregnant women by maternity mutual associations.10 We use an international framework and a transnational perspective to understand both the specificities of Portuguese mutualism and the ways in which it was influenced by mutualist societies in other countries. In Europe, mutual associations were based on the idea of solidarity promoted by the British Friendly Societies, which was launched in England in the second half of the eighteenth Estatutos das Associações de Socorros Mútuos, Biblioteca e Arquivo Histórico das Obras Públicas, 15 volumes (1880–1898). 7 Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, eds. Women´s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender, Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 8 Dulce Freire and Joana Dias Pereira, “Consumer Co-operatives in Portugal: Debates and Experiences from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century,” in A Global History of Consumer Co-operation since 1850, ed. Mary Hilson, Silke Neunsinger, and Greg Patmore (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 297–324. 9 Marcel van der Linden, “Varieties of Mutualism,” in Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 81–131. 10 Miriam Halpern Pereira, “As Origens do Estado-Providência: as novas fronteiras entre público e privado,” in O Gosto Pela História (Lisbon: Ed. ICS, 2010), 176. 6

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 37

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

38

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

century. In Portugal, social policy professor Antonio da Silva Leal argued that the antecedents of mutualist associations may be traced back to the maritime commitments of the fourteenth century (insurance that assisted the families of sailors), the oaths of fraternal organizations, arts and crafts corporations, and the Misericórdias, institutions founded in the fifteenth century to provide mutual aid and distribute charity.11 Meanwhile, in France, mutualism was slow to emerge owing to the Chapelier Act enacted on June 14, 1791, which suppressed corporations and prohibited the establishment of professional associations. However, mutual associations were later permitted by the decree of March 28, 1852.12 This timeline corresponds to the period when associative mutual associations expanded throughout Portugal, mainly due to the emergence of a global associative movement (class associations, consumer co-operatives, and mutual societies) that resulted from the French Revolution of 1848.13 In Portugal, the first decree regulating mutual societies was enacted on February 28, 1891.14 This regulation reflected the pioneering nature of mutual legislation passed in other European countries, especially France and Great Britain. Elsewhere in Europe, legislation on mutual societies was passed in Germany in 1883, in Italy in 1886, in Belgium in 1894, in Great Britain in 1896, in France in 1898, in Luxembourg in 1901, in Spain in 1908, and in Switzerland in 1911.15 We may furthermore observe that the associative movement was very powerful across Europe in the late nineteenth century: in Great Britain in 1889, there were 11.5 million members of mutual societies; in France on the eve of World War One, there were approximately 3.5 million mutualists; Italy boasted around one million members of mutualist societies in 1895; and in Spain, there were 84,000 mutualists in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century.16 The mutualist professor José Cipriano da Costa Godolphin, who not only participated in international mutualist events but was also vice-president of the Universal Scientific Congress of Welfare Institutions (Congresso Universal Científico das Instituições de Previdência), represents one of the channels through António da Silva Leal, Organização da Previdência: Apontamentos das lições proferidas ao curso do 3.º ano (Lisbon: Instituto de Estudos Sociais, 1966–67). 12 Michel Dreyfus, Liberté, Égalité, Mutualité: Mutualisme et Syndicalisme 1852–1967 (Paris: Les Éditions de L´Atelier/Éditions Ouvrières, 2001), 41. 13 Costa Godolfim, A Associação (Lisbon: Seara Nova, 1974), 155–56. 14 Ministry of Public Works, Trade and Industry Archive, Organization of Mutual Associations, approved by decree of October 2, 1891 (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1891). 15 Michel Dreyfus, “Mutualité et organisations politiques et sociales internationales (1889–1939),” Vingtième Siècle 48 (1995): 96. 16 Dreyfus, “Mutualité et organisations politiques et sociales internationales (1889–1939),” 96. Fernando Largo Jiménez, “Institutional Factors in the Decline of Spanish Workers’ Mutualism: The Case of Barcelona in the First Third of the 20th Century,” International Journal of the Commons 19 (2016): 647, http://thecommonsjournal.org. 11

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 38

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

39

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

which international ideals of mutualism traveled to Portugal. In 1889, he praised Portuguese associationism and simultaneously declared it equal to the mutualism emerging in other European countries: “The number of associations, the number of members, the revenues and capital of the Portuguese associations in proportion to the population, we certainly do not find any great differences in relation to other countries where these institutions are at their most developed.”18 This chapter is divided into four parts. In the first section, we analyze the mutualist movement in Portugal and women’s participation in mixed associations. Furthermore, we identify an important issue that emerges in the sources written by men: some mutualists believed women were damaging mutualist societies. What were the reasons for the development of this position? In the second section, we observe how in mixed mutualist societies, the rights and duties of men and women differed not only because of the legislation governing mutualism but also in the internal statutes of these associations. Why were the entitlements for women and men in these societies different and unequal? The third section grapples with the reasons behind the establishment of women-only mutual associations in the major cities of Portugal. Did these single-sex associations prove better equipped to address the needs of women as workers with large families and the need for tailored social security support for women during pregnancy and childbirth? Finally, in the fourth section, we explore women’s participation in major mutualist events in Portugal: the congresses of the First Democratic Republic (1911, 1916) and the conferences held during the Week of Mutualism in January 1933, just as the dictatorship took power. Despite their participation in these mixed-gender mutualist events, men continued to account for the bulk of association representatives, and the sources illustrate women’s persistent marginalization in the movement. Until recently, studies on the public policy and economic history of mutualism placed the activities of men, the dominant voice in the mutualist movement, at the center of their analyses; hence, the membership numbers of women, the nature of their participation, and the roles they took on in mutualist societies remained unknown. Here, we use a gendered perspective to compare the participation of men and women in the mutualist movement, which sheds light on how women were able to organize and ultimately achieve some of their demands for social welfare. 17

Mário Branco, Mutualismo com Jornalistas dentro (Lisbon: União das Mutualidades Portuguesas, 2010), 10. The author explains how C. Goodolphim received awards from many scientific, literary, and economic societies in Spain, France, and Italy. He was also the honorary vice president of the Universal Scientific Congress of Welfare Institutions that met in Paris in 1878, 1883, and 1889, and the Honorary Vice-President of the Society of Welfare Institutions of France. 18 C. Goodolphim, A Previdência: Associações de Socorro Mútuo, Cooperativas, Caixas de pensões, Reformas, Caixas económicas (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1889), 113. 17

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 39

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

40

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

Women in the Mutualist Movement in Portugal Both men and women participated in the labor market in Portugal in the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century as confirmed by census records. As Louise Tilly and Joan Scott have observed, at the end of the nineteenth century, the extent of women’s joint participation in the workplace led to the registration of more women in these censuses.19 In the wake of World War One and from the 1920s onward, the ideal that women remain at home, outside of the world of formal labor, grew more prevalent across Europe. This shift is also reflected in Portuguese census records. On the national level in Portugal, women constituted 36.4 percent of the population working for wages in 1890, dropping to 27.1 percent between 1900 and 1930, before falling again to 22.8 percent in 1940.20 Women worked in agriculture, factories (especially textile, tobacco, and cork), as maids and domestic workers, fish sellers, laundresses, seamstresses, in retail and commerce; the presence of women in the liberal professions also began to grow, albeit slowly. Throughout this entire period, the Portuguese Civil Code, which was based on the 1804 Napoleonic Code and was in force between 1867 and 1966, discriminated against women “on the grounds of sex” and “on the grounds of family.” This code stipulated that married women were to obey their husbands and established that “the husband was the manager of all the couple’s property, including the woman’s own possessions and even those she earned from her labours.”21 In Portugal, mutual associations extended throughout the whole country, though they were essentially clustered in Lisbon, Oporto, and other coastal areas. In Lisbon at the end of the nineteenth century, mutualist associations were established in every neighborhood and in workplaces, and some were grouped by professional sector. In 1889, mutualist leader Costa Godolphin calculated that there existed about 392 mutual associations and 100,000 mutualists in Portugal, most of whom were concentrated in the urban areas of Lisbon and Oporto. According to him, women accounted for about 20 percent of the associated members.22 This percentage seems plausible as, according to the census of 1890, 36.4 percent of women were involved in wage labor. Hence, women workers understood the benefits of social security and mutual aid offered by mutualist societies for those who experienced everyday hardships whether due to illness, unemployment, old age, disability, childbirth, or widowhood. Louise Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work and Family (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978). 20 Virgínia Baptista, As Mulheres no Mercado de Trabalho em Portugal 1890–1940 (Lisbon: CIDM, 1999). 21 Elina Guimarães, “A mulher portuguesa na legislação civil,” Análise Social 22, nos. 92–93 (1986): 561. 22 Goodolphim, A Previdência, 111–13. 19

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 40

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

41

The mutual movement expanded through 1921, with 688 associations and 615,000 associates (the number of women is unknown). Following 1933 and the advent of the “Estado Novo” regime, the number of mutualist societies declined to 527 associations and 587,475 members.23 A 1901 report entitled O Auxílio Mútuo em Lisboa em 1898 (Mutual Aid in Lisbon) by Guilherme Augusto de Santa Rita (1859–1905), who worked in the Ministry of Public Works, Trade, and Industries, called for the reorganization of mutual associations. Although the author recognized that some persons belonged to more than one association, he concluded that women represented 31.42 percent of the capital’s mutualist members.24 Based on his study, we can confirm that across Lisbon’s four neighborhoods at the end of the nineteenth century, there was a large percentage of women present in the industrial centers of Lisbon and in the eastern (Xabregas) and western (Alcântara) neighborhoods, where women made up 39 percent and 45 percent of mutualist association members, respectively. The 1900 census revealed that women accounted for 25.2 percent of the actively employed population in Lisbon, and we may thus conclude that a significant proportion of women mutualists were in the labor market, while others worked from home as domestic laborers or as seamstresses or washerwomen.25 Both Godolphin and Santa Rita asserted that women incurred greater costs to the mixed mutual associations because they were ill more frequently—but for shorter periods—than men. For this reason, male-only mutual associations were established, and these deliberately excluded women. Similarly, in the case of France, Michel Dreyfus confirmed that mutualists excluded women from their associations because they believed females were ill more frequently, albeit for shorter periods than men, thereby contributing to the conviction that women represented a liability to such associations.26 In 1898, women indeed made up the majority of those aided by mutualist societies on health grounds: 56.6 percent, and in the eastern working-class neighborhood of Lisbon, women made up 62.3 percent of mutualist members who received assistance due to illness. Therefore, we are faced with a question: were women really sick more often than men, or are the higher rates of illness for working women associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and/or women’s distinct domestic and familial obligations?

Domingos da Cruz, A Mutualidade em Portugal (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1933), 52. 24 Guilherme Augusto de Santa Rita, O Socorro Mútuo em Lisboa (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1901), 73–77, 98. 25 Censo da População do Reino de Portugal no 1.º de Dezembro de 1900 (Lisbon: Direcção Nacional de Estatística, 1901). 26 Dreyfus, Les Femmes et la Mutualité Française, 20. 23

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 41

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

42

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

Perceptions of Men and Women Associates Based on Legislation and Association Statutes: Rights and Discriminations To compare the rights and duties of men and women in mutualist societies from a gendered perspective, we analyzed the statutes of 129 randomly selected mixed mutual societies from across Portugal active between 1880 and 1898. We focused on seventy-four associations in Lisbon, twenty-four in Oporto, and thirty-one located throughout the country but essentially along the coast.27 In accordance with the civil code, the majority of these associations had different regulations governing men and women mutualist members. In fact, according to these civil regulations, for married women to become members in mixed associations (and also in women-only associations), they had to have the approval of their husbands; women under the age of twenty-one had to have the approval of their fathers. Additionally, toward the end of the nineteenth century, the statutes of the majority of these mixed associations stipulated the exclusion of women from General Assemblies even though they might gain representation through their husbands or another male of their choosing when women’s issues were debated. In other words, the social status of women in mutual societies reflected their status in society. This law only changed during the First Republic, in May 1919, within the scope of the government’s authorization of social insurance (in fact, laws on social insurance were never applied with the exception of insurance for workplace accidents due to economic and political instability). This new legislation made compulsory the registration of all people, including both sexes, in mutual associations. Despite formal legal changes, throughout the period under discussion here, the law requiring married women to obtain permission from their husbands to join associations remained in effect. Discrimination against women also took age into consideration at the time of their admission to mutual societies. Based on the statutes of mutual societies, the average maximum age for acceptance into mixed associations was higher for men: 51.4 years old and 47.3 years old for women, a difference perhaps stemming from women’s poorer health in old age. The principal forms of assistance were accessible to both sexes on the basis of health, unemployment, old age, disability, and widowhood. A further form of discrimination was incorporated into the fee structure of associations as women paid less than men. Additionally, in the majority of these associations, women were integrated into either a category reserved for females only or one that included men who wanted to pay lower fees. Therefore, women received inferior subsidies for health, funeral Arquivo do Ministério das Obras Públicas.

27

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 42

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

43

costs, and other eventualities. This difference in subsidies was in keeping with the conception of the family construct that attributed to men the role of head of household and thus breadwinner, while women’s wages were considered only an auxiliary or supplementary source of income. The majority of associations’ statutes contained a women-focused article or paragraph stating: “associated women had no right to aid during normal [childbirth], but did have the right to aid during any sickness occurring afterward.”28 In reality, among the 129 mixed associations at the end of the nineteenth century included in this analysis, only eleven associations offered a subsidy for childbirth, with the amount ranging between 480 and 4500 réis. In eighteen mutual associations, women were eligible for medical care during the delivery, and one association emphasized that a woman had the right to a doctor and medicines whenever there was proof of the woman’s poverty. As mentioned above, the subsidies women received for illness were greater than their male peers in Lisbon in 1898. We must also remember the long hours women spent working in factories in addition to housework and care work they carried out on behalf of the entire family.29 From the evidence, it appears that many of the health-related subsidies received by women were due to illnesses related to birth-related complications, the majority of which occurred at home, frequently without privacy, sanitary conditions, and medical or midwife assistance.30 Consequently, we conclude that Costa Godolphin and Augusto Santa Rita simply did not understand that women’s comparatively poorer health stemmed from delivery and childbirth, which shaped women’s lives in distinct ways.

Women's Mutual Associations: Equality between Women Although according to the civil code, women had limited roles to play in social and political life, they played important roles in the job market and participated and displayed political agency in associative movements. Furthermore, women established families, were mothers, and had young children. After 1867, women-only mutual associations were set up in the cities of Coimbra, Funchal, Lisbon, and Oporto, perhaps due to the higher incidence of In the vast majority of mixed associations, the statutes stated that women would not receive any cash benefit upon giving birth. 29 Virgínia Baptista, Proteção e Direitos das Mulheres Trabalhadoras em Portugal 1880–1943 (Lisbon: ICS, 2016), 57–80. 30 We must note that the first Maternity Hospital, Dr. Alfredo da Costa, was only founded in 1932. In Lisbon, women gave birth at home accompanied by midwives or older women or in modest hospital infirmaries. 28

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 43

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

44

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

illness among women, their rejection by male-only associations, or the discrimination they encountered in mixed associations. Some were established by mutualist men, while another was launched by a pharmacy in Lisbon. Between 1867 and 1919, fourteen women’s associations appear in the sources at the national level: seven in Lisbon, three in Oporto, one in Coimbra, and three in Funchal on the Archipelago of Madeira as detailed in Table 1.1. Table 1.1. Women’s Mutual Associations between the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century Name of the Association

Foundation (year)

Associação Protectora e Montepio das Senhoras e Crianças (Protective Association of Women and Children)

1881

Montepio de Nossa Senhora do Socorro (Protective Association of Our Lady of Help)

1883

Montepio Fraternidade das Senhoras (Mutual Fraternity of Ladies Association)

1887

Associação de Socorros Mútuos Autonomia das Senhoras (Autonomous Mutual Association of Ladies)

1893

Associação de Socorros Mútuos a Fraternizadora (Fraternal Mutual Aid Association)

1895

Associação de Socorros Mútuos do Pessoal Jornaleiro dos Tabacos (Mutual Association of Daily Tobacco Workers)

1894

Associação de Socorros Mútuos Rainha D. Amélia (Queen Amélia Mutual Association)

1897

Associação Conimbricense de Socorros Mútuos para o Sexo Feminino Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes (Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes Conimbricense Mutual Association of the Female Sex)

1867

Associação de Socorros Mútuos A Feminina (The Female Mutual Association)

1899

Montepio A Emancipação Feminina (Mutual Association for Feminine Emancipation)

1907

Associação de Socorros Mútuos das Senhoras Portuenses (Mutual Association of Oporto Ladies)

1908

Associação de Proteção e Instrução do Sexo Feminino Funchalense (Female Association of Protection and Instruction of Funchal)

1875

Associação de Socorros Mútuos do Sexo Feminino do Funchal 15 de Setembro de 1901 (Mutual Association of the Female Sex of Funchal established on September 15, 1901)

1901

Associação de Socorros Mútuos na Inabilidade Feminista da Madeira D. Filipa de Vilhena (D. Filipa de Vilhena Mutual Association of Feminist Disability of Madeira)

1919

City

Lisbon

Coimbra

Oporto

Funchal

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 44

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

45

We were unable to find detailed information about the professions of these women mutualists. However, on the basis of sources from and about the mutual congresses held at the time, we know that some were teachers and journalists, one was a shoemaker, and others were housewives.31 We also analyzed the case histories of these associations. The oldest association was the Conimbricense Mutual Association of the Female Sex (Associação Conimbricense de Socorros Mútuos para o Sexo Feminino); it was established in 1867, and only women living in Coimbra were eligible for membership. The association was launched by Rui Fernandes, who had already founded other mutualist associations in Lisbon before moving to Coimbra in 1854. At the beginning, this association had 467 members. At the time of admission, members needed to be between fourteen and thirty-five years old. There is also data to trace the history of the association over a thirty-two-year period: in 1876, there were still 467 mutualist women; the number of members rose to 506 in 1899, before falling back to 411 in 1903, and 395 in 1908. Throughout the entire period, the age criteria remained the same. In 1908, the association’s accounts, drafted by its Fiscal Council, were signed by three men representing three women members, by law, the husbands, fathers, or male guardians of these women. The association’s board lamented the lack of attendance at General Assemblies in its 1908 report: “Compelled almost always to sacrifice ourselves for your well-being, administering with good-will the revenues of our association, it is a pity that we do not see who is interested in what we shall do, leaving the sessions of the general assemblies, to which you are all invited, almost deserted.”32 Despite the board’s frustration, women’s poor attendance was probably the result of the personal challenges they faced—the needs of their families, difficult working conditions—or perhaps a general apathy toward associative life. The Protective Association of Women and Children (Associação Protectora e Montepio das Senhoras e Crianças) of Lisbon accepted women between the ages of fifteen and fifty as well as children between two and fourteen years old. The Protective Association of Our Lady of Help (Associação Montepio Nossa Senhora do Socorro) was organized by the initiative of the city’s Philanthropic Pharmacy with the aim to serve Mutualists from the parishes within the city walls, and the association accepted women between the ages of fourteen and fifty alongside children between two years old and fourteen. The Mutual Fraternity of Ladies Association (Montepio Fraternidade das Senhoras) was founded by a man named António Martins dos Santos in 1887 Primeiro Congresso Nacional de Mutualidade Theses, Actas, das Sessões e Documentos (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional, 1911); Segundo Congresso Nacional de Mutualidade realizado em 1916: Theses, Actas das Sessões e Documentos (Lisbon: Imprensa Africana de A.T. de Carvalho, 1918). 32 Associação de Socorros Mútuos Para o Sexo Feminino Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes, Mapa Geral da Receita e Despesa, no ano de 1908, in Arquivo do Ministério das Obras Públicas. 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 45

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

46

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

(we were unable to find more information about him in the sources). The idea behind launching the association was consistent with the prevailing conception that women were dependent on men as heads of households, and that women were prone to illness and incapacity. These ideas feature among the reasons stated in the foundational documents of the organization: Most associations today are allowing the admission of ladies. . . . Experience has shown that when the female sex is associated with the male, it causes serious damage to associations. Ladies are naturally more delicate and susceptible to illness, in most cases experiencing a greater incidence of disease, with more time spent in convalescence, and numerous ailments and slight inconveniences that among men always pass through as if nothing happened, but which in ladies bring about a constant drain of medicines from associations and an increase in the work of doctors.33

He added that the associative system for women differed from that of men. He concluded by saying that in general, ladies do not need monetary allowances as such because men dictated the very nature of society. The members might be children from one year old to thirteen years old and women up to the age of sixty-five. The founder of the association further elaborated the statutes he presented at the first meeting on February 1, 1887, at which thirty-two associates were present. In 1912, the association intervened in the campaign promoted by the Republican League of Portuguese Women (Liga Republicana das Mulheres Portuguesas) in defense of the law prohibiting the sale of alcohol and tobacco to minors approved by the Parliament; this campaign provides a glimpse into their participation in social issues beyond the more narrow mutualist agenda. Similarly, in 1933, the feminist and journalist Sara Beirão gave a lecture at the association’s headquarters; she was presented by Gertrudes Amarante, who also was a feminist activist in the National Council of Portuguese Women (Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas), an organization that advocated for feminist positions between 1914 and 1947. The Lisbon Autonomous Mutual Association of Ladies (Associação de Socorros Mútuos Autonomia das Senhoras) was founded in 1893. That year, several members, including Angelina Vidal—a writer, journalist, republican, socialist, feminist, and single mother—signed the association’s statutes. 34 Members included children between two to twelve years old and women up to the age Associação de Socorros Mútuos Fraternidade das Senhoras (1887–1902), Apresentação à Assembleia Geral, Primeira Sessão em 24 de Março, Lisboa, 1887, in Arquivo do Ministério das Obras Públicas. 34 Mário de Campos Vidal, Angelina Vidal: Escritora, Jornalista, Republicana, Revolucionária e Socialista (Parede: Tribuna da História, 2010). 33

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 46

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

47

of fifty. According to the statutes concerning health care, associates could receive treatment either by the association’s physician or by physicians chosen by women, although in such cases, there were no subsidies for medicines or consultations. The Fraternal Mutual Aid Association (Associação de Socorros Mútuos A Fraternizadora) was founded in 1895 and also catered to women and children. According to information from Augusto Santa Rita, in 1898 there were 322 enrolled members including male and female minors, but this number declined to 249 in 1901, according to the association’s management report from 1902.35 Regarding the Oporto Female Mutual Association (Associação de Socorros Mútuos A Feminina), a letter dated July 3, 1900, informed the Ministry of Public Works that the number of mutual members stood at 603 in 1899, with that number increasing to 641 in 1904.36 Associates were between fourteen and forty years old. The Mutual Association of Female Emancipation (Montepio A Emancipação Feminina), also in Oporto, sent two delegates to the National Mutualists Congresses held in 1911 and 1916: Maria Rosa da Silva Neves, a shoemaker, and Maria Emilia Baptista Ferreira, a member without any declared profession. The number of associates increased substantially between 1887 and 1901, surging from 231 to 1,580 women members. The Female Association of Protection and Instruction of Funchal (Associação de Proteção e Instrução do Sexo Feminino do Funchal) was founded in 1875; the civil governor Doctor João Leme Homem de Vasconcellos initiated it. The association had 775 members in 1876. The 1879 statutes were signed by twenty-nine women members, thirteen of whom were authorized by male guardians. This meant that the remaining women were single and of legal age and thus did not require the permission of their husband or parents. Eligibility for association membership included those between the ages of two and fifty living in the city of Funchal. It was possible for women beyond the upper age limit to be members if the association board did not object. The Mutual Association of the Female Sex of Funchal established on September 15, 1901 (Associação de Socorros Mútuos do Sexo Feminino do Funchal 15 de Setembro de 1901) claimed Queen Amelia d’ Orleães as an honorary member. In 1905, the association had 616 women members, and President Virginia Cândida Rego Martins served as a delegate to the First Mutualist Congress in 1911.

Santa Rita, O Socorro Mútuo em Lisboa, 61–67. Arquivo do Ministério das Obras Públicas.

35

36

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 47

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

48

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

The Rights and Protection for Women in Women-only Associations Married women had no legal authority in mutual associations prior to 1919. They had influence neither on the content or the passage of legislation on compulsory social insurance in 1919, nor on its implementation during the dictatorship in 1931–32. Early in the twentieth century, a professor of law, José Lobo d’Ávila Lima, one of the voices against women’s marginalization, commented about the backwardness of Portuguese legislation. The 1896 law on mutual societies, which imposed restrictions on the membership of married women, reflected a principle of retrograde civil legislation in the face of mutualism which “proclaims the need for the free co-operation of women” and “where there can only be advantages to mixed associations or those exclusively composed of feminine members.”37 In these women-only associations, based on the statutes, the average age was fifty years old, older than those women who were members of mixed associations. Although wives needed authorization from their husbands to join associations, they had the right to participate in the General Assembly to elect and be elected to social positions in the association. Younger women could be represented by their mothers or any other women authorized for that purpose. Women’s democratic participation in mutual societies and equality between women, i.e., the implementation of the mutualistic ideal, was attained only in meetings among women. The expenses and revenues of associations’ boards allow us to identify the main benefits granted to members: subsidies for childbirth and illness, subsidies to access fresh air, thermal baths, or the sea, and medical consultations. Some associations required the obligatory administration of a vaccine to infants. Allowances were provided to members unable to practice a profession or perform domestic work either because of incapacity or because of the death of their husband. There were also provisions for medical emergencies. Some associations proposed promoting the well-being of members and their children, as well as orphans and especially children who had lost their mothers. The Funchal Female Association of Protection and Instruction was established to provide both health insurance and female education (it is important to recall that in 1878, 79.4 percent of the Portuguese population was considered illiterate). This association stipulated that associates had to enroll dependent children between six and nine years old in primary school before sending them to the association’s school between the ages of nine and twelve. There were to be José Lobo d’ Ávila Lima, Socorros Mútuos e Seguros Sociais (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1909), 223–24.

37

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 48

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

49

penalties for associates who failed to comply. In the association school, children were taught domestic work and tasks deemed useful to housewives. In the 1870s, this association maintained both primary education for girls as well as training for domestic activities alongside its social security system. According to Augusto Santa Rita’s report, at the end of the nineteenth century, disease accounted for the greatest amount of social security payments to women in the three women’s associations: 20.1 percent of revenues in the Fraternal Mutual Society, 37.7 percent in the Mutual Association of Daily Tobacco Workers, and 56.8 percent in the Queen Amélia Mutual Association. Once again, sick benefits were granted to a greater extent in women-only associations. This is confirmed further in the period between 1898 and 1902; in four associations—the Queen Amélia Society, the Fraternity of Ladies Society, the Fraternal Association of Mutual Help, and the Female Association of Mutual Help—the highest association expenses were on medicines, likely because of poor working conditions for women and illness following childbirth or even abortion.38 Mutualist societies were important from the perspective of gender and cross-class collaboration because women maintained these associations and because the associations were constituted by both working-class women (for example, from the industrial areas of Lisbon) and by prominent feminists, such as Angelina Vidal and Sara Beirão, both journalists, and Maria Veleda, a teacher (the latter two women belonged to the National Council of Portuguese Women), who signed statutes challenging the male domination of mutualism. Women in these associations gained a voice in the movement through participation in General Assemblies, voting, and getting elected to the management boards of associations. They could also claim social security payments for themselves and their children. Simultaneously, they held rights to financial subsidies for childbirth, and mothers also received medical assistance from a midwife or doctor during childbirth. Despite the limitations of women's participation in mixed associations, some women delegates from women-only associations participated in mutualism congresses and events, which demonstrates that women were able to confront male domination in the broader field of mutualism.

Santa Rita, O Socorro Mútuo em Lisboa, 61–64; Arquivo do Ministério das Obras Públicas.

38

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 49

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

50

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

The Participation of Women in Major Mutualist Events: The 1911 and 1916 Congresses and the 1933 Mutualism Week There were three national mutualism congresses held during the period under investigation: two during the republic in 1911 and 1916, and another at the beginning of the Salazar dictatorship in 1934. Women did not have a strong presence at the two mutual congresses and did not make any speeches. In the 1911 Congress, male mutualists presented four theses concerning the protection of women’s work and motherhood. Doctor Estevão de Vasconcelos, who became Minister of Development in November of the same year, presented the paper “The Role of Mutuality in Accidents at Work—State Intervention in the Labor of Workers in General—Protection Laws for Minors and Women, Especially during Pregnancy.”39 He went on to question the legislation of 1891 that prohibited women from working before and after childbirth. He explained his position by stating that because of the low wages received by men and with the cost of basic needs in terms of food and clothing, a working family could not dispense with the wages of women and children despite all the health risks at their jobs. He concluded that due to poverty, the workers themselves were the first to attempt to circumvent such laws. The legal ambiguity prohibiting women from working during the four weeks after childbirth was, according to him, simply utopian. The other theses presented were entitled “On the Mutuality of Assistance to Widows and Orphans”; “On the Actions of School Mutuality Associations—School Canteens; the Role of Social Security in Schools: The Savings Banks”; and “On the Actions of Maternal and Child Mutuality. The Founding of Maternity Centers and Childcare Dispensaries—the Milk Dispensaries.” In the Second National Congress of Mutuality (considered an extraordinary meeting), major developments in mutualism and on maternity-related issues stemmed from the approval of two draft laws on the basis of a proposal made by the general secretary of the congress, José Ernesto Dias da Silva. The first stated: “For admission, married women do not need the permission of their husbands, and those under the age of eighteen do not need the permission of their parents.” This would not be enacted until January 29, 1931. The second draft law stipulated that “during normal childbirth, members shall be regarded as sick for the purpose of receiving the allowance corresponding to the days they do not work.”40 A law on Estevão de Vasconcelos, Tese IV “Do Papel da mutualidade nos acidentes de trabalho.—Da acção do Estado no trabalho do operariado em geral.—Leis de protecção aos menores e às mulheres, e especialmente no período de gravidez,” 54–65, Primeiro Congresso Nacional de Mutualidades. 40 Projeto de lei já apresentado pelo Ministro do Fomento António Maria da Silva na sessão 39

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 50

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

51

maternity leave would not actually be passed until 1937. Associations would also be left to decide whether or not to include maternity insurance in their statutes. Although there was only a small contingent of women at the two Mutual Congresses and no women speakers at either event, three women’s associations sent delegates to the meetings. In the 1911 congress, five women served as delegates for their associations. From Lisbon, the Fraternity of Ladies Mutual Association sent two representatives: Maria Adelaide Ferraz da Ponte Ortigão and Albina Martins da Cunha. The Oporto Female Emancipation Mutual Association sent a shoemaker, Maria da Rosa da Silva Neves. From Funchal, the Female Sex Mutual Association of Funchal established on September 15, 1901, sent two delegates: Virgínia Cândida Rego Martins and Amarina Rego Martins d’ Araújo. We know from congress reports that at the fifth plenary session, Maria da Rosa da Silva Neves from Oporto served as one of the secretaries together with a mutualist man. Four women participated in the 1916 congress: two delegates from the Fraternity of Ladies Mutual Association, Maria Veleda—a teacher and feminist from Lisbon who belonged to the Portuguese Republican Women’s League— and an industrial worker named Albina Guilhermina Martins da Cunha. The Oporto Female Emancipation Mutual Association again sent Maria da Rosa da Silva Neves and also Maria Emília Baptista Ferreira, the latter of whom did not have a registered profession but was a feminist and sat on the National Council of Portuguese Women (this organization existed between 1914 and 1947). It is important to note that in the Second Section of the Congress, the feminist mutualist Maria Emília Baptista Ferreira served as secretary, and Albina Guilhermina Martins da Cunha was assembly vice-president. The participation of women in the congresses and the existence of two women secretaries and a vice-president in the assemblies likely were the result of a negotiation between mutualist women and men, as the latter constituted an overwhelming majority of attendees and were responsible for organizing the congresses. It should be noted that some women belonged to feminist organizations, held important roles in them at the national level, and maintained contacts with women’s councils from other countries. In addition, during the First Republic, there were connections and solidarity among Republicans, some politicians, and some feminists, even though this did not amount to suffrage rights for women. However, José Ernesto Dias da Silva, the General Secretary of these congresses, was a socialist typographer, and at the 1902 General Assembly of the Society of Instruction and Beneficence of the Worker’s Voice (Sociedade de Instrução e de Beneficiência A Voz do Operário), which was founded by the Class Association of Tobacco Handlers in 1879, there was disagreement because parlamentar de 25 de 1913 (elaborado por mutualistas nomeados em 1911 pelo ministro do Fomento Estevão de Vasconcelos), 141–42, Segundo Congresso Nacional de Mutualidade realizado em 1916.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 51

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

52

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

Ernesto Dias da Silva did not agree with his female comrades’ inability to vote (based on the national law in effect, which governed the association). In 1934, the third National Mutualism Congress took place, the year after the declaration of the Estado Novo dictatorship. In a time of great political uncertainty, mutualists sought to come up with solutions to the crisis as it affected the mutualist movement. In the press coverage, it appears that only “a few ladies” attended the inaugural session, but the theses presented did not include any titles addressing the issue of mutualism for women.41 The following year, Law no. 1884 of March 16, 1935, was enacted; it was supposed to define the structure of a social security system into which mutualist associations would be integrated. Henceforth, there were two types of parallel insurance: the voluntary or open membership system of mutual associations and the compulsory social insurance system. Only a year earlier, a major mutualist event was held which was designed to boost the role of mutualism. “Mutualist Week” was declared across the country in January 1933, at the very beginning of the dictatorship. The event was initiated by the newspaper O Século, and several prominent male and female mutualists participated in it. Mutualist Week received widespread coverage in the press with the participation of a considerable number of mutual societies; the objective, according to mutualist José Francisco Grilo, was to advertise and raise awareness about organized mutual insurance, thereby “preparing the ground for compulsory social insurance for illness.”42 More women took part in the conferences held in the early 1930s. Some events focused on mutualism and the protection of women. The lecture given by Sara Beirão mentioned earlier carried the title “The Woman in Mutualism.” She began by considering that “the typical Portuguese woman was generally indifferent to the associative spirit, perhaps because of the altruism that leads her to sacrifice herself for her family.”43 She recognized the double function of women as workers to boost the household income and as mothers in the home caring for the family. She referred to mutualism as “welfare and shelter against the evils that the future can bring, such as illness or old age,” and correspondingly defended women’s mutual aid associations, “where women could find services that are not customary in other associations.” She also argued that women should support each other, acknowledging their importance in society and advocating for social security for women at various life stages (which was important at the time). She pointed out the significance of mutualism for women during pregnancy, the postpartum period, and while breast feeding. She went on to explain how proper care and assistance for pregnant and postpartum women was beneficial for the future health of their children. She showed that based on statistics, high percentages of infant mortality stemmed from inadequate assistance for women. O Século, December 9, 1934, 4. Mutualism week took place between January 13 and 22, 1933. O Século, January 15, 1933, 1. 43 Sara Beirão, “A Mulher no Mutualismo,” O Século, January 18, 1933, 6. 41 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 52

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

53

She ended her lecture by complaining that the Mutual Fraternity of Ladies Association, which played an important role in the mutualist movement, had been unable to expand further. Doctor Laurinda Alembre gave a speech on January 22, 1933, entitled “Mutualism and its Modalities” at the Trade Employees Mutual Aid Association in Lisbon (Associação de Socorros Mútuos dos Empregados no Comércio de Lisboa). She focused on mutualism from the perspective of protecting women, especially during the postpartum period. Her ideas were based on the legitimate need for modern women to contribute to the household budget, though she also accepted the idea (current at the time) that female physical abilities were probably lower than those of men, which resulted in women needing more assistance. “Hence the importance of mutuality in this area: it is said that nothing is more solemn, more noble, and more religious than work . . . and, I will add, than maternity. Faced with this delicate symbiosis of the woman who works while a new life is developing in her womb, I ask whether it is too much, or too little, to do in favor of the working woman?”44 She ended her talk by appealing to women to take up the mutualist idea that would then be able to expand its work in ways that would benefit the whole of society. At the same event, some women members of mutual associations presented papers. The issues all related to working women and the promotion of membership in women's associations that would provide welfare insurance during sickness, maternity, and old age. There are two important issues that deserve final consideration: the diverse constituencies of women-only mutual associations—which stemmed either from discrimination against women in the associative movement or from a conscious choice in favor of independent activism by women—would make their mark by demanding rights at work and social protections. Additionally, it would be interesting to analyze how feminists cooperated to improve the lives of working women and mothers in Portugal. Did they hold common positions on and attitudes toward women’s labor regulations and maternity protection, or did they disagree on these points? This question has been analyzed at the transnational level by Dorothy Sue Cobble.45 We know that this cooperation did not advance the feminist “second wave” in Portugal due to the repression of the associate movement by the dictatorship in power between 1933 and 1974. As in the mutualist movement, women in the trade union movement had women-only class associations, of which we may identify examples including the Seamstresses’ Class Association, the Class Association of Seamstresses and Tailors, the Class Association for Maids, the Class Association for Ironing Workers, the Washerwomen’s Association, and the Portuguese Midwives’ Association, Laurinda Alambre, “O Mutualismo e as suas modalidades,” O Século, January 22, 1933, 6. Dorothy Sue Cobble, “The Other ILO Founders: 1919 and its Legacies,” in Boris, Hoehtker, and Zimmermann, Women´s ILO: Transnational Networks, 27–49.

44 45

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 53

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

54

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

all of which were based in Lisbon.46 Furthermore, many women were present in the mixed-class associations, some of which were more invisible and others more public and activist oriented. For example, in the Lisbon Association of Bookbinding Workers, there were 116 male members and eighteen female members in 1915. In the Lisbon Press Workers’ Union in 1924, there were 186 male members and a single female member, Sofia Gallini. In the Professional Union of Nurses of the Southern Region, there were twenty-one male members and two women: Arminda Teixeira and Laura Mendes Fernandes Aparício. As Dorothy Sue Cobble explained for the international context, male workers, union leaders, and feminists supported protective laws regulating women’s work (night, weekend, underground mining work, and hazardous work) even though this support was not always in line with the wishes of the working women themselves. This conflict over women’s work was clearly expressed by Elina Guimarães, a feminist and jurist, in 1937: “Hitherto, it was thought that this regulation represented the ideal system for women—so much so that the feminist associations included it in their programs. However, on behalf of the working women themselves, who are thus legally protected, the protest against this protection is becoming increasingly intense.”47 Working women argued that this legislation, by barring them from better paid jobs, impoverished them. In the case of women-only mutual associations, which first emerged in Portugal in 1867, according to their statutes, they were founded by mutualist men and, in one case, by a “Philanthropic Pharmacy” in Lisbon. But while the exact reasons for their establishment differ, they are nevertheless related. On the one hand, the statutes reflected the prevailing belief that women would cause harm in mixed associations due to diseases endemic to their sex. On the other hand, in women’s associations, women gained the freedom to manage their own accounts and associations. It may well be there was a willingness and interest on behalf of women to delegate to men the initiative for the founding of these associations due to women’s lack of civil rights. But once established under the auspices of mutual associations, women could bring together other women from different backgrounds; thus, we sometimes find republican and socialist women in the same mutual association. In Portugal between the late nineteenth century and the declaration of the dictatorship in 1933, the feminist movement was elitist in keeping with the type of women attracted to its ranks, but it was nevertheless remarkably active. In effect, in Portugal, there was no “street feminism” like that which emerged in other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. As feminist ANTT – National Archive Torre do Tombo, Class Associations, PT-TT-ACL; Paulo Marques Alves, “A Militância no Feminino nos Primórdios do Sindicalismo em Portugal,” Ubimuseu, Revista Online do Museu de Lanifícios da Universidade da Beira Interior, 183195, http:// www.ubimuseum.ubi.pt/n02/docs/ubimuseum02/ubimuseum02.paulo-alves-olinda-gama.pdf. 47 Elina Guimarães, “O Trabalho Feminino,” Indústria Portuguesa, no. 108 (1937): 38. 46

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 54

2022.07.30. 22:42:11

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

55

researcher Maria Regina Tavares da Silva explained: “the feminist movement in Portugal was, however, always a moderate movement, never openly subversive or violent, more attentive to the satisfaction of its demands through the power of persuasion, law, and education rather than through uproar and demonstrations.”48 Regarding feminist organizations, we should note the founding of the Republican League of Portuguese Women (Liga Republicana das Mulheres Portuguesas, 1908–1919)—probably at the invitation of the eminent republican Bernardino Machado (who would later become President of the Republic)—at the end of the monarchical regime in 1908. At the beginning of the twentieth century, other feminist organizations emerged.49 All of these feminists were concerned with condemning the high rates of illiteracy and promoting the protection of children and women’s suffrage through propaganda in newspapers, feminist education, and rallies and congresses (1924, 1928). Additionally, the physician Adelaide Cabete represented the Portuguese state at the international congresses held in Rome and Washington in 1923 and 1925, respectively. Although the republican governments did not grant women suffrage, the feminist organizations were still committed to defending the republic, which ended in a military coup in 1926. Let us therefore elucidate the positions of some prominent feminists.50 Socialist Angelina Vidal stood out in labor circles; she had close ties to the tobacco workers, was a contributor to the newspaper A Voz do Operário (The voice of the worker), and was a teacher at the Voice of the Worker Society of Instruction and Beneficence (Sociedade e Beneficência A Voz do Operário). In 1911, the feminist Ana de Castro Osório opposed the strikes of cannery workers in the city of Setúbal by invoking the need to defend the nascent republic. Others, such as the physician Adelaide Cabete, defended the protection of poor mothers and the instruction of childcare in Portugal since the turn of the century. In a similar vein, the jurist Elina Guimarães presented a thesis to the Second Feminist and Education Congress in 1928 which asserted that there were already legislative measures for women: the obligation to have a doctor in factories to assist pregnant women in childbirth, the moderation or cessation of some jobs, and seated work when medically advised. However, she acknowledged “that the pregnant woman becomes not only inconvenient but also burdensome for the employer.”51 She also voiced what was common knowledge: 90 percent of working Maria Regina Tavares da Silva, Feminismo em Portugal (Lisbon: Comissão para a Igualdade e os Direitos das Mulheres, 2002), 10. 49 João Gomes Esteves, A Liga Republicana das Mulheres Portuguesas (Lisbon: Comissão para a Igualdade e os Direitos das Mulheres, 1991). 50 Manuela Tavares, Feminismos: Percursos e Desafios 1947–2007 (Lisbon: Texto Ed., 2011). 51 Elina Guimarães, “Protecção à Mulher Trabalhadora: Teses apresentadas ao Segundo Congresso Feminista Português,” Alma Feminina, no. 2 (1928), 4–5. 48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 55

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

56

Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves

women were illiterate because they had to take care of their siblings and forgo their education. The dictatorship repressed the entire free associative movement from 1933 to 1974. Consequently, there is no relationship between mutualists’ claims and the participation of feminists and working women in early twentieth century and “second wave” feminism (according to the traditional concept), first because dictatorship erased the memory of early feminists, and second, because women prioritized the struggle against dictatorship. The 1960s altered the context altogether as a new movement emerged that was influenced by May ’68 in France, the protests and campaigns of university students in 1962 and 1969, and the democratic revolution of 1974.

Conclusion This case study of Portugal contributes to the scholarship on women’s work and activism and in the specific case of mutual societies. By comparing the issues faced by Portuguese mutualist women with those in other countries, this chapter also helps us better understand the mutual movement from a transnational historical perspective. In Portugal, women participated in the labor market and established families, performing wage labor while also caring for very young children; thus, mutual societies were the means through which they accessed social security. The period between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the 1930s was defined by the slow expansion of the economy in a predominantly rural country with a high rate of illiteracy, especially among women. By examining the location of the mutual associations included in this study, we confirmed that the idea of social insurance emerged more strongly in cities, which had higher rates of literacy than rural areas. As we have already seen, in the late nineteenth century, authors such as Costa Goodolphim and Augusto Santa Rita perceived women essentially as sick persons who suffered from the pathologies of their own sex and correspondingly caused mutual associations to incur losses. Given their exclusion from men’s mutual societies, women faced age discrimination in mixed associations at the time of admission and only rarely received benefits on account of childbirth. They were also unable to participate in assemblies, vote, or be elected to board positions. The statistics for the period under investigation demonstrate that women worked outside the home, and most belonged to the working-class in the case of Lisbon as we have seen, but a minority of women participated in tertiary labor market professions (nurses, pharmacists, teachers, telegraphers, typists, and in banking, trade, and insurance).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 56

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal

57

Under the civil law in effect during this period, women faced discrimination; their unequal status was reflected in the statutes and laws of both the associative movement generally and mutual societies in particular. The latter were open and optional for their members, but for women, they were largely undemocratic. These legal regulations remained in place until 1931, when new legislation restructured mutual societies. However, throughout the period of study, women received lower benefits than those of male members, and only a few associations recognized maternity as deserving of any subsidy, which rendered their status as working women and mothers distinct. Mutualism reflected the subordinate role held by women both in the family and in the labor market. To a large extent, protectionist labor market laws and the concept of mutualist rights regarded their wages as merely subsidizing the household budget and continued to evaluate their needs only as dependents of the “male head of the family.” As a result, women’s subsidies and payments were almost always less than those received by their male counterparts. It was from this context that the proposal to launch women-only associations emerged, with some founded by men. The freedom and democratic mutualist ideals only ever took root among women who were members of societies in which they could participate in assemblies, vote, and participate in elections. Nevertheless, even for these types of associations, wives needed their husbands’ permission to become members. There is no doubt that women-only societies constituted a space for women to voice their welfare demands from a gendered perspective. There was also cross-class collaboration between workingclass women and middle-class feminists who held prominent roles in the national associative movement, maintained contacts with international feminist groups, and participated in congresses, as well as maintained close connections with republican governments. It is also relevant to note that one mutual society in Madeira incorporated the word “feminist” into its name: the D. Filipa de Vilhena Mutual Association of Feminist Disability of Madeira (Associação de Socorros Mútuos na Inabilidade Feminista da Madeira D. Filipa de Vilhena). Furthermore, some women also represented their associations at national congresses, where they rose in stature among mutualist leaders and were appointed to positions such as assembly secretaries and vice-presidents. The sources do not report any woman speaking at such events. These women, probably because they were constrained by the circumstances or saw their participation as transgressive, had only begun to enter the public associative space which was hitherto male dominated. Women would later attend conferences on women and mutualism in 1933, after the social changes caused by Word War One.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 57

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 58

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism from the Early Twentieth Century to the Interwar Period Laura Savelli

F

emale activism arose against a highly discriminatory labor structure that did not allow women to advance their careers; women were also forced to resign in case of marriage, and usually earned lower wages. Women workers involved in the postal, telegraph, and telephone (PTT) sectors, both those who joined and rose through the ranks in male-dominated unions (where they had to fight hard to get access to top positions) and those who were members of exclusively female leagues, took part in debates about labor legislation. Some of the women active in the labor movement were also active in feminist organizations and in the suffrage movement. The climax of this activism was in the interwar period, when the presence of women in the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI) became relevant: some were part of the union’s board, and the International Union charged women activists with conducting studies and drafting reports on specific issues ranging from the condition of women workers to the impact of technological change on the staff of postal, telegraph, and telephone services. This chapter explores the roles played by militant women in the post and telegraph sectors in developing original proposals within national and international trade unions and their involvement in the debate on women’s work and working women’s rights in the feminist movement in the last decades of the nineteenth century and during the first four decades of the twentieth. Jobs in communication services were among the first to be offered to women in the tertiary sector, and they were representative of the close relationship between female work and the state, given that the state held a monopoly over these services in many countries. Since the nineteenth century, the state has been crucial for the redefinition of female work, and this shift was influenced by various factors: resistance to or acceptance of women workers by the unionized and powerful male labor force; the increasing availability of professionally qualified and educated female workers; and the demands of the feminist movement. All these elements played a significant role in the history of PTT female staff.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 59

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

60

Laura Savelli

The state intervened in the redefinition of the gendered division in labor, which opened up some professions to women, while closing (or keeping closed) other professional opportunities. By arguing that it was protecting women from poor labor conditions and enabling social reproduction, the state favored the growth of girls’ education and employed women for new and important services. Nevertheless, women were offered positions for which they were over-qualified in terms of their level of education, and work was organized on the basis of gender, which involved separate roles for female workers, their resignation due to marriage, and no opportunities for career advancement. According to Cristina Borderías, in recent years, studies have increasingly highlighted the importance of women both for the inception and the expansion of new and more mechanized economic sectors. Employers in burgeoning sectors often preferred women workers not only because they could pay them lower wages but especially because women’s particular skills—the ability to establish good relations and achieve the best result, previously acquired in care work—and their greater efficiency, responsibility, and stability were especially valuable for these new services.1 This was the case for communication services. However, even in this sector, women’s working conditions were affected by gender and their “prevailing family function,” which justified women’s continued subordination in the workplace and their exclusion from rights that had been progressively obtained by male workers. Research on the professional and trade union history of postal-telegraph employees is a rather recent phenomenon. In Italy, Guido Melis was the first to consider the postal-telegraph employees a group worthy of study in his pioneering work on public employment. In Burocrazia e socialismo nell’Italia liberale,2 he focused on the strong unionization of Italian public employees and the participation of the Post and Telegraph Federation in the reformist wing of the Italian Socialist Party. Melis pointed out that the crisis in the post-World War One era of the Post and Telegraph Federation was rooted in an inherent contradiction between two strategies. There was a conflictual approach, with the union demanding higher wages, and a more participatory one, whereby the union foregrounded the interest in the smooth running of services or even co-management. The second approach moved the union towards carrying out state and governance functions whereas the first one put it, in the name of higher wages, into the position of an oppositional political force.3 Similarly problematic was the examination of employees’ political tendencies in light of their presence in “class” trade unionism, such as in the work of Jürgen Kocka, who compared the American and German situation between 1890 and 1940.4 Cristina Borderías, “Instituciones y género en la formaciòn de los mercados de trabajo,” in Género y políticas del trabajo en la España contemporánea, 1836–1936 (Barcelona: Icaria, 2007), 9–38. 2 Guido Melis, Burocrazia e socialismo nell’Italia liberale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980). 3 Sabino Cassese, “Introduzione,” in Melis, Burocrazia e socialismo, 10. 4 Jürgen Kocka, Angestellte zwischen Faschismus und Demokratie: Zur politischen Sozialgeschichte 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 60

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

61

A few years later, gender history questioned the traditional categories used to classify female work, focusing on the tertiary sector, which had progressively employed the largest number of women in the twentieth century. In 1984, Susan Bachrach examined the case of women workers in the French postal-telegraph sector between the 1870s and the first decade of the 1900s; her aim was to highlight the role of the state in promoting middle-class women’s employment, and she gave ample space to the female postal employees’ movement, which was in favor of wages and labor regulations that would equally apply to men and women. At the turn of the century, the state was the largest employer of women clerks in France. “As every specialist of French social history knows,” noted Bachrach, “references to the postiéres—female postal employees—are common in general histories, as writers have identified postal employment as one of the few avenues of social mobility for women besides school teaching (although no one had ever documented the phenomenon): employed in jobs where they could use their education and which conferred the status of civil servant, postières were considered ‘ladies’ and enjoyed a social respectability unknown to most working women.”5 Four years later, in her study of German women workers’ associations between the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, Carole Adams investigated the complex relationships between class, feminism, and the trade union movement, highlighting the strong presence of feminism within female employees’ associations.6 Additionally, Efi Avdela examined the legislative framework of female government officials in Greece in the interwar period, paying particular attention to their involvement in trade unions, their relationships with their male colleagues, and the gendered division of the labor force. 7 In the brand-new telephone service sector, the employment of female personnel was significant. With the opening of the first switchboards and after a brief negative experience with young boys employed by the American company Bell, women began to be recruited to work in communication services due to their resonant voices and higher levels of education. As we will see, women telephone operators were particularly active in trade union mobilization as highlighted in 1990 by Stephen Norwood, who examined the unionization and struggles of young American female telephone operators in the early 1900s.8



5

6





7



8

der Angestellten, USA 1890–1940 im internationalen Vergleich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977). Susan D. Bachrach, Dames Employées: The Feminization of Postal Work in Nineteenth-Century France (Philadelphia, PA: The Institute for Research in History and Haworth Press, 1984), 2. Carole E. Adams, Women Clerks in Wilhelmine Germany: Issues of Class and Gender (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). Efi Avdela, “Il genere della pubblica amministrazione: Funzionarie donne nella Grecia del XX secolo,” in Operaie, serve, maestre, impiegate, ed. Paola Nava (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1992), 387. Stephen H. Norwood, Labor’s Flaming Youth: Telephone Operators and Worker Militancy, 1878–1923 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 61

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

62

Laura Savelli

Cristina Borderías's 1993 book Entre Lineas on women communications employees in Spain brought together various oral sources to show women’s relationship to their labor and the strategies they developed to reconcile their family duties with their jobs and their desire for social advancement.9 In 2012, after various contributions to periodicals and edited volumes, I published a book about Italian PTT women workers in which I reconstructed their professional and political situation, which was characterized by a long struggle to obtain recognition for their role in and contributions to public administration even as the state sought to maintain women’s inferior status compared to their male colleagues in the communications sector.10 In this chapter, I focus on the Italian case in the period before World War One because it effectively illustrates the gendered contractual conditions of women PTT workers in all countries where postal and telegraph services were operated through a state monopoly. Additionally, in relation to Italian communication services, there is a considerable variety of sources produced by the public administration and trade unions as well as political parties and feminist associations. The main sources relating to the debate within the PTTI are publications, congress reports, and trade union magazines held in the archives of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (IISH). These documents show the nature of working women’s activism in the trade union movement and their original proposals that sought the improvement of women’s working conditions, wages, and career opportunities in the communication sector. These sources also reveal the roles of female workers employed in communications services in different countries. Concerning female employment in telephone services, Stephen Norwood wrote: Telephone operating became a woman’s job during the 1880s and was part of the trend toward the feminization of lower-white-collar work. Since 1870, when the majority of women in the paid labor force were domestic servants, an increasing number of women had entered new, low-paying jobs in light manufacturing, office and department stores. These jobs had grown out of the massive industrial expansion and bureaucratization of the late nineteenth century. In factories, mechanization reduced the need for heavy physical labour and created a variety of light, unskilled jobs for which women were deemed especially suitable. The rise of large offices resulted in a transformation of clerical employment, and large numbers of women were drawn into new positions at the bottom of this increasingly elaborate bureaucratic hierarchy.11 Cristina Borderías, Entre Lineas: Trabajo e Identitad femenina en la España Contemporánea; La Compañía Telefónica 1924–1980 (Barcelona: Icaria, 1993). 10 Laura Savelli, Autonomia femminile e dignità del lavoro: Le postelegrafoniche (Pisa: Felici, 2012). 11 Norwood, Labor’s Flaming Youth, 25. 9

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 62

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

63

Women were preferred in communication services not only for their lower cost but also because of their generally higher levels of education. The prevailing belief at the time was that the “natural female inclination for patience and care (naturale predisposizione femminile alla pazienza e alla cura)” made women more suitable for work in telegraph and telephone switchboards than men: they were more perceptive, delicate, and appropriate than men for sedentary service.12 This essay is divided into three parts. The first section deals with the origin and growth of women's presence in the communication sector before World War One. Women workers proved to be fundamental to the creation of a modern and extensive postal system and to the spread of new services, specifically telegraphs and telephones, in which they were employed from the very beginning. The second section focuses on the militancy of PTT female workers, their activity in trade unions, and their relationships with women’s and feminist associations in the years before 1914. In male dominated unions, as in France and Italy, or in exclusively female ones, as in Germany, Denmark, and Austria, women carried out their struggle for equal wages, status, and career opportunities while developing a consciousness of their role as civil servants. They were among the most active members in women’s and feminist movements and were strong advocates of labor protections and greater freedom for women, ranging from suffrage to the end of the marriage bar for working women. The third section describes women’s activism in postal, telegraph, and telephone trade unions in the years between the two World Wars. Mainly in the 1920s, female workers attained roles as national delegates and members of study commissions in the PTTI and were represented in the executive committee. They were strongly involved in drafting proposals to improve working conditions and rights that would equalize the roles, wages, career opportunities, family allowances, and freedom of marriage for both men and women. They also intensively cooperated with women’s movements, which were especially involved in increasing job opportunities for and improving the labor conditions of women.

Women PTT Workers In many Western countries starting in the 1870s, women worked in the postal and telegraph services sector. But for a long time, their status was clearly distinct from that of their male colleagues, there were few opportunities for career advancement, and their wages were clearly lower.13 Direzione Generale dei Telegrafi, Relazione statistica sui telegrafi del Regno d’Italia: Nell’anno 1873 (Florence: Tipografia della Gazzetta d’Italia, 1874), 20. 13 PTTI, Charles J. Geddes, La situation de la femme dans l’administration des PTT: Rapport au Congrès Biennal de l’Internationale du personnel des postes, télégraphes et téléphones (Zurich July 1949), IISH, PTTI Archives, b.25. 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 63

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

64

Laura Savelli

In France as well as in the Netherlands, it was customary to entrust provincial post offices to ladies from families of reputable civil servants and officials already in the 1830s. Women were first employed in telegraph services and, later on, in telephone services, having been deemed more suitable than men for the labor and apparatuses that characterized the communication sector. In Germany in the 1860s, women worked in telegraph services throughout the states (Länder) and in smaller numbers in postal services; the same was true in Austria, Belgium, and Great Britain. Additionally, in Austria and in many regions of Germany apart from Bavaria, women who were employed were able to achieve the same status of postal official as men already in the 1910s.14 In Italy, women entered the telegraph service in 1863 thanks to Royal Decree n.1137, which allowed widows, orphans, and unmarried sisters of worthy dead employees to run third-class offices that had an annual revenue of less than 2,000 liras. The main purpose of the decree was to save money on pensions according to the Minister of Public Works Luigi Menabrea, who was also responsible for the post and telegraphs.15 In 1865, the new regulation extended to third-class post offices, and in 1869, women were entrusted with second-class offices, again with priority given to widows, orphans, and unmarried sisters of civil and military employees. In the 1870s, women entered the central telegraph offices in England—the London Central Telegraph Office already counted 700 women out of 1,200 employees16—as well as in the United States, Switzerland, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and in 1872, also in the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy. In France, telegraph offices began employing women in 1869, but they were excluded from county directorates and city offices (bureaux simplex) until 1882 and were employed in Parisian post offices only in 1891.17 In Italy, women could work in central telegraph offices starting in 1873, but only in separate spaces, with distinct roles (named telegrafiste or ausiliarie telegrafiche), and lower wages. While male telegraphists could follow a dedicated recruitment path to attain the role of telegraph officer, the only possible career for women was that of “assistants of telegraphists” in charge of female telegraph rooms. This decision caused many controversies and led to fierce attacks by the press, though it was vigorously defended by Giuseppe Zanardelli, the Minister of Public Works, who in December 1876 declared to the Chamber: “For three liras a day, you will hardly find men with the necessary qualifications because See the historical reconstruction of telegraph offices opening to women in some European countries, in Commissione Reale per il riordinamento e la riforma dei servizi postali e telegrafici, Relazione di S. E. il Ministro delle Poste (Rome: Ludovico Cecchini, 1912), 274–84. 15 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 51. 16 Direzione Generale dei Telegrafi, Relazione statistica sui telegrafi del Regno d’Italia: Nell’anno 1873, 19. 17 Relazione di S. E. il Ministro delle Poste, and “Concorso per telegrafiste indetto dal ministero dei lavori pubblici in Italia,” La Donna, no. 212 (1873). 14

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 64

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

65

those who have them can aspire to higher-paid jobs; instead, even the most distinguished women do not have the possibility to earn more than these three liras. I strongly believe that this single observation is enough to appreciate women’s employment.”18 Equally satisfied was the General Director of Telegraphs, Ernesto D’Amico; reporting on the first year of female telegraphists’ employment, he stated that Italy had finally found good and cheap labor. Echoing his English counterparts: women had better sight and hearing, a more delicate sense of touch, and they were more suitable for sedentary work. Moreover, for the salary usually given to men of lower social standing, it was possible to hire higher-class women with better writing skills than those of their male colleagues, “and where men and women are put together, the presence of the latter gives a nobler air to the bearing of all.”19 D’Amico then added that women were less implicated in local political controversies and, thus, were more reliable for work that demanded discretion, because communications between national-level and local institutions should not be disclosed. Furthermore, the decision was made to exclude married women so as not to distract mothers from their family duties and to avoid higher costs incurred by the temporary absences of women from work due to their conjugal status. Jobs assigned to women took into consideration their differential strength thanks to both the discontinuity that characterized telegraph services, which allowed for short breaks to be used for reading or typically feminine tasks (such as sewing and embroidery), and to a specific work schedule that would not, it was believed, completely divert women from their care work and household duties and also leave them with some time for recreation.20 In the nineteenth century, indeed, family duties led to the dismissal of married PTT female workers in almost all European countries apart from France, where the marriage bar was never introduced. In Italy, the dismissal for marriage was abolished in 1899, but it was surreptitiously reintroduced by the Fascist regime; it remained in place longer for telephone operators—employed at both public and private companies—because working on phone switchboards was considered particularly harmful during pregnancy. In 1909, a new law allowed female telephone operators employed at state-run networks to marry without being dismissed, but only when they were older than twenty-eight and had reached an annual salary of 1600 liras, but even in these cases, they were moved from switchboards to clerical work in offices.21 The same regulations were applied to female telephone operators of privately managed networks in 1922.22 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 68. Direzione Generale dei Telegrafi, Relazione statistica: Nell’anno 1873, 18. 20 Ibid., 20. 21 Commissione Reale per la riforma del servizio telefonico, Relazione (Rome: Tipografia dell’Unione Editrice, 1913), 33–34. 22 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 205. 18 19

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 65

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

66

Laura Savelli

The marriage bar was only one dimension of women’s differential working conditions, as explained by Susan Bachrach: I found, not unexpectedly, that while women working in postal services were in certain respects privileged female wage-earners, they still experienced many of the same kinds of discriminatory treatment universally characterizing the position of women in the French economy. The state offered no model of sexual equality. . . . Mirroring their formally inscribed difference from and inferiority to men, women in the Postal Administration, were segregated into a special female grade and usually worked in predominantly female work groups. They received lower wages than male clerks even when they did exactly the same work.23

Efi Avdela drew similar conclusions about the status of Greek female PTT workers, which also apply to women in the Italian PTT sector.24 Despite wage and regulatory discrimination, employment in the postal service was a way for middle class women to earn a respectable living. As well represented by Lucy Graham, the character in Anthony Trollope’s novel The Telegraph Girl: “She was fond too of the idea of being a government servant, with a sure and fixed salary, bound of course to her work at certain hours, but so bound only for certain hours. During a third of the day, she was, as she proudly told herself, a servant of the Crown. During the other two-thirds she was lord or lady of herself.”25 Therefore, communication services began to employ thousands of women clerks well before World War One. According to Barbara Curli, this created a socially defined group out of a very heterogeneous segment of women, mostly single, who came from the middle class, in particular, from the petite bourgeoisie.26 The girls who applied for positions as telegraphic auxiliaries between 1892 and 1893 were usually daughters of male/female postal-telegraph employees or managers; others came from families of teachers, shopkeepers, artisans, and small landowners. They held middle school diplomas, and some even held teaching licenses.27

Bachrach, Dames Employées, 3–4. Avdela, “Il genere della pubblica amministrazione.” 25 Anthony Trollope, The Telegraph Girl, in The Complete Short Stories, vol. 2, Courtship and Marriage (London: William Pickering, 1991), 70–77. 26 Barbara Curli, Italiane al lavoro, 1914–1920 (Venice: Marsilio, 1998), 273–85. 27 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 90–94. 23 24

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 66

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

67

The Development of Trade Unionism among PTT Workers In 1910, the Italian Labour Bureau noted that the Post and Telegraph Federation, to which 65 percent of the staff belonged, was one of the strongest public employee organizations, together with the Union of Railwaymen.28 The Italian situation was emblematic because postal and telegraph workers’ organizations had arisen in many European countries starting in the 1870s, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, they began to coalesce into single trade unions. In Italy, the first group to organize were the employees of secondary offices in 1894; they created the National Federation of Collectors, Substitutes, Postmen, and Delivery Service Officers (Federazione nazionale dei ricevitori, sostituti, portalettere e addetti alle messaggerie). This organization asked the Minister of Postal and Telegraph Services for more favorable contracts, a minimum annual salary, and contributions to rent the organization’s premises and remunerate employees (named aiutanti or supplenti), among whom the number of women was growing. In 1898, the Italian Federation of Postal Officers was founded; it gathered together permanent postal and telegraph employees who called for reforms to the organization of labor, the structure of which they considered too hierarchical. The Federation urged its members to accept female colleagues, though not as equals.29 In 1902, Italian postal and telegraph workers founded a single national trade union with Filippo Turati as president. In 1904, the employees of telephone companies joined it. The main aim of the Federation was to achieve maximum efficiency both in terms of performance and customer satisfaction while ensuring that employees earned decent wages and working conditions. Female members especially called for gender equality in terms of salary, working conditions, and contracts. They complained about the differential treatment of their achievements in comparison to those of their male colleagues and the total non-recognition of the higher-level tasks they performed while substituting for postal and telegraph officials or supervisors on temporary contracts. Two women were elected to the Federation National Council: Romelia Troise, a telegraphist from Rome, and Maria Zanini, a telephonist from Milan, who in 1910 also became a member of the Executive Committee, the governing body of the PTT Federation.30 MAIC, Ufficio del lavoro, Le organizzazioni degli impiegati, Notizie sulle origini e lo sviluppo delle organizzazioni di miglioramento degli impiegati pubblici e privati in Italia (Rome: Officina poligrafica italiana, 1910), 98. However, the state did not recognize the trade union as an interlocutor since the Royal Decree no. 2442 of 1875 forbade employees “from presenting their requests in a collective form, but only in a hierarchical manner.” Melis, Burocrazia e socialismo, 61. 29 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 108. 30 “Necrologio di Maria Zanini,” in Il Postelegrafonico, a. IX nos. 11–12, June 23, 1952. “Our colleague did not restrict her activity to our organization but also dealt with the labor movement and the female movement in general.” 28

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 67

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

68

Laura Savelli

Between 1880 and 1900, PTT female workers were active in leagues advocating for the protection of female interests; those associations arose in major Italian cities, and their programs included political and civil goals, such as suffrage, the abolition of marital authorization, and complete legal equality with men, including the right to access any profession, the improvement of economic and regulatory conditions, and better training for female industrial and tertiary laborers.31 In 1906, Troise and telephone operator Cleofe Leoni signed the petition for women’s suffrage. They were both activists in the Rome section of the Italian Pro-suffrage Association—an auxiliary of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance—of which Troise was also secretary.32 In April 1908, during the first National Women’s Congress, Troise denounced the conditions of female PTT workers, who lacked even those rights that had already been recognized for female workers in other sectors—from the freedom to organize to the right to marry—still denied to female telephone operators.33 Between 1909 and 1911, a period of ferment among the PTT staff, the Federation showed greater sensitivity toward female workers, and the union’s press organs emphasized women’s attendance at trade union conferences and meetings. This growing activism revealed the courage and self-awareness of female employees, probably resulting from the higher level of education attained by younger female employees in the PTT service and the arrival of energetic telephonists in the public staff as a consequence of the nationalization of telephone services (which had been private). Telephone exchanges occupied large rooms and were operated exclusively by women previously under the direction of forewomen. Switchboard girls usually came from modest backgrounds (some came from the working class) and perceived themselves as ordinary employees rather than civil servants, a role with which their female colleagues at postal and telegraph offices identified. In France, female workers joined the general trade union which was founded in 1901 as the Association Générale des Agents des P.T.T. The leadership of the Association Générale was undoubtedly aware of the need to include women both as members and leaders, despite attacks by opponents of feminization who Franca Pieroni Bortolotti, Alle origini del movimento femminile in Italia, 1848–1892 (Turin: Einaudi, 1966). 32 Francesca Tacchi, “L’impiego come ripiego: Le laureate in Giurisprudenza fra età liberale e fascismo,” in L’altra metà dell’impiego: la storia delle donne nell’amministrazione, ed. Chiara Giorgi, Guido Melis, and Angelo Varni (Bologna: Bononia University, Press, 2009), 61. The Italian Pro-Suffrage Association was a section of the International Suffrage Alliance, born in 1889. 33 “Il personale femminile postale telegrafico e telefonico al Congresso delle donne a Roma,” L’Unione postale telegrafica e telefonica, May 1, 1908. The Congress asked for the extension of retirement pensions to female state employees—with the right to pass it on to their children in case of death—equal to that which was provided for male employees. See Consiglio Nazionale delle donne italiane, Atti del I Congresso Nazionale delle donne italiane: Roma 23–30 aprile 1908 (Rome: Società Editrice Laziale, 1908), 187–92. 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 68

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

69

argued that female leaders would add no special expertise to the trade union and would not be as effective as male leaders in defending the organization.34 In 1902, only two of the twenty-seven members of the governing body of the Association Générale were women.35 Furthermore, even before the establishment of the Association Générale, female PTT employees had already decided to create a journal expressly dedicated to the defense of female employees’ interests. In July 1900, a committee of six dames employées and three receveuses published the first issue of L’ Union des Dames de la Post (The Union of the Ladies of the Post). This committee included Mrs. Chambrin, who was later elected to the governing body of the Association Générale. It was necessary, indeed, to work in concert with the Association, but the journal’s independence was necessary to defend women’s interests in the trade union, especially by promoting exchanges between female PTT employees and feminist groups in Paris.36 In 1903, the state adopted an important measure granting to dames employees a thirty-five-day maternity leave in addition to leave for illness or personal reasons. Directors of the central telegraph office in Paris also allowed new mothers to breastfeed their babies in a special room in the workplace, and the administration encouraged all local offices to embrace this policy.37 In other countries, such as Germany, Denmark, Austria, and the Netherlands, female workers established separate gender-segregated trade unions. In 1912, German women postal and telegraph clerks founded the Union of German Imperial Female Post and Telegraph Clerks (Verband der deutschen Reichspost- und Telegraphenbeamtinnen, VDRPT), which was affiliated with the General German Women’s Association (Allgemeiner deutscher Frauenverein). The Association, with which the existing local trade unions merged, was particularly active in the struggle for equal pay and the equalization of male and female functions.38 In the early 1900s, female PTT workers perceived themselves both as state officials and the vanguard of “qualified” workers. This awareness increased together with the progress made by feminism and women’s growing educational attainment. Male colleagues agreed with the increase in women workers’ salaries, enhanced job stability, and a modest recognition of the higher functions performed by female telegraphists and temporary workers, but they did not accept that women could strive for a career equal to theirs or that the organization of work could affect their supremacy in the field; this was because men employed in postal and telegraph administration began to perceive women as their competitors, especially with the increasing volume of services. Bachrach, Dames Employées, 89. Bachrach cites what was written by the editor of L’Union des P.T.T., the newspaper of the Association Générale. 35 Ibid. 36 Bachrach, Dames Employées, 90–91. 37 Ibid. 38 PTTI, Yearbook, a. 1929 (Wien), 86–89. 34

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 69

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

70

Laura Savelli

The Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International The idea to create an international trade union of PTT workers arose during the National Congress of the Association générale des agents des PTT that took place in Marseille on June 15–17, 1910, after a long strike of French employees, thanks to which labor conditions in the sector had considerably improved. Foreign delegations from Great Britain, Switzerland, and Bulgaria were invited to the congress, and messages of solidarity arrived from Belgium and Italy. The congress voted for the creation of an international federation that would include all PTT national trade unions. The first International Conference of PTT workers was held in Paris on June 6, 1911, with delegates from Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Bulgaria, and Italy attending; trade unions from Germany, Belgium, the United States, Luxembourg, and Portugal apologized for their inability to send representatives. The congress elected Felix Koch, a representative of the Swiss union, as secretary, established its headquarters in Bern, and approved a temporary Statute. The Statute included objectives (Statute, art. 3) such as the study of all work-related issues, the improvement of members’ moral and material situation, and the promotion of mutual support among PTT personnel.39 The PTTI was close to the reformist wing of socialism, and it was strongly influenced by British trade unionism and German social democratic unions. The second congress took place in London on June 25–26, 1914, and, because of the impending war, German delegates only participated as observers. At this meeting, the issue of women’s unequal working conditions was included among the PTTI’s commitments.40 Later, during the war, to compensate for missing male workers involved at the battlefront, and because of the increase in PTT traffic, non-permanent personnel was hired, and the pace of work for existing staff intensified. Substitutes and female telegraphists were sent to work as clerks in city offices or to run small bureaus, some of which were close to the front lines. Telephone traffic also dramatically increased, and temporary employment was the only way to enter the switching rooms. Thus, at the end of the war, female workers asked that their requests for equal status and pay be included among PTTI demands, along with recognition of the important and higher-level functions women performed during the conflict. After the war, many countries finally recognized women’s suffrage, though not France or Italy. In Italy, however, the July 1919 Law no. 1176 (Legge Sacchi) abolished marital authorization restrictions and allowed women to enter any profession or public role except the judiciary, police, and military. As a result, PTTI, History of the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (1910–1920), Amsterdam: IISH Library. 40 Ibid. 39

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 70

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

71

on October 2, 1919, Royal Decree no. 1858 (Order on Offices and Postal, Telegraph and Telephone Personnel) granted women both the possibility of becoming postal and telegraphic officers, roles previously reserved for men, and opportunities for career advancement.41 In France, the femmes fonctionnaires finally obtained the benefits associated with a permanent contract in January 1918, the possibility of career advancement in 1922, and equal pay in 1928. In Germany in January 1919, the Reichspost and telegraph clerks received the same benefits with twenty-five years of service.42 In the aftermath of World War One, a two-year period of workers’ agitation began, driven by the prospect of profound social improvements. PTT workers were active throughout Europe, starting in England, France, and Italy; between 1919 and 1920, male and female workers in these countries demonstrated several times and even initiated lengthy strikes. PTT trade unions had to deal with their double identity and concomitant responsibilities: they were the representatives of civil servants and, thus, were jointly responsible for the efficiency and operation of services; they were also the representatives of common workers and their demands for better salaries, working conditions, regulations, and career opportunities. The unions tried to resolve the tension by aiming at the control and co-management of communication services. In Italy, women's participation in labor actions made it possible to block telegraph and telephone communications. Nevertheless, there were still those in the trade union who deplored the total equalization of female personnel; this was especially the case among low-level workers who feared having to compete with women.43 In France in the final months of 1918, female PTT workers clashed with their male colleagues who did not support equal pay and regulations for men and women. Following the example of the teachers’ league, the women constituted a league for equal pay; in less than three months, fifteen thousand female workers had joined the new organization. However, resistance in the trade union was still very strong; it was only thanks to the election of a new young secretary, Jean Mathé, that the union’s relationship with female workers was restored, and the whole trade union moved forward in support of equal pay.44 In the meantime, the dispute related to the idea of offering good positions to women rather than to veterans reached its climax in those countries involved in the war. This conflict affected the PTTI Congress, which took place in Milan in Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 179–80. Geddes, La situation de la femme, 10–20. 43 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 188–93. Third-category employees had the chance, with some years of seniority and after an exam, to access the second category (postal officers) thanks to reserved places. According to the new regulation, in the third category were female telegraphists and telephonists, while in the second category there were female assistants. 44 Charlotte Bonnin, Le mouvement féministe en France au point de vue syndicale dans le P.T.T., IPTT Annuarie (1931) 72–79. 41 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 71

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

72

Laura Savelli

October 1920. In fact, a group of delegates had already met in Vienna in February, when there was a confrontation between supporters of the two different approaches to the issue: the classic social-reformist position and the new communistinspired approach. This is why delegates decided to reconvene in Milan in order to debate particularly urgent issues: the Statute and organization of the new union, the union’s position on workers’ involvement in the control and management of services—which was already a main concern for many national trade unions, and female workers’ demands. Consequently, union leaders sent a questionnaire to the national trade unions to collect the opinions of their members. In Milan, five delegates were women: Miss Else Kolshorn and Miss Thieme from Germany, both representatives of the VDRPT; Miss Horasek and Miss Stefanie Zelenka from the Technische Union in Austria, and Mrs. Gourdeaux from France’s Federation nationale des PTT. Gourdeaux submitted a report on female workers in which she pointed out two main trends in communication services: the equalization of women’s wages with those of men, and the tendency to open all offices and career ranks to women.45 Considering that only a few countries’ administrations had equalized women and men’s clerical roles, she suggested that the international trade union should engage all federations in the battle for complete gender equality in the workplace and in the struggle to promote trade unionism among female workers. The report gave rise to a heated discussion between supporters and opponents of gender equality. The Belgian delegate Fraiture and the Dutch delegate Van Giessel claimed that since married women had less time to work than men due to their family responsibilities, it would be more appropriate to offer them part-time jobs. This proposal was supported by the Italian delegate Guelfi, who pointed out how, in 1919, the International Labor Conference in Washington had established the exclusion of women from night shifts and, therefore, implicitly reaffirmed the distinctiveness of female work. Conversely, the Austrian delegate Miss Horasek promoted total gender equality. The Congress approved a three-point agenda; the first two points concerned the principle of equal pay for equal work and the opening of all kinds of PTT services to women. Given the impossibility of reaching an agreement on the status of married women workers, the third point postponed the debate to the following congress; the idea was that a postponement would give the Executive Committee enough time to study the issue, with a particular focus on women and night work. The Congress ended with the ratification of the Statute, Gourdeaux’s report was based on the replies to the questionnaires, which had only come from Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, and France. Rapport sur le Congrès International de P.T.T.I à Milan, edité par le Segretariat des P.T.T.I. (Wien, 1921), 1–3, in PTTI Archives, International Institute of Social History, b.1. The first names of Miss Thieme, Miss Horasek, and Miss Gourdeaux are not in the Congress’s Report, and I was unable to find them in other sources.

45

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 72

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

73

the election of Austrian Ludwig Maier as the new secretary, and the designation of the Executive Committee, which would consist of representatives from all the national trade unions and a female representative for working women (rappresentante delle lavoratrici). Miss Horasek was named as the women’s representative in 1919 and was subsequently replaced by Stefanie Zelenka in 1921.46 The headquarters of the trade union, which was named the Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (Internationale du personnel des postes, télégraphes et téléphones, PTTI), was located in Vienna until 1933. The period after the war was marked by an increase in radical “feminist” demands for greater civil, political, and labor rights; these demands received attention from the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO), which were disposed to improving women’s civil, legal, and economic conditions and status. However, as Susan Zimmermann has recently observed, the relations among the League of Nations, the International Labour Organization, socialist and non-socialist international networks, and transnational feminist organizations were characterized by both cooperation and conflict. “These actors were at the core of the dispute about women-specific labor legislation and the ‘equal Rights’ or ‘Equality of Status’ of men and women in international law between the late 1920s and late 1930s.”47 The conflict escalated in the 1930s. Already before the war, social democratic parties and trade union movements had demanded specific legislation to protect women’s work such as maternity leave and limitations on night work. However, even within their ranks, men and women did not agree on how to implement these protections; this was also the case in feminist movements and organizations. In the period between the wars, then, these issues generated conflicts within PTTI since most female trade union activists called for both complete equality and family allowances and protections; furthermore, women trade unionists were not willing to accept the lower salaries and fewer opportunities for career advancement caused by women’s exclusion from night work. Most countries had already introduced age and gender-specific laws to protect the labor force. These laws regulated the employment of women and children in two main ways: the first excluded them from certain jobs and restricted their work schedule to particular hours of the day. The second rule applied to women only and required they receive compulsory paid or unpaid leave before and after childbirth, in addition to other measures for working mothers. At the outbreak of World War One, about twenty countries (mostly European, but also the The Statute in Rapport sur le Congres International des P.T.T.I a Milan, 22–24. The Congress voted in favor of joining the Bureau International du Travail. The first names of several delegates were not in the Congress’s Report, and I was unable to find these names in other sources. 47 Susan Zimmermann, “Equality of Women’s Economic Status? A Major Bone of Contention in the International Gender Politics emerging during the Interwar Period,” The International History Review 41, no. 1 (2019): 200–227, doi: 10.1080/07075332.2017.1395761.

46

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 73

2022.07.30. 22:42:12

74

Laura Savelli

United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, and Uruguay) had adopted some form of female employment regulation. In most cases, a shorter workday was instituted for women and children, and they were excluded from underground and night work. These laws only addressed industry (specifically big factories) and left out domestic work, agriculture, services, public and private offices, and shops. The Berne International Convention held in 1906 definitively prohibited night and underground work for women and children.48 During the International Congress of Working Women held in Washington in October 1919, women supported different positions related to eight-hour shifts, night work, and maternity protections. In the end, the congress approved a document that had been presented during the International Labour Conference. It proposed an eight-hour-day and a forty-four-hour weekly schedule for all workers, limits on child labor and dangerous jobs, maternity benefits, a prohibition on night work for both men and women, new policies for unemployment and emigration, and the “equal distribution of raw materials existing in the world.”49 Consequently, the International Labour Conference approved an international convention that prohibited women’s work between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Another document, concerning maternity protections, set maternity leave at six-weeks before and after childbirth, total child support, and free medical services for all working mothers. At the same time, governments around the world were alarmed by the increasing female presence in public employment, in factories, and especially in offices; indeed, they considered women’s growing autonomy as the main cause of demographic decline. This pushed states to intervene in the protection of women’s reproductive functions rather than to deal with women’s right to work, as can be seen in the policy adopted by the Italian Fascist government in 1923; the Fascist policy sought to relegate women to subordinate careers, starting with state employees.50 The Royal Decree of December 16, 1923, in fact, required the demotion of women PTT workers who had not been explicitly hired for official duties from administrative to merely executive services. An exception was made for female employees with health problems deemed unfit for active service and those with at least ten years of service, higher education, and knowledge of a foreign language.51 In 1924, the new post and telegraph regulation stated: “Female personnel are excluded from full-time jobs; those who already hold these jobs may continue in them until they are eliminated and they cannot progress beyond the tenth job grade.”52 Married women were also excluded from temporary Nitza Berkovitch, From Motherhood to Citizenship: Women's Rights and International Organizations (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 89–90. 49 Ibid., 86–91. 50 Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 214–15. 51 Bollettino del Ministero delle poste e telegrafi, n. 4, 1.2.1924, 242–45. 52 Ibid. Original: “Dagli impieghi di ruolo è escluso il personale femminile; quello esistente 48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 74

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

75

jobs, although these jobs were only in executive positions. In the 1920s, democ- ratic countries introduced temporary limits on married women’s employment during periods of economic crisis. In 1923, Germany reintroduced dismissal for married female employees in cases where they could not remain employed without supports.54 At the Berlin PTTI Congress in 1922, there were debates about the treatment and conditions of female civil servants and functionaries with regard to equality in education, training, and job duties in relation to male staff and discussions about allowances for women who left the service. The congress also instructed the women’s representatives to investigate these issues for the next PTTI congress. Meanwhile, Else Kolshorn replaced Stefanie Zelenka in the Executive Committee. Kolshorn was secretary of the Union of German Post and Telegraph Women Clerks (VDRPT), which organized 90 percent of German female PTT workers. The union fought for women's job training, the recognition of the value of women’s work, and the development of a workers’ compensation system (insurance for work- related accidents). The union drew up a proposal for a pension system that allowed female public employees, including those of the PTT sector, the right to pass their pension down to their children or other surviving relatives for whom they had been wholly or mainly responsible in case of death.55 At the 1924 International Congress in Vienna, Else Kolshorn herself, in her report on the situation of female PTT workers, proposed that the international union demand the extension of all family allowances to female workers in accordance with the Verband’s goal. She did not take a position on extending the survivors’ pension to single mothers as the specifically constituted subcommittee had not yet reached a conclusion. Moreover, she expressed her personal opinion on the other two issues covered by her report—the dismissal of married women and night work—since a common position had not been reached by national trade unions. In fact, she declared herself against the dismissal of married women and suggested that national trade unions should seriously address this issue.56 She equally disagreed with the exclusion of mothers from night work since the claim “equal pay for equal work,” which had been approved at the Congress in Milan, required that femmes fonctionnaires should have same tasks and duties as their 53

è conservato fino ad eliminazione e non può progredire oltre il decimo grado.” Savelli, Autonomia femminile, 216. 54 PTTI, IIIme Congrès de l’Internationale des P.T.T., La femme dans les services des P.T.T. (Vienna, 1924), edité par le Secrétariat de l’International des P.T.T, 1924. Report of Else Kolshorn, PTTI Archive, b.1. 55 Ibid., 87. Else Kolshorn held the role of female representative until 1932. 56 La femme dans les services des P.T.T. (Wien, 1924). 53

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 75

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

76

Laura Savelli

male colleagues. She also expressed that she was deeply concerned about the widespread attacks on women's rights and employment. The report provoked severe criticism from Miss Steinkopf, a representative of the communist-inspired Deutscher Verkehrsverbund, a trade union that included both male and female workers. The Deutscher Verkehrsverbund advocated the extension of survivors’ pensions to single mothers and accused the Verband of never having addressed the issue of gendered moral standards applied by the German Postal and Telegraph Administration, which dismissed single mothers but no single fathers for immorality. Kolshorn had not mentioned that German PTT trade unions had discussed the issue in her report, nor did she mention that the Deutscher Verkehrsverbund had submitted a favorable report on total equality between married and single mothers. The Congress decided to: “a) claim in principle absolutely equal rights for married and unmarried male and female civil servants, also with regard to survivors benefits; b) members of a female civil servant’s family are also entitled to survivors benefits if they are wholly or substantially supported by the female civil servant.”58 The Congress, however, did not deliberate on the dismissal of married women or night work for women, though it did express its approval for equal female and male roles and careers. In the 1920s, new trade unions became affiliated with the PTTI while others were expelled from the union. In accordance with the proposal of the executive, the Congress of Paris (1926) declared the admission of USSR trade unions inappropriate due to their position in the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), of which PTTI was a member. It was also decided not to admit three Fascist Italian PTT employee associations as they lacked key features of a genuine trade union.59 The British Trade Union Act of 1927 forced the Union of Post and Office Workers to formally leave the PTTI without severing relations, but it was only in 1946 that the Labour Party restored the rights of trade unions. However, the number of trade unions affiliated to the International Union grew from nineteen in 1921, to twenty-five in 1932.60 In 1923, the Dutch Indies Union joined the PTTI, followed in 1924 by the unions of Palestine, Latvia, Ireland, Finland, and in 1925, those of the United States and Canada. In 1929, the unions of Czechoslovakia, Argentina, Australia, and Greece joined. The Norwegian and Swedish unions joined the PTTI only in 1936. 57

Ibid. IIIme Congrès de l’Internationale des P.T.T. 59 The fascist government had indeed established that public employees could not organize themselves into trade unions. Gianfranco Petrillo, “Dal sindacato riformista all’associazione assistenziale corporativa,” in Le poste in Italia: 1919–1945, vol. 3, ed. Andrea Giuntini (Rome: Laterza, 2006), 103–12. 60 Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International, Report of Secretariat, Congress of Wien, 1960, PTTI Archive, b. 16. 57 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 76

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

77

The main claim of women PTT workers was gender equality in labor rights and conditions: equal wages and equal career opportunities as well as equal child protection and family allowances; they refused gender-specific protections beyond those strictly related to childbirth. Despite the opening of the PTTI to the presence and demands of female workers, the tension between workers of both sexes within the sector and in national unions remained strong, and it influenced the decision-making of the international union. As for women-only national unions, the German VDRPT committed to a plan of allowances for female workers and their children and to wage and regulatory equality. The subsequent PTTI Congresses affirmed the demands for survivors’ pensions for both married and single female workers and the request for equal pay for equal work. Nevertheless, within national mixed-gender trade unions, there was not a strong commitment to these goals. In France in 1926, the female employees of the PTT initiated their struggle for equal-pay legislation. Facing the inertia of the trade union, which actually accepted an increase in the wage gap, the female PTT workers once again founded an autonomous body to represent them in the Ligue des dames de PTT. Despite their male colleagues’ indifference, the association reinforced the pressure on parliamentarians, assembled several thousand people, and met with Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré, who supported their demands. Finally, in 1928, a new social security law introduced equal pay for equal work in the communication sector and an approximately nine-month maternity benefit consisting of refunds for medical and pharmaceutical expenses plus a daily allowance.61 These two examples demonstrate that it was easier for women employees to obtain positive results by pursuing their goals independently. The link that union militants had with trade unions and political women’s organizations in their respective countries significantly contributed to these results. The support of the General German Women’s Association was very important for women clerks in Germany; in France, fundamental was the strong connection between the labor activism and feminism of PTT women trade unionists. But the PTTI did not take a definite position on the dismissal of married women due to the opposition of male workers in the national unions. In the meantime, postal and telegraph administrations’ desire to continue using marriage to keep male and female personnel apart was confirmed by married women’s total exclusion from employment—in Italy until 1930—and their access to only temporary work in the Netherlands. Moreover, marriage was still a legal grounds for dismissal in England, Belgium, Switzerland, while in other countries, it prevented women’s career advancement.62 Christine Bard, Les filles de Marianne (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 168–69; Bonnin, Le mouvement féministe. 62 Geddes, La situation de la femme, 58–65. 61

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 77

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

78

Laura Savelli

The PTTI also did not take a position on women’s exclusion from night work due to the opposition of most representatives of the female members of trade unions. Concerning night work, a report edited by the International Labour Office in 1935 did not mention the exclusion of women from night shifts; on the contrary, it explicitly spoke about female telephone operators working at night.63 In his report on women workers in post, telegraph, and telephone offices and trade unions from 1949, Charles Geddes, the general secretary of British PTT workers, argued that women were generally excluded from night work apart from some exceptions, such as in India. He also underlined the dissatisfaction of female workers because of the lower wages they earned because of this exclusion, to the point that women even requested this rule be questioned in Ireland and Great Britain. Female telephone operators, however, worked at night almost everywhere.64 At the end of 1920s, communication services underwent rationalization. As stated by Kolshorn at the PTTI Congress in Copenhagen: “A noticeable feature of rationalization has been the downgrading of posts and the worsening of promotion prospects. The simplified procedures were applied in ways which have prejudiced the security of the services and thrown greater responsibility on the staff.”65 In Kolshorn’s opinion, rationalization was carried out too quickly, which had a strong (negative) physical and psychological impact on employees. Not only had it prevented a reduction in their working hours; it also led to a higher unemployment rate, especially among women. Obviously, the 1929 financial crisis aggravated the situation with a reduction in working hours, mass firings, and wage cuts; the same occurred in communication services, where women were the first to suffer from the imposition of part-time work and dismissal.66 Draconian measures were taken in Australia and Germany where, starting in 1932, female functionaries could be dismissed after marriage; meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Austria, and the United States, married women were forced to resign. In France, female workers together with the Ligue des femmes successfully opposed mandatory retirement for female PTT workers who were over forty-five years of age and married to colleagues; nonetheless, in “Night work is done either by people specifically engaged for the purpose (male telephone operators in Great Britain and female telephone operators in Denmark are some examples) or by normal staff, members of which are detailed to day and night work in rotation.” International Labour Office, Studies and Reports Hours of Work in postal Service (Geneva: Atar, 1935), 33. 64 Geddes, La situation de la femme, 45–52. 65 PTTI, Biennale Congress, Copenhagen, October 12–15, 1930, Else Kolshorn, “Effect of Rationalization on the Staff in P.T.T Services between 1926 and October 1929,” 30–33; PTTI Archive, b. 6. 66 Marguerite Thibert, “The Economic Depression and the Employment of Women,” International Labor Review, XXVII, no. 4 (April 1933): 455 (Research Division, International Labor Office). On Thibert, see Françoise Thebaud, Une traverse du siècle: Marguerite Thibert, femme engagée et fonctionnaire internationale (Paris: Belin-Humensis, 2017). 63

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 78

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism

79

1934, 90 percent of employees in the sector who were dismissed from their jobs were women.67 Although leagues and international societies of female workers deemed it necessary to defend women's employment, the position of PTT trade unionists was weakening everywhere, and they received little attention from the PTTI, which was preoccupied by the international situation. The female presence in the PTTI dropped in 1933 when, due to the rise of Nazism, German trade unions, which were the largest in Europe and could count on very strong female trade unionism, abandoned the PTTI. The same thing happened the following year with regard to the PTT Austrian United Union, and in 1938 to the PTT Czechoslovakian Union. Eventually, in May 1934, the Secretariat was moved from Vienna to Bern.

Conclusions In democratic countries, after forty years of debates and struggles, PTT female workers finally gained employment stability, opportunities for career advancement, and pensions; furthermore, women’s salaries were formally equalized with men’s almost everywhere. This demonstrated the militance of female PTT workers. But the problem of labor protections remained unsolved; even among women, there was no agreement on their exclusion from night work or women’s dismissal due to marriage, the latter of which was strongly supported by men in national unions. In Ireland, South Africa, and New Zeeland, married women were excluded from work, while in the Netherlands, they could only be hired on temporary contracts. Although wages had been equalized almost everywhere, women were excluded from night work in many countries; thus, their wages remained lower. Furthermore, most male workers persisted in their belief that total equality in the workplace was unfair. At the same time, however, in their responses to a questionnaire sent by the PTTI Executive Committee, the leaders of national unions complained about women’s general unwillingness to join trade unions; they identified women’s political immaturity and their failure to prioritize work as the chief reasons for women’s lack of participation. According to the Belgian Union: “women do not have political suffrage. Their lack of political maturity is the basis for their lack of union maturity.” The Dutch Union deemed it difficult to recruit women since “women start thinking about marriage and consider it unnecessary to join a trade union for what they believe will only be a few years of work. Most women union members are over 30 years old, the age at which women realize they will Bard, Les filles de Marianne, 315. In France, women decreased from 33 percent to 32 percent of employees in PTT services.

67

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 79

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

80

Laura Savelli

have to rely on their own work to live.” Differing from many of their colleagues, Swiss union leaders asserted that the main cause for women’s lack of union involvement was the poor welcome they received from their male colleagues.68 But this was not always true. In fact, during the general strike to end British hegemony, the Indian trade union managers praised the contributions of Indian women PTT workers to the movement for national independence. In Geddes’s 1949 report on the status of women in the PTTI he wrote, “Women telephone operators played an important role in the historic 1946 postal and telegraph strike, where many of them participated in the movement and some helped to make the strike a success. Many women telephone operators spoke out in the large open-air demonstrations. One of them was even appointed as a delegate to the strike action committee.”69

Geddes, La situation de la femme, 70. Ibid., 71.

68 69

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 80

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship: Comisiones Obreras (Workers’ Commissions) in Greater Barcelona during Franco’s Dictatorship and the Transition to Democracy (1964–1981) Nadia Varo Moral

T

his chapter analyzes the relationship between women workers and unions in a dictatorship, namely the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO), a union formed in Spain in the 1960s that was illegal during the regime of Francisco Franco (1939–1975). The focus of this study is on greater Barcelona (in the region of Catalonia), a region with a long tradition of female participation in industrial labor and a place where the CCOO had deep roots. This region serves as a case study for how the masculinization of the labor movement functioned in an area with high female participation in the regular labor market and in a context where unions worked to increase their mobilization capacity. Broadly speaking, since its origins in the nineteenth century, the labor movement tended to self-identify as masculine, assuming that working-class interests were synonymous with the needs of male workers.1 This dynamic was present in Spain, where labor organizations conceptualized “workers” in masculine terms since the 1840s.2 Between the end of the nineteenth century and the Spanish See, among others, Sonya O. Rose, “Gender Antagonism and Class Conflict: Exclusionary Strategies of Male Trade Unionists in Nineteenth Century Britain,” Social History 13, no. 2 (1988): 191–208; Sonya O. Rose, “Class Formation and the Quintessential Worker,” in Reworking Class, ed. John R. Hall (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), 133–66; Joan W. Scott, “Sobre el lenguaje, el género y la historia de la clase obrera,” Historia Social 4 (1989): 81–98; Anna Clark, “Manhood, Womanhood and the Politics of Class in Britain, 1790–1845,” in Gender and Class in Modern Europe, ed. Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 263–79; Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 264–71; Laura L. Frader, “Engendering Work and Wages: The French Labor Movement and the Family Wage,” in Gender and Class in Modern Europe, ed. Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 142–64. 2 Jesús de Felipe, Trabajadores: Lenguaje y experiencia en la formación del movimiento obrero español (Oviedo: Genueve Ediciones, 2012). 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 81

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

82

Nadia Varo Moral

Civil War (1936–1939), trade unions used several strategies to limit or exclude women from certain jobs. In order to do so, trade unions sometimes prohibited women from joining, and sometimes they wanted to attract them to the organization.3 However, women took part in labor conflicts and the labor movement, although their participation in trade unions oscillated over the years.4 On some occasions, though, the difficult relationship between women and unions changed because union leaders wanted to increase their capacity to mobilize.5 Was the Franco dictatorship in Spain one of these occasions? Studies about Latin America, Portugal, and Spain between the 1940s and the 1970s show that women took part in strikes in dictatorships that forbade such activism. 6 In these places, women also took part in both official and Cristina Borderías, ed., Género y políticas del trabajo en la España contemporánea (1836–1936) (Barcelona: Icaria, 2007). 4 Álvaro Soto Carmona, “La participación de la mujer en la conflictividad laboral (1905– 1921),” in Ordenamiento jurídico y realidad social de las mujeres: Siglos XVI a XX. Actas de las IV Jornadas de Investigación Interdisciplinaria, ed. María Carmen García-Nieto (Madrid: Seminario de Estudios de la Mujer, Publicaciones de la UAM, 1986), 287–97; Albert Balcells, Trabajo industrial y organización obrera en la Cataluña Contemporánea (1900–1936) (Barcelona: Laia, 1974), 46; Conchi Villar, Mònica Borrell, Carles Enrech, and Juanjo Romero-Marín, “Working Women and ‘De-Unionization’ The Struggles for Autonomy,” in Transforming Gendered Well-Being in Europe: The Impact of Social Movements, ed. Alison E. Woodward, JeanMichel Bonvin, and Mercè Renom (Franham: Ashgate, 2011), 51–65. 5 For example, Alicia Mira, “Imágenes y percepciones de las mujeres trabajadoras en la Sociedad liberal y en la cultura obrera de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX,” in Feminismos y antifeminismos: Culturas políticas e identidades de género en la España del siglo XX, ed. Ana Aguado and Teresa M. Ortega (Valencia: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2011), 99–122. 6 For Spain, see Pilar Díaz Sánchez, El trabajo de las mujeres en el textil madrileño: Racionalización industrial y experiencias de género (1959–1986) (Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 2001); Claudia Cabrero, “As mulleres e as folgas: modalidades de participación feminina na conflitividade laboral durante la ditadura franquista,” Dez Eme 8 (2004): 9–24; Claudia Cabrero, “Asturias: Las mujeres y las huelgas,” in Del hogar a la huelga: Trabajo, género y movimiento obrero durante el franquismo, ed. José Babiano (Madrid: los Libros de la Catarata, 2007), 189–244; Nadia Varo, “Mujeres en huelga: Barcelona metropolitana durante el franquismo,” in Del hogar a la huelga: Trabajo, género y movimiento obrero durante el franquismo, ed. José Babiano (Madrid: los Libros de la Catarata, 2007), 139–87; Nadia Varo, “1956: Sense menjar no es pot treballar,” in Historia Mundial de Catalunya, ed. Borja de Riquer (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 2018), 795–803. For Portugal, see Sonia Ferreira, “A Fome Saiu à Rua: As Greves de 1943 Vividas pelas Operárias de Almada,” Revista da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas 18 (2006): 249–72; Manuela Tavares, Feminismos: Percursos e Desafios (Alfagride: Texto, 2010). On Guatemala, see Deborah Levenson-Estrada, “The Loneliness of Working-Class Feminism: Women in the ‘Male World’ of Labor Unions,” in The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers: From Household and Factory to the Union Hall and Ballot Box, ed. John D. French and Daniel James (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 208–57. For Argentina, Gabriela Mitidieri, “Evocando el pasado, construyendo la memoria: Las trabajadoras de Alpargatas Barracas en la huelga de abril de 1979,” Herramienta 51 (2012), https:// biblat.unam.mx/hevila/HerramientaBuenosAires/2012/ no51/11.pdf. For Brazil, Jorge Luiz Souto Maior and Regina Stela Corrêa Vieira, Mulheres em Luta: A Outra Metade da História do Direito do Trabalho (Sao Paulo: LTR, 2017). 3

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 82

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

83

clandestine labor organizations and even created women’s departments (as happened in Chile in the 1970s in the illegal Coordinadora Nacional Sindical).7 In some cases, union members encouraged women to join their labor organization because it was difficult to recruit new members due to fears of state repression,8 but these women had difficulty achieving recognition among male members and, therefore, few attained leading positions in unions.9 The Spanish scholarship on the CCOO has also pointed out that in addition to problems concerning representation and leadership, women members faced the “invisibilization” of their participation in protests, and they were unable to convince the wider labor movement to defend their demands as women workers. The CCOO, like many other unions, defined the working-class in masculine terms.10 Despite repression and the inequalities within the labor movement, women did join the CCOO. Women workers from several generations took part in this organization and were regarded as members;11 others helped the movement but were not considered fully-fledged “militants” but rather “militants’ wives.”12 Patricia M. Chuchryk, “Feminist Anti-Authoritarian Politics: The Role of Women’s Organizations in the Chilean Transition to Democracy,” in The Women’s Movement in Latin America: Feminism and the Transition to Democracy, ed. Jane S. Jaquette (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 159. 8 Levenson-Estrada, “The Loneliness of Working-Class Feminism.” 9 Ibid.; Ivonne Barragán, “Mujeres Trabajadoras y Delegadas Sindicales en un Astillero de la Armada Argentina. Astillero Río Santiago (1973–1978),” Nomadías 20 (2015), doi: 10.5354/0719–0905.2016.39321; Souto Maior and Corrêa Vieira, Mulheres em Luta. 10 Pilar Díaz Sánchez, “La relación de las mujeres trabajadoras y los sindicatos durante el franquismo y la Transición,” in Las mujeres y el poder: Representaciones y prácticas de vida, ed. Ana I. Cerrada and Cristina Segura (Madrid: Al-Mudayna, 2000), 323–38; Pilar Díaz Sánchez, “Disidencias y marginaciones de las mujeres en el sindicalismo español,” Sociología del Trabajo 56 (2006): 101–16; José Babiano, “Mujeres, trabajo y militancia laboral bajo el franquismo (Materiales para un análisis histórico),” in Del hogar a la huelga: Trabajo, género y movimiento obrero durante el franquismo, ed. José Babiano (Madrid: los Libros de la Catarata, 2007), 25–75; María del Carmen Muñoz Ruiz, “Género, masculinidad y nuevo movimiento obrero bajo el franquismo,” in Del hogar a la huelga: Trabajo, género y movimiento obrero durante el franquismo, ed. José Babiano (Madrid: los Libros de la Catarata, 2007), 245–85; María Teresa López Hernández, “Participación y representación sindical femenina en Comisiones Obreras (1970–1982),” Cuestiones de Género: de la Igualdad y de la Diferencia 4 (2009): 121–46; Nadia Varo, “Treballadores, conflictivitat laboral i moviment obrer a l’àrea de Barcelona durant el franquisme: El cas de Comissions Obreres (1965–1975)” (PhD diss., Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2014); Nadia Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo: Clase y género en las CC.OO. del área de Barcelona (1964–1978) (Alzira: Germania, 2014). 11 Cristina Borderías, Mònica Borrell, Jordi Ibarz, and Conchi Villar, “Los eslabones perdidos del sindicalismo democrático,” Historia Contemporánea 26 (2003): 161–206. 12 Nadia Varo, “Entre el ser y el estar: Las mujeres en las Comisiones Obreras del área de Barcelona durante el Franquismo,” paper presented at XIII Coloquio Internacional AEIHM, Historia de las Mujeres: Perspectivas Actuales, Barcelona, October 19–21, 2006; Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo; Vicenta Verdugo, “Mujeres, trabajo asalariado, sindicalismo y feminismo: Del Franquismo a la Transición democrática,” in Mujeres sindicalistas feministas CCOO PV 1956– 1982, ed. Dolores Sánchez, Vicenta Verdugo, Alberto Gómez (Valencia: Fundación de Estudios e Iniciativas Sociolaborales CCOO PV, 2011), 13–27; Vicenta Verdugo, “¡Compañera! ¡Trabajadora! Las mujeres en las CCOO del País Valenciano: de la dictadura franquista a la 7

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 83

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

84

Nadia Varo Moral

This chapter examines the tension between the roles the CCOO wanted women to perform and the work they actually did. In particular, we explain how male leaders of the CCOO wanted women to fit into a movement that conceptualized the “worker” as male, and how women responded. In order to understand the ways women took part in the CCOO, we need to know how women organized themselves. Their debates on whether there should be separate structures for women reveal how women were perceived in the labor movement and how women members understood their own actions. Sex segregation in trade unions has been a persistent topic of debate among working women and researchers. In some cases, separate organizing has increased women’s power in trade unions, in other cases, it has not. Here, the historical context and the way in which separate organizing occurred is critical.13 Several sources will help answer these questions. Police reports are useful for identifying the women arrested for activities related to the CCOO. These records are contrasted and supplemented with interviews with women linked to the organization. These interviews were either recorded for oral history collections14 or carried out by the author. Finally, the internal records of the PSUC (the Catalan communist party, Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia [Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya], with close links to the CCOO) and the CCOO’s publications will provide information about how the women members of the CCOO were perceived and how they organized as women.

Transición democrática,” Historia, Trabajo y Sociedad 3 (2012): 11–34; María del Carmen Muñoz Ruiz, “Las mujeres del 1001: la lucha antifranquista en la frontera entre lo privado y lo público,” in Proceso 1001 contra Comisiones Obreras ¿Quién juzgó a quién?, ed. José Babiano (Madrid: Fundación 1º de Mayo, 2013), 139–60. 13 Dorothy Sue Cobble, “Rethinking Troubled Relations between Women and Unions: Craft Unionism and Female Activism,” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 530. See also Linda Briskin, “Trade Unions, Collective Agency, and the Struggle for Women’s Equality: Expanding the Political Empowerment Measure,” in Making Globalization Work for Women: The Role of Social Rights and Trade Union Leadership, ed. Valentine Moghadam, Suzanne Franzway, and Mary Margaret Fonow (New York: State University of New York Press, 2011), 213–43. 14 The most important collection is Biografies obreres (Working-class Biographies), a collection of oral sources started in 1996 by the Historical Archive of the CCOO of Catalonia (Arxiu Històric de Comissions Obreres de Catalunya, AHCO). It consists of 176 interviews with people involved in the organization. Another collection intensively used is the Oral History Collection in the Utopia Foundation-Juan N. García Nieto (Fundació Utopia-Juan N. García Nieto, FU), which consists of sixty-four interviews collected starting in the 1990s by sociologist Juan N. García Nieto and historian Carmen García Nieto to document the history of the labor movement in Baix Llobregat, Catalonia. Finally, this article also used an interview stored in the Municipal Archive of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Arxiu Municipal de l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, AML’H), which was carried out in October 1995 to document the project L’Hospitalet Antifranquista. This project aimed to study opposition to Franco’s dictatorship in the city of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Catalonia).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 84

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

85

Historical context The Franco dictatorship significantly affected the activities and status of unions and women’s work, and this greatly shaped the relationship between women and the CCOO. The regime banned collective protests and forbade all trade unions except the official union, which theoretically represented both employers and employees. Consequently, the labor movement and labor conflict that took place outside this official union served as a direct challenge to the regime. In addition, many labor movement leaders and militants were also simultaneously members of anti-Francoist parties. In fact, the CCOO was considered one of the most effective ways to fight against the dictatorship starting in the 1960s until the end of the regime. It became the most important anti-Francoist labor organization under the dictatorship and achieved the ability to mobilize despite having been banned in 1967.15 Franco’s dictatorship tried to ensure that women remained in the private sphere, so it developed a set of laws designed to discourage women’s involvement in the regular labor market, especially married women.16 From 1942 on, most labor regulations stipulated that women had to leave their job when they got married. Nevertheless, this measure was not implemented in sectors where women's work was significant, such as the textile industry.17 According to labor regulations, women were paid less than men for doing the same job; thus, substituting men for women would have increased labor costs.18 Since 1961, the legal burdens on married women’s work were reduced, but there remained in place legislation that continued to discriminate against women.19 Regardless of legal restrictions, women were highly involved in the labor market in greater Barcelona. Since the nineteenth century, female paid work was widespread in Catalonia, both in the city of Barcelona and in the surrounding David Ruiz, ed., Historia de Comisiones Obreras (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1993); Sebastian Balfour, La dictadura, los trabajadores y la ciudad: El movimiento obrero en el área metropolitana de Barcelona (1939–1988) (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magnànim, 1994); José Babiano, Emigrantes, cronómetros y huelgas: Un estudio sobre el trabajo y los trabajadores durante el franquismo (Madrid, 1951–1977) (Madrid: Fundación 1º de Mayo-Siglo XXI, 1995); Xavier Domènech, Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político: Pequeños grandes cambios, 1956– 1969 (Madrid: La Catarata, 2008). 16 Rosario Ruiz Franco, “Nuevos horizontes para las mujeres de los años 60: la ley de 22 de julio de 1961,” Arenal 2, no. 2 (1995): 247–68; Judith Carbajo, “Mujeres, trabajo y salario: Jornada, promoción y capacidad adquisitiva de las españolas (1965–1975),” in Historia de las mujeres en España: Siglo XX, vol. 2, ed. Josefina Cuesta (Madrid: Instituto de la Mujer, 2003), 256–330. 17 Cristina Borderías, Entre Líneas: Trabajo e identidad femenina en la España Contemporánea; La Compañía Telefónica, 1924–1980 (Barcelona: Icaria, 1993), 37. 18 Celia Valiente, “Las políticas para las mujeres trabajadoras durante el franquismo,” in Mujeres y hombres en la España franquista: Sociedad, economía, política, cultura, ed. Gloria Nielfa (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2003), 145–78. 19 Ruiz Franco, “Nuevos horizontes para las mujeres de los años 60,” 247–68; Carbajo, “Mujeres, trabajo y salario,” 256–330. 15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 85

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

86

Nadia Varo Moral

industrial areas. There was a strong tradition of women’s presence in the textile industry, which persisted during the period of the dictatorship, and especially in the 1940s and 1950s. Furthermore, many women worked in domestic service and the commercial sector. In the 1960s and 1970s, a period of economic growth, a wider variety of jobs were available to women.21 The sectors that employed most women in Barcelona were the textile industry, retail/commerce, and the metallurgical industry. Domestic service remained important, and the quantity of women in educational institutions, health services, and banking increased. However, immigration, demographic growth, and the development of sectors where women were dismissed when they got married (e.g., the metallurgical industry) resulted in an overall younger population of economically active women.22 20

Workers’ Commissions without Female Workers (1964–1969) From the 1950s on, activists from Catholic labor organizations and anti-Francoist parties—most of them men—became increasingly influential in labor protests.23 The collaboration between labor activists from several organizations and independent workers resulted in the Workers’ Commission of Biscay in 1962 and the Metallurgical Workers’ Commission of Madrid in September 1964. The first assembly of the Workers’ Commission of Barcelona (Comissió Obrera de Barcelona, COB) was held on November 20, 1964. Other Workers’ Commissions were organized later. In Barcelona, members of Catholic labor organizations and the Catalan communist party PSUC, the most active and largest clandestine party in Catalonia during the period, played a leading role in the COB.24 The description of the first COB assembly demonstrates how masculinized it was. Between 250 and 300 people attended this gathering.25 There were few Cristina Borderías, “El trabajo de las mujeres en la Cataluña contemporánea desde la perspectiva de los hogares. Balance y perspectivas,” Arenal 9, no. 2 (2002): 269–300. 21 Montserrat Llonch, “La feminització del treball tèxtil a Catalunya (1891–1959),” in Treball tèxtil a la Catalunya Contemporània, ed. Montserrat Llonch (Lleida: Pagès Editors, 2004), 77–93; Mary Nash, Treballadores: un segle de treball femení a Catalunya (1900–2000) (Barcelona: Departament de Treball, 2010), 180–83. 22 INE, 1960 and 1970 census; 1975 EPA. Dipòsit d’Arxius de Cervera (DAC), boxes 150 and 165, Memorias anuales de la Delegación Provincial de Barcelona de la OSE, years 1968 and 1973. 23 Nadia Varo, “Lideratges i models de protesta a la Barcelona dels anys cinquanta (1951–1964),” in Barcelona malgrat el franquisme: La SEAT, la ciutat i la represa sense democràcia, ed. Sebastian Balfour (Barcelona: Museu d’Història de Barcelona, 2012), 165–84. 24 Ruiz, Historia de Comisiones Obreras; Balfour, La dictadura, los trabajadores y la ciudad; Domènech, Clase obrera, antifranquismo y cambio político. 25 Historical Archive of the Civil Government in Barcelona (Archivo Histórico del Gobierno Civil 20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 86

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

87

women (eight according to the PSUC’s accounts), all of whom were social workers, industrial laborers, or women with ties to the PSUC—some were married to PSUC members. According to Purificación Fernández, who was connected to the PSUC through her spouse, she asked one of the event coordinators: “Who are we?” The organizer answered, “You are housewives.”27 Although most of these women worked outside the home in paid employment—including the wives of PSUC members—women were still seen as housewives. Both the data collected from police archives and interviews show that, initially, few women got involved in the CCOO because they were industrial workers. According to police data on women arrested or identified due to their participation in activities related to the CCOO between 1965 and 1969, most women were white-collar workers (many of whom were clerks or social workers). Blue-collar workers were the next largest group, but the numbers of housewives and students in the organization were also high. The profile of women involved in the CCOO changed over the period: initially, women were regarded as housewives and social workers. From 1967 on, police accounts show an increase in clerks and blue-collar workers among those arrested (Table 3.1). Interviews with women who took part in the CCOO when it was founded also confirm that there were different member profiles depending on their jobs and their involvement in the movement. Some women participated in the CCOO, although they were not seen as “militants” (full-fledged members) because they did not work in industry or certain places in the service sector (such as large hospitals), and they connected with the CCOO through their husbands.28 These women attended assemblies and demonstrations convened by the CCOO; contributed to the creation and distribution of propaganda; and allowed labor militants to use their homes to hold meetings. In case of repression, some of them organized groups to help detainees and boost solidarity. However, because they did not attend meetings, they did not take part in debates about the strategy and goals of the CCOO. They were considered “militants’ wives.”29 26



26



27 28

29



de Barcelona, AHGCB), Correspondencia Gobernadores, Comisiones Obreras, “Nota Informativa: Actividades católicas obrero-sociales,” Barcelona, 11/21/1964, box 511, file Comisiones Obreras de Barcelona. Archive of the Spanish Communist Party (Archivo Histórico del Partido Comunista de España, AHPCE), Nacionalidades, Cataluña, “Carta de Barcelona,” 5/12/1964, Jacq. 1354. AML’H-AH, Project L’Hospitalet Antifranquista, interview with Purificación Fernández García. AHCO, interview with Carmen Giménez Tonietti (23/09/1996–26/10/1996). AML’HAH, interview with Purificación Fernández García. FU, interview with Rosalia Sánchez Novell. Paquita Clavería Palos, interview with author, 02/08/2007; Pilar Ferrer Pla, interview with author, 03/30/2003–04/26/2006; María Rosa Martínez Bereda, interview with author, 11/28/2007; Rosa María Rísquez Gómez, interview with author, 12/19/2007; and Piedad Samper García, interview with author, 02/22/2008–02/29/2008. Their role has similarities with the figure of the political prisoner’s wife. Irene Abad, “El papel de las ‘mujeres de preso’ en la campaña pro-amnistía,” Entelequia: Revista Multidisciplinar 7 (2008): 139–51.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 87

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

88

Nadia Varo Moral

Table 3.1. Number of Women identified or arrested due to activities related to the CCOO in the province of Barcelona between 1965 and 1969, by professional group and occupation 1965– Profession- 1965– 1969 al group 1969

In % of total

Occupation

1965 1966 1967 1968 1969

Students

2

3

6

11

Students

11

12.8

7

5

3

19

Housewives

19

22.9

Blue-collar workers

21

24.4

Whitecollar workers

35

26.7

Housewives

1

3

Domestic service Metallurgical industry laborers

1 1

1

Shop assistants

1 2 1

Textile industry laborers

5

Librarians

1

4

1

9

Social workers

1

3

4

2

Telephonists

1

Other jobs

1 2

5

1 4

13

1

1

9

23 4

Teachers

No data

6

1

Nurses Office staff

Total

2

1

3

1

2

1

11

5

3

19

No data

19

40

28

30

105

Total

105

Sources: AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, ACR and Informes laborales. Del Águila, Las sentencias del Tribunal de Orden Público.

Most of these women took part in the PSUC solidarity network that helped imprisoned members and their families.30 Some of them had been formal members of the PSUC during the Civil War (1936–1939) and postwar period, and they were married to other members but had given up their formal membership in order to prevent both spouses—and their children—from being caught up in the political repression. Others discovered that their husbands were involved in the AHCO, interview with Carmen Giménez Tonietti (23/09/1996–26/10/1996). Pilar Ferrer Pla, interview with author, 03/30/2006–04/26/2006; Rosa María Rísquez Gómez, interview with author, 12/19/2007; and Piedad Samper García, interview with author, 02/22/2006–02/29/2006.

30

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 88

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

89

CCOO or the PSUC only when they were arrested in the 1950s or 1960s. Afterward, they decided to join the CCOO and the PSUC solidarity networks.31 Other women joined the CCOO because of their professions. During the 1960s, some social workers played an important role in several CCOO groups in the province of Barcelona. They met CCOO members at work, and those “militants” wanted them to join the labor movement because of the professional knowledge and resources social workers had. These women were regarded as “militants” too, and they acted as fully fledged members because they attended the meetings in which the CCOO’s aims and actions were discussed.32 Finally, there were women who were considered “militants” by virtue of their employment as industrial workers, regardless of whether they were blue-collar or white-collar workers. This pattern of involvement became especially prevalent starting in 1966, when the CCOO expanded. The fact that most of them contacted the CCOO because they had already been members of the PSUC or Catholic labor organizations is remarkable. Few of them joined the CCOO through coworkers. Some women who got involved in the CCOO because they were members of the communist party had been participating in communist networks since the 1950s or even before.33 However, most communist women were younger, born in the 1940s or 1950s. Many of them were raised in families who suffered political repression and transmitted their opposition to the dictatorship to their children.34 However, the family transmission of values seems less important for those women who had initially been involved in Catholic labor organizations as the origins of these organizations’ members tended to be more varied than those of the PSUC. These were Catholic organizations that promoted a sharp class-consciousness among their members.35 AML’H-AH, interview with Purificación Fernández García and interview with Piedad Samper García 02/22/2008–02/29/2008. 32 AHCO, interviews with Remei Bona Puigvert (11/01/2001–08/02/2001); Anna Morató Sáenz (09/12/2000–24/01/2001); María José Pardo Lanuza (31/07/2000–08/11/2000); María Eugènia Sánchez Carraté (10/01/1999–03/02/1999); and Conxita Vila Puigdefàbregas (23/01/2008–14/02/2008). MTR, interview with author, 02/09/2007. 33 AHCO, interviews with Maria Bigordà Montmany (28/06/1999–29/07/1999); Celia García López (09/05/2001–30/05/2001); Francisca Redondo Cubero (23/06/1998–09/07/1998); and Carme Giménez Tonietti (23/09/1996–26/10/1996). AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, 6ª BRIS, “Nota Informativa: Cuarta Asamblea de las Comisiones Obreras de Sabadell,” 12/18/1966, box 18. AHCO, Advocats Laboralistes, Fons A. Gil Matamala, box 4, file José Lara Aranda 241/67 and 10/67. AHCO, Advocats Laboralistes, Fons Albert Fina-Montserrat Avilés-Montserrat Avilés, box X, file Comisiones Obreras Sabadell. 34 See Borderías et al., “Los eslabones perdidos del sindicalismo democrático”; Javier Tébar, “Contraindicacions de la ‘política de la Victòria’: Notes sobre repressió i militància obrera dels anys seixanta,” in Franquisme i repressió: La repressió franquista als Països Catalans (1939–1975), ed. Pelai Pagès (Valencia: Universitat de València), 273–93; Xavier Domènech, “La clase obrera bajo el franquismo: Aproximación a sus elementos formativos,” Ayer 85, no. 1 (2012): 201–25. 35 Francisco Martínez Hoyos, La JOC a Catalunya: Els senyals d’una Església del demà (1947– 1975) (Barcelona: Editorial Mediterrània, 2000); Emili Ferrando, Cristians i rebels: Història de l’HOAC a Catalunya durant el franquisme (Barcelona: Editorial Mediterrània, 2000). 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 89

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

90

Nadia Varo Moral

It is interesting to realize that the CCOO and the PSUC leaders persisted in their thinking of female members as “women” (or housewives), not as coworkers. In 1967, the statement issued after the first meeting of the Catalan coordinator of the CCOO—the National Workers’ Commission of Catalonia (Comissió Obrera Nacional de Catalunya, CONC)—said: “We have evidence of how important the woman is as a factor that shapes the workers’ struggle. We know about the mother or wife’s influence on her husband or son, and how important women might be in [changing] men’s stance. At the same time, we have to reckon with the role that the woman deserves in our society. . . . Women should enter the workers’ struggle because if they are not workers, they are martyrs of the current economic conditions.”36 At the time, CCOO leaders thought of women mainly as housewives, so they tended to exclude women workers from the trade union. Women workers had to prove in advance that they were valuable for the CCOO due to their previous political militancy or their employment in useful occupations like social workers. Consequently, some male leaders used to think that women should be organized as women, not as workers. In order to understand how women organized, we need to bear in mind the close links between the PSUC and the CCOO, since many leaders and members of the CCOO were members of the PSUC too. Among some segments of society, the communist-dominated Women’s Democratic Movement (Moviment Democràtic de Dones, MDD, in Catalan) had such deep links with the CCOO that it was regarded as a branch of the CCOO. In 1964, some women members of the Spanish Communist Party launched a movement that aimed to bring women into the anti-Francoist movement. The PSUC followed suit in 1965, creating the MDD. In general terms, it combined demands that might have made women’s gender roles easier to perform (such as improvements in the living conditions of neighborhoods) and others that fought against women’s discrimination in society (such as equal pay), but each organization adapted these claims to their constituency. The MDD of Barcelona became a significant player and was able to infiltrate a legal organization, the women’s section of the United Nations’ Friends. Nevertheless, the organization ended in controversy. The PSUC decided to dissolve it between the end of 1969 and the beginning of 1970 due to a dispute among members about which demands should be promoted: women’s rights or anti-Francoist claims, and

36

AHCO, interviews with Resurrección Fernández Páez (13/02/2001–02/04/2001), and Conxita Roig Frasquet (22/06/1999–20/07/1999). Anonymous informant no. 1, interview with the author, 30/01/2008. AHPCE, CONC, “Reunión de CCOO de Cataluña. Orden del día (27/8/67),” box 85, file 1. For male leaders and militant attitudes toward female participation in CCOO, see Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 90

2022.07.30. 22:42:13

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

91

personal conflicts. The CCOO had representatives in the MDD of Barcelona,38 but it had never been regarded as “the CCOO’s female section.” Nevertheless, the MDD in Badalona and Terrassa was seen as part of the CCOO. The CCOO’s leaders in Badalona were initially reluctant to create a women's organization as they thought it could distract from what they believed were the most important aims: solving workers’ problems and creating political awareness.39 Objections notwithstanding, in 1967, there was a CCOO women's group, but it did not make labor-related demands. It asked for more schools, measures to reduce the prices of essential goods, and organized a seminar on women’s status.40 Its main purpose was to encourage women to join the struggle against the dictatorship41 by showing them that the regime had practically forced women to be mothers and housewives and, simultaneously, was responsible for the difficulties they faced fulfilling the duties associated with these roles. Female militants of the CCOO in Badalona shared a reluctance toward the women's organization. They did not want to be ghettoized in a movement that they considered less useful than the labor movement—at least until the end the dictatorship—and did not make labor-related demands.42 The MDD of Terrassa was active between 1967 and 1971. It included labor claims as women were particularly important for the local textile industry in which many married women worked.43 Its demands included solidarity with political detainees, improvements in neighborhoods, the reduction of the prices of essential goods, and other issues that questioned women’s discrimination and called for their legal and social equality.44 Women workers joined in the assemblies carried out in the process of organizing the CCOO in Terrassa, and a few of them were elected as representatives 37

Nadia Varo, “La larga sombra del Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres: El PSUC y la organización de mujeres durante el franquismo,” Historia, Antropología y Fuentes Orales, nos. 47–48 (2012): 247–50. 38 Ana María Moya Guixa, interview with author, 03/04/2008. 39 AHPCE, Nacionalidades, Cataluña, CAS, “Carta rebuda de Badalona el 30 de gener de 1967,” Jacq. 1560. 40 AHPCE, Nacionalidades, Cataluña, “Informe de la Comisión Coordinadora de las C. O. de Badalona y su comarca, celebrada en San Adrián del Besós el día 6 de junio de 1967 a las 8 de la tarde, con la asistencia de 8 asistentes,” 06/08/1967, box 57, file. 1967–2. AHPCE, Nacionalidades, Cataluña, “Informe sobre l’assemblea extraordinària de la C.O. de Badalona i comarca celebrada el 17 de desembre de 1967 a les 11.30 del matí,” Jacq. 1726; “Carta de Ángeles” [Leonor Bornao], 10/27/1967, Jacq. 1688; “Corresponsal del dom: Comarcal de Badalona,” December 1967, Jacq. 1727. 41 AHPCE, Nacionalidades, Cataluña, “Informe sobre l’assemblea extraordinària de la C.O. de Badalona i comarca celebrada el 17 de desembre de 1967 a les 11.30 del matí,” Jacq. 1726. 42 AHCO, interviews with Olga Miralles Fossas(24/09/1998–30/09/1998) and Teresa Buigas Poveda (21/10/1999–28/10/1999). 43 According to the Labor Force Survey, married women were 34 percent of the active female population in Terrassa in 1970, while in the center of Barcelona province, they were 25.25 percent. 44 La Mujer en Marcha: Mujeres Democráticas de Tarrasa, August 2, 1971, 2. 37

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 91

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

92

Nadia Varo Moral

of their coworkers in the elections of the official union (the only legal union in Spain at the time). Groups of women workers also tried to control the actions of the legal union’s officials by “occupying” its building.45 Nevertheless, the only action linked to the MDD as a women workers’ organization was a 1968 signature campaign calling for an end to the government’s limit on pay raises and other claims, such as measures against inflation, unemployment—the CCOO’s demands as well—and free education.46 That campaign failed. During the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, the PSUC thought that the labor and students’ movements were the key to fighting the dictatorship, but it also wanted to attract women by creating a specific subsidiary movement devoted to supporting the “most important” social movements. The PSUC acted paternalistically, telling women how to organize and what to demand.47 Because of strong links between the PSUC and the CCOO in some populations, some people thought the MDD was the female branch of the CCOO, but the MDD only included labor demands in places where women were explicitly present in the workforce and in the CCOO. The subsidiary role that the PSUC attributed to the women’s movement in those years and the controversial end of the Barcelona MDD led some female communist militants in the CCOO to reject a specific female organization. They wanted to devote their time to more “important” matters. Others among the CCOO’s women militants who had come from Catholic labor organizations had previously asked to reunify the female and male branches of their groups and considered women’s organizations to be anachronistic.48 Finally, as we have seen, the MDD carried out few actions related to women workers, and these were not successful. This was a consequence of the lack of involvement of women members of the CCOO in these actions, but such failures might have been used to justify the tendency of many female militants to reject a separate organization for women.

AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, SIGC 231ª Comandancia, “Afluencia de personal a la casa sindical de Tarrasa,” Manresa, 2/03/1967, box 20. 46 AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, Informes Laborales, 6ª Brigada, “Instancia firmada por unes setecientas mujeres, entregada al Delegado Sindical de Tarrasa,” Barcelona, 18/09/1968; Delegación Provincial de Sindicatos, “Nota Informativa: Terrassa; Petición de un importante grupo de mujeres,” s/l, 19/09/968, box. 279. 47 Giaime Pala, “Entre paternalismo e igualitarismo: El PSUC y la cuestión de la mujer en los años del tardofranquismo,” Mientras Tanto 97 (2005): 141. 48 Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo, 45–46. 45

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 92

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

93

“Militants” and Workers (1969–1975) At the beginning of 1969, a state of emergency was declared. This was the high point of repression against the CCOO, which had begun in 1966. It was also a period of internal crisis in the CCOO, since many members left the movement and joined other anti-Francoist labor organizations. With regard to women’s participation, some members left the CCOO (many of them who came to the movement from Catholic workers’ organizations). After 1971, the CCOO’s influence among the labor and anti-Francoist movements increased, and it became the most important illegal labor organization in the country. Women’s participation in the CCOO in Barcelona grew and changed in the 1970s, as police accounts and interviews illustrate. Data on women who were identified or arrested in the province of Barcelona due to activities related to the CCOO (and the COJ and Sectores de CCOO49) between 1970 and 1976 show that 47 percent of this group were blue-collar workers, 23 percent were white-collar workers, 19 percent were students, and 7 percent were housewives. The most common occupation was textile laborer, followed by student, and metallurgical laborer (Table 3.2).50 These data indicate that the CCOO attracted many people who were not strictly “workers” but who wanted to take part in the CCOO’s actions because of their political significance. Nevertheless, it is clear that the rate of female blue-collar workers increased considerably compared to the 1960s. According to interviews, starting in 1969, there were many female industrial workers considered genuine members of the CCOO as they attended meetings and took part in decision-making processes. Consequently, the status of women workers in the CCOO increased significantly. Most of these women were born in the 1950s and were in their twenties when they joined the CCOO. The young female members contacted the CCOO through several channels. The most usual paths were through the militancy in other social movements or anti-Francoist parties—such as the communist PSUC, Red Flag, or Communist Movement (Movimiento Comunista, MC)—on the one hand, or through their coworkers, on the other. In the first case, most of the interviewees were born in the province of Barcelona. They were raised in middle-class or lower middleclass families and attended high school; some were even enrolled in universities. The Youth Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras Juveniles, COJ) was the youth branch of the CCOO and was highly active between 1968 and 1969. The Sectores de Comisiones Obreras was a labor movement linked to the communist party Bandera Roja (Red Flag), deeply rooted in the Baix Llobregat region since 1971, which integrated into the CCOO in 1974. 50 AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, ACR and Informes laborales: Juan José del Águila, Las sentencias del Tribunal de Orden Público: TOPDAT: una base para explotar (Gijón-Madrid: Gobierno del Principado de Asturias, Consejería de Justicia, Seguridad y Relaciones Exteriores; Fundación Abogados de Atocha, 2007), CD-ROM.

49

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 93

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

94

Nadia Varo Moral

Many anti-Francoist activists thought that blue-collar laborers would play the leading role in the struggle against the dictatorship and capitalism. Therefore, some of them proletarianized. They left their studies or white-collar jobs to look for blue-collar jobs. Once they were working in factory jobs, they began their militancy in the CCOO.51 Table 3.2. Women identified or arrested due to activities related to CCOO, COJ, and Sectores de CCOO in the province of Barcelona between 1970 and 1975, by professional group and occupation

Professional group

Number of identified or arrested women

Percent of identified or arrested women with data

19

Students

19

19

Housewives

7

7

Blue-collar workers

47

47

White-collar workers

23

23

4

Occupation

Number of identified or arrested women

Students Housewives

7

Domestic service

1

Gardeners

1

Graphic arts

1

Laborers

1

Metallurgical industry laborers

16

Shop assistants

1

Textile industry laborers

26

Graduates

1

Nurses

1

Office staff

14

Social Workers

2

Teachers

5

Employees

3

Trainees

1

Not classified

4

No data

27

No data

27

Total

127

Total

127

Sources: AHGCB, Correspondencia Gobernadores, ACR and Informes laborales. Del Águila, Las sentencias del Tribunal de Orden Público. AHCO, interviews with Anna Bosch Parera (08/09/1999–23/11/1999); Núria Casals Pérez (22/10/1998–18/02/1999); Carme Ortega Company (16/11/2000–08/02/2001); and María Jesús Pinto Iglesias (22/11/1999–22/12/1999). FU, interview with Mercè Sellés Comellas, no date.

51

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 94

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

95

Other women who got involved in the CCOO during the first half of the 1970s did so on the recommendation of coworkers.52 Many of these coworkers were women, but there were also men. This means that women workers did not have to prove beforehand that they were useful to the labor movement as they had been required to do earlier. The CCOO actively recruited them. Who were the women approached by CCOO militants? Most were born outside the province of Barcelona and had only completed primary school. They worked as industrial laborers, and their jobs greatly influenced their decision to join the CCOO. Some enrolled in political organizations at the same time they joined the CCOO,53 and others did shortly after.54 Others did not register for any political party, but they were linked to the PSUC.55 Women militants in the CCOO played a dual role. They tried to improve the labor conditions at their workplaces by submitting their demands. They also connected their coworkers to the clandestine organization of the CCOO. Most of the informants combined trade union leadership in their workplaces with their involvement in CCOO’s territorial56 and sectorial57 coordination committees. However, few were able to take on leading positions in the CONC.58 Women gained status in the CCOO, but the organization was clearly male dominated. When it comes to the demands put forward by women militants in their workplaces, the most common demands were wage increases. During the first half of the 1970s, there were few demands for equal pay. In some cases, activists asked for the same raise for all positions in order to reduce the wage gap between job categories. In general terms, the activists were successful in their drive to Ten interviewees out of twenty did so. AHCO, interviews with María Dolores Carrión Cazorla (10/05/2007–18/07/2007), Conchi Castellano Remesal (03/11/2000–19/10/2001), Aurora Gómez Cano (03/12/1998–16/02/1999), Isabel López (18/02/1999–11/03/1999), Olga Miralles i Fossas (24/09/1998–30/09/1998), Consol Moreno Monterroso (09/09/1999– 08/11/1999); and Ángeles Romero Pérez (29/09/1998–28/10/1998). FU, interviews with Isabel Aunión Morro, Ana Hero Sirvent and Aurora Huerga Barquín, no date. 53 AHCO, interview with María Dolores Carrión Cazorla (10/05/2007–18/07/2007); FU, interview with Isabel Aunión Morro, no date. 54 AHCO, interviews with Aurora Gómez Cano (03/12/1998–16/02/1999), Isabel López López (18/02/1999–11/03/1999), Olga Miralles and Fossas (24/09/1998–30/09/1998), and Consol Moreno Monterroso (09/09/1999–08/11/1999). 55 AHCO, interviews with Conchi Castellano Remesal (03/11/2000–19/10/2001), and Ángeles Romero Pérez (29/09/1998–28/10/1998). FU, interview with Aurora Huerga Barquín, no date. 56 AHCO, interviews with Núria Casals Pérez (22/10/1998–18/02/1999), Josefa Moral Siles (05/07/2002–15/07/2002), and Ángeles Romero Pérez (29/09/1998–28/10/1998). 57 AHCO, interviews with Núria Casals Pérez (22/10/1998–18/02/1999), Adoración Díez Hernando (14/10/1999–10/11/1999), Aurora Gómez Cano (03/12/1998–16/02/1999), and María Jesús Pinto Iglesias (22/11/1999–22/12/1999) for women in the CONC, which lead the CCOO in Catalonia. 58 For CONC, see AHCO, interviews with Anna Bosch Parera (08/09/1999–23/11/1999), and Olga Miralles i Fossas (24/09/1998–30/09/1998). 52

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 95

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

96

Nadia Varo Moral

improve women’s wages thanks to collective actions like strikes. They could also improve working conditions in workplaces where they were extremely poor, like those in the garment sector.59 Equal pay was not included in the general platforms of the CCOO in Catalonia and Spain at the beginning of the 1970s. This absence reflects the idea that workers were thought as mainly male, so equal pay was not a “general” claim. It also reflects the scant presence of women among the leaders of the CONC. Nevertheless, the demand for equal pay (re)appeared in 1974 in places where women were clearly present in the workforce; such was the case of Igualada. In 1975, the demand for equal pay appeared in the general platforms of the CONC (in Catalonia) and the CCOO (in Spain). The CCOO wanted to attract women workers; the organization had noticed women’s participation in labor conflicts and in the labor movement more broadly and consequently wanted to mobilize them. Additionally, the UN declared 1975 International Women’s Year, and this led to increased media attention to women’s rights and feminist issues. However, the demand for equal pay was not fulfilled immediately. The CCOO wanted to attract women workers, but claims that affected gender roles in the workplace were abandoned in the collective bargaining process during this period.60 During those years, there were no specific organizations for women in the CCOO. The controversial end of the MDD in Barcelona prompted the rejection of organizations for women by female members and male leaders. It is important to bear in mind that some of the MDD’s claims were in solidarity with political prisoners and the improvement of living conditions in working-class neighborhoods. Until the 1970s, many regarded these claims as “addressing” women, who were seen as wives who suffered from the political repression of their husbands and housewives who struggled to take care of their families in neighborhoods with scarce—or nonexistent—public facilities and social services. These claims were considered suitable for women because they reached into the private sphere and could potentially bring women into the struggle against the regime.61 Beginning in 1969, several anti-Francoist political parties tried to invigorate the urban movement and protests, which aimed to improve neighborhoods and change the authoritarian nature of urban governance. The amnesty movement, which called for amnesty for political prisoners, broadened. It included not only prisoners’ relatives but lawyers and others sympathetic to the cause. The amnesty and urban movements were not necessarily “feminine,” and their massive growth led many militants and leaders of the CCOO and the Varo, “Mujeres en huelga,” 166. Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo, 86–87. 61 Giuliana Di Febo, “La lucha de las mujeres en los barrios en los últimos años del franquismo: Un ejemplo de utilización de la ‘Historia de género,’” in La oposición al régimen de Franco: Estado de la cuestión y metodología de la investigación, vol. 2, ed. Javier Tusell, Alicia Alted and Abdón Mateos (Madrid: UNED, 1990), 251–60. 59 60

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 96

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

97

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

PSUC to conclude that there was no need for a women’s movement. In 1973, there was a specific discussion about a women’s organization, but the decision was made to incorporate women into the party and neighborhood movement without creating a specific organization for them.63 62

Feminists and Women Workers (1976–1981) After Franco’s death and in a period of great social and political mobilization, there were profound political changes, including the legalization of political parties and trade unions. The CCOO was legalized on April 27, 1977, at a moment when women’s public roles were significantly changing due to the growth of the feminist movement stimulated by the UN’s International Women’s Year. This led to the organization of the Catalan Women’s Conference held in May 1976; in fact, one of the consequences of International Women’s Year was the creation of the CCOO’s Female Group (Grup de Dones de CCOO, in Catalan), when the socio-political movement CCOO began its transformation into a legal trade union.64 The CCOO’s Female Group transformed into the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs (Secretaria de la Dona, SD [CONC]) during the first congress of the CCOO in Catalonia (May 1978). During the congress in which the Spanish Confederation of the CCOO was created, a confederal Secretariat for Women’s Affairs (Secretaría de la Mujer, SM [Spanish Confederation of CCOO]) was organized as well in June 1978. As a result, at both the national and regional levels, the Secretariats for Women’s Affairs were part of the executive of the CCOO, just like the Secretariat of Organization or the Secretariat of Union Action. This secretariat helped secure a place for women on the executive, where they had been scarce. On the Spanish executive created after its first congress in 1978, there were only three women, or 7 percent of its members; there were four women, or 8 percent of its members on the Catalan executive.65 During the transition to democracy and the first years of the CCOO’s existence as a legal trade union, the secretariats for women’s affairs in Spain and Catalonia devoted their union action to reinforce their organization, fight against Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo, 68–69. National Archive of Catalonia (ANC), PSUC, “Al plantejar-se la discussió sobre la necessitat o no d’una política específica respecte a la dona . . .,” [1973], 432. 64 Gemma Ramos, “Trajectòria de la CONC, 1976–1988,” in Comissions Obreres de Catalunya, 1964–1989 (Una aportació a la història del moviment obrer), ed. Pere Gabriel (Barcelona: Empúries-Ceres, 1989), 81–129; Manuel Redero San Román and Tomás Pérez Delgado, “Sindicalismo y transición política en España,” Ayer, no. 15 (1994): 189–222. 65 José Babiano, “Mujeres, trabajo y militancia laboral,” 57–61; Carmen Bravo, Jorge Aragón, Susana Brunel, Eva Antón, Trabajadora: Tres décadas de acción sindical por la igualdad de género (1977–2007) (Madrid: Fundación 1º de Mayo-Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer de CC.OO., 2007), 52. 62 63

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 97

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

98

Nadia Varo Moral

discriminatory labor laws, and prevent female unemployment. They faced a great deal of resistance because many leaders and militants thought that defending female workers’ rights was too “specific.” The situation became even worse starting in 1979 because a decrease in membership and severe unemployment made some unionists think that defending women’s labor rights and employment was a “luxury.”66 After all, they thought, workers were mainly men, and women workers could always “return” to their homes.67 SD’s representatives sensed that other militants considered their work unimportant.68 In a survey carried out in 1979, 50 percent of representatives who met at SM’s Conference stated that the union was indifferent to the SM and activities for women; in 1980, 62 percent of representatives held this view.69 The development of the feminist movement and the action of some women militants helped create and consolidate structures designed to defend female workers’ rights in the CCOO. The most involved members of the SD created a united group of women who identified themselves as feminists and were members of different left-wing parties such as the PSUC and the MC.70 The resistance to the secretariats for women’s affairs in the trade union might have fostered its cohesion. But who took part in the secretariats for women’s affairs? Two surveys taken among representatives of the secretariats from the whole of Spain in 1979 and 1980 indicated that they were young women (twenty to thirty years old), mostly without children. The majority were employed as office staff (42.2 percent in 1979 and 33.8 percent in 1980). According to the 1979 survey, most of these women had joined the CCOO before it was legal: 65 percent joined between 1971 and 1976, and 20 percent joined before 1971.71 The female CCOO’s militants May Day Foundation-Labor History Archive Fundación (1º de Mayo-Archivo de Historia del Trabajo, F1ºM-AHT), Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer, 35/06, Núria Casals, Secretaría de la Dona, CCOO de Catalunya, “Informe sobre Balance y Perspectivas de la Secretaría de la Dona de Catalunya,” October 1978; “Proyecto de Balance de la Secretaría de la Mujer de la CONC,” July 1981. 67 F1ºM-AHT, Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer de CC.OO., 4–4, “II Jornadas de la Mujer de CCOO,” Madrid, July 28–29, 1980, La mujer: un paro silencioso; II Jornadas de CC.OO. Secretaría de la Mujer, 4. 68 F1ºM-AHT, interview with Alicia de Diego (02/12/2003–19/02/2004). AHCO, interviews with Núria Casals Pérez (22/10/1998–18/02/1999), and María Jesús Pinto Iglésias (22/11/1999–22/12/1999). 69 F1ºM-AHT, Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer de CC.OO., 4–4, “I Jornadas de la Mujer de CCOO: Leyes proteccionistas,” Madrid, 03/17–18/1979, 39. 70 AHCO, interview with Cinta Llorens Sanz (22/10/1998–18/02/1999); interview with Núria Casals Pérez, 2008/05/29; interview with María Jesús Pinto, 05/22/2008. 71 F1ºM-AHT, “Encuesta a las delegadas,” in Jornadas de CC.OO. sobre Proteccionismo y Discriminación de la Mujer en la Legislación Laboral, Secretaría de la Mujer de Comisiones Obreras, 38–39, Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer de CC.OO., Acción Sindical, 4–4, “I Jornadas de la Mujer de CCOO: Leyes proteccionistas,” Madrid, 03/17–18/1979; and “¿Cómo son las responsables de la mujer de CCOO?” in La mujer: un paro silencioso; II Jornadas de CC.OO. 66

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 98

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

99

who were most involved in the SD in Catalonia had some additional features in common. Most of them were born around 1950, so they did not take part in the MDD and were influenced by the feminist movement, which developed when they were young. Many had also finished secondary school,72 which might have encouraged them to question gender roles.73 In Catalonia, the MC played a leading role in the SD since the chairwomen of the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs of Barcelona and Catalonia were members of this party. This came about because the MC regarded the feminist movement as important and also because it was a minority party in the CCOO. Leaders from the majority party in the CCOO—the PSUC—might have allowed the MC to run the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs in order to gain access to more important secretariats (from their point of view).74 These phenomena help us better understand the difficult context in which the CCOO’s Secretariat for Women’s Affairs developed its activities during Spain’s transition to democracy. Despite the challenges they faced, the setting was dramatically different than the dictatorship. During the transition, the SD and SM were not tools of the CCOO for attracting women to its cause: democracy and worker’s rights (conceptualized in masculinist terms). The Secretariats for Women’s Affairs became a more narrowly defined means to defend the rights of women workers. The existence of an autonomous structure in the CCOO helped women secure at least one position in its executive council. Additionally, the Secretariat focused on claims that affected women: work regulations that expelled them from the labor market and the defense of women’s employment during the post-Franco economic crisis, when many trade unionists thought that securing male workers’ jobs was more important than women’s employment. Some authors have argued that women workers joined trade unions en masse after their legalization in 1977. But women’s perception that unions defended neither their claims nor their jobs caused a significant decrease in female union membership.75 In 1978, 31.1 percent of men and 30.03 percent of women working Secretaría de la Mujer, 42–43; Secretaría Confederal de la Mujer de CC.OO., Acción Sindical, 4–4, “II Jornadas de la Mujer de CCOO,” Madrid, 07/28–29/1980. 72 AHCO, interviews with Núria Casals Pérez (22/10/1998–18/02/1999); María Jesús Pinto Iglesias, Isabel Aunión Morro, María Àngels Franco Sala (28/07/1997–06/08/1997); Aurora Gómez Cano (03/12/1998–16/02/1999); and Cinta Llorens Sanz (22/10/1998– 18/02/1999). María Dolores Carrión Cazorla, interview with author, 10/05/2007– 18/07/2007; María Jesús Pinto Iglesias, interview with author, 05/22/2008; and Núria Casals Pérez, interview with author, 05/29/2008. 73 Varo, Las militantes ante el espejo, 128–29. 74 María Jesús Pinto Iglesias, interview with author, 05/22/2008; and Núria Casals Pérez, interview with author, 05/29/2008. 75 Pilar Díaz Sánchez, “Disidencias y marginaciones de las mujeres en el sindicalismo español,” Sociología del Trabajo, 56 (2006): 112, María Teresa López Hernández, “Participación y representación sindical femenina en Comisiones Obreras (1970–1982),” Cuestiones de Género: de la Igualdad y de la Diferencia 4 (2009): 140–42.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 99

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

100

Nadia Varo Moral

in Spain’s industrial sector were members of the CCOO; in 1980, only 17.4 percent of men and 9.7 percent of women were members.76

Conclusions In this chapter, we have observed that the idea that workers were mainly men had a strong influence on how the CCOO engaged with women, the roles women played in the union, and how women were supposed to organize. At the beginning of the movement, women workers tended to be excluded. Women took part in the CCOO since its establishment during the Franco dictatorship, but during the 1960s, few women joined the movement because they were asked to by their coworkers. Rather, women got involved in the CCOO mainly because militants asked them because they (militants) thought the women might be useful to have in the movement or due to the women’s previous militancy, which made them reliable. The role attributed to women, who certainly helped the organization but were seen merely as the wives of militants, reveals a deeply gendered notion of membership. Gender was also reflected in local organizations: the MDD became a sort of feminine branch of the CCOO for several populations where the CCOO and the PSUC had close ties, but even in those cases, labor demands were infrequent. Some PSUC and CCOO leaders believed that women workers should organize as women, but several female CCOO militants did not feel comfortable in this kind of organization, because they did not consider gendered claims as important as labor rights. The few demands made by the MDD had no impact on women’s working conditions. After the repression in 1969, the desire to expand CCOO’s reach and its ability to mobilize changed the patterns of women’s involvement. Starting that year, militants began to ask their female coworkers to join the movement. The presence of women militants also helped attract other women to the movement; women who had participated in anti-Francoist political parties and social movements also decided to proletarianize and join the CCOO because they thought that the labor movement was an extremely useful tool to fight the dictatorship. They joined the movement as workers, not as women, since there was no organization for women in the CCOO and the PSUC did not promote specific women’s organizations. The status of women workers in the CCOO improved, but few became leaders in the CCOO in Spain or Catalonia. This can help explain why women’s rights were absent from all of the CCOO’s general platforms until 1975. Nevertheless, female members of the CCOO provoked labor conflicts in their workplaces, which proved useful for gaining wage increases. Víctor Pérez Díaz, Encuesta a los asalariados del sector industrial (EASI) (No place: Fundación del Instituto Nacional de Industria, Programa de Investigaciones Sociológicas: 1978, 1980).

76

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 100

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

Women and the Labor Movement under a Dictatorship

101

After Franco’s death, the feminist movement developed and influenced some of the CCOO’s women militants. These women organized themselves to claim female workers’ rights in the challenging context of rising unemployment and their own union’s inability to comprehend their women members’ needs. The CCOO women’s contact with the feminist movement and their experience in the labor movement led them to think that if women workers wanted the union to defend their rights, they would need to have their own organization inside of it. The organization that emerged from this contact enabled women to secure a position in the CCOO executive and helped them advance claims that affected women workers, mainly those related to unemployment. However, they could not convince the union to defend women’s jobs with the same conviction they defended men’s as the conception of “worker” in the CCOO remained male.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 101

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 102

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”: Australian Trade Unions and the 1970s Working Women’s Campaign for Liberation* Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

I

n 1978, a major Australian newspaper reported that two unions that were “traditionally reserved for men” were now “encourag[ing ] women to join their ranks.”1 Those two unions were the Federated Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA), which organized drivers of cranes and stationary engines, and the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA), which organized deck crews on coastal shipping. At that time, they had one woman member between them: Aileen de Gracie, an operator of a stationary power engine for the Western Mining Corporation in Western Australia.2 The union organizing locomotive engine drivers, the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees (AFULE), was actively opposing women as train drivers at the time.3 These unions were seeking women members as part of a bigger push to get women into non-traditional occupations, a move occurring in other advanced economies.4 Former SUA official Robert Coombs explained the union’s response as part of “a changing policy direction of the general labor movement,” which he saw as coming from “the influence of progressive political parties.”5 Coombs also recognized that the impetus for the unions to give women employment came from women themselves, whose demand for ending the sexual division of labor was part of the women’s movement: “Women were asking,” he said, “and 2 3 4

Funding for this research was provided by the Australian Research Council DP160102764. “Women at Sea . . . and on the Light Rails,” Sun (Sydney), April 12, 1978. “Woman Engine Driver gives a Lead,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 16, 1978, 1. “Battle to be Train Driver,” Daily Telegraph (Sydney), May 27, 1976, 7. Nancy McLean, Freedom is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). 5 An argument also made about other unions supporting the employment of women. See Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann, Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers’ Federation (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2017). For the progress of policy within the Communist Party of Australia (CPA), see Mrs. Noreen Hewett, “Equal Opportunities Essential for Women,” Tribune (Sydney), September 8, 1965, 10. The Communist Party’s program on the needs of working women was discussed by Alice Hughes, “‘Getting with’ the Working Women,” Tribune (Sydney), August 13, 1969, 6. *

1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 103

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

104

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

we couldn’t give them a reason not to.”6 A more skeptical interpretation, one which was offered at the time, was that unions were driven more by their own self-interest to protect their power than by any concern for women workers.7 Until 1969, when the peak union body the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) waged a successful (for some) case for equal pay, “trade unionists rarely took women workers and their problems seriously.” Women’s employment was more often treated as threatening to the interests of men. That changed in 1972. With the election of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) government, the unions “drifted into stormy political-economic waters.” As the numbers of women in the workforce increased rapidly, unions finally recognized women’s potential importance for strengthening union membership and funds.8 While this interpretation warrants closer scrutiny, a bigger trend than union self-interest was underway and had already begun to influence policies related to female membership. Before the ALP was elected federally, state-owned utilities of transport, maritime services, and electricity were accepting girls as apprentices in their trades for the first time.9 At the end of the decade, the popular magazine Australian Women’s Weekly was reporting that in the state of New South Wales, there had been a 554 percent increase in young women applying for trade apprenticeships. The state’s Public Service Board’s Job Opportunity Division reported their numbers had jumped from forty applications in 1977 to 258 the next year. The state of Western Australia now had girls employed or apprenticed in seventeen of the eighty-three trades in which men worked, including motor mechanics, painting and decorating, electrical automotive mechanics, butchering, optical mechanics, horticulture, and furniture trades.10 Tracing the progress of this policy development to get women into different occupations in the 1970s reveals the importance of women’s activism as a catalyst for change.11 The initial policy change came from within international labor organizations and the communist party and flowed into the dynamics between the ACTU and its union affiliates. The unions’ policy change occurred in an environment of expectation fueled by the combined impact of a transforming labor market in a time of rising women’s employment and a women’s liberation movement Robert Coombs, interview with Diane Kirkby, 2006, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University, Canberra (hereafter NBAC); “It’s Not All Bad,” Tribune (Sydney), October 1, 1974, 5 argued that it was the combination of militant unionism and women’s liberation that “opened up new employment for women.” 7 Point made by Rhonda Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions: The Development of the Working Women’s Charter Campaign and the ACTU Charter for Working Women, Two Case Studies” (Master of Arts preliminary diss., La Trobe University, 1979). 8 Ibid., 26. 9 Rosemary Munday, “Working Women: As the 70s End, What Has Really Been Achieved?” Australian Women’s Weekly, October 3, 1979, 16. 10 Ibid. 11 See also Glenda Strachan, “Changing the Unions’ Agenda: Women’s Activism in Australian Trade Unions in the 1970s and 1980s,” Labour History 117 (2019): 181–202. 6

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 104

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

105

pressing unions and the ACTU to adopt policies to improve women’s earning power. Women’s activism exposed and began to influence the sex-segregated structure of the labor force and the power structure of the union movement. Nevertheless, the impact on unions as organizations “traditionally reserved for men” was not a simple success story as the experience of the maritime and railway unions shows. The proportion of women members of the Maritime Union of Australia is currently 5 percent, and the latest figures for women train drivers in one major metropolitan train network (the city of Melbourne) are just seventy women versus over 800 men, or less than 9 percent of all train drivers.12 A comparison can be made with similar initiatives in other countries. US researchers found that while a policy change might have increased the hiring of women, there were barriers at the workplace or plant that impeded women’s access and advancement in nontraditional occupations.13 The story in Australia shows that events followed international moves, yet also diverged from them under the impact of local factors, particularly the institution of conciliation and arbitration that fostered the formation of trade unions and awarded them preference clauses and sometimes the power to control hiring. Australian women’s activism posed a challenge to the traditions of men’s organized labor. Our research reveals how the unions responded to these workplace issues.

The Evolution of Policy The initial spur to the unions’ recruitment of women was the influence of the International Labour Organization (ILO) 1967 convention against discrimination and the even earlier anti-discrimination policies of international labor associations: the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), to which the ACTU was affiliated, and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), to which several communist-led unions (including the SUA) were affiliated.14 As the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) discussed women’s opportunities in 1965, the ICFTU had drawn up a Charter of Rights of Working Women and was calling “on all free trade union organisations . . . to study the problems of women workers and take all possible steps to resolve them and assert the claims of women workers.”15 Maritime Union of Australia, “Women,” accessed 2019, https://www.mua.org.au/subcategory/women; Adam Carey, “Metro on Track for More Women Behind the Wheel,” Age (Melbourne), March 22, 2014, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/metro-on-track-formore-women-behind-the-wheel-20140321-358ta.html. 13 Sharon L. Harlan and Brigid O’Farrell, “After the Pioneers: Prospects for Women in Nontraditional Blue Collar Jobs,” Work and Occupations 9, no. 3 (1982): 363–86. 14 See, e.g., World Federation of Trade Unions, Working Women Shape Their Future: 2nd International Trade Union Conference on the Problems of Working Women, Bucharest, May 11 to 16, 1964. 15 Hewett, “Equal Opportunities Essential for Women”; “8th World Congress: Resolutions and 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 105

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

106

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

While the ACTU did not respond positively to the ICFTU call at that time, a little over a decade later, it had developed its own charter. The evolution of that policy change was a slow process. Just a year after the ICFTU Congress in Amsterdam at which the above charter had been agreed upon, the ACTU Federal Secretary spoke against widening women’s employment prospects at a national conference. He acknowledged there were moves to introduce women into industries which traditionally had been closed to them and that many people believed “there should be absolutely no restriction placed on the employment of women in any industry or industrial occupation whatsoever.” However, this view—that “full equality of opportunity inevitably leads to the opening for [sic] the employment of women in any occupation they choose”—was “not generally accepted within the trade union movement, nor . . . [by] the Australian community. Most people,” he declared, “believe that there are certain occupations which are unsuitable to most women for psychological, physical and social reasons.” To indicate that there were “exceptions to every rule,” he singled out the prospect of women as seafarers: “[there is] no real reason why a woman could not become an effective and efficient ship’s officer.” Nevertheless, “At the same time most people in the community would be horrified if it were suggested that women should be employed in coalmines or as waterside workers.” While he conceded that women had “performed traditionally male work with great skill and perfection” in times of war and national emergency and were now moving into male areas of work “with at least equal skill and, in some cases with greater efficiency,” he seemed more concerned to show that men could not move into women’s (lower-paid) employment. He listed a range of occupations where women were “more suitable and more efficient,” including “certain classes of work to be found in the clothing trades industry, the food preserving industry, the confectionary manufacturing industry . . . the clerical field . . . [and] the nursing profession.”16 The push to expand opportunities for women was not, then, being driven or even endorsed by the ACTU. Still, initiatives did come from progressive unions—those on the left of the labor movement, such as maritime and building workers’ organizations.17 Ironically, these were among the most male-dominated occupations. The unions on the right, which were generally hostile to women’s liberation, came from industries employing more women and had higher numbers of women members. One of the early initiatives was in 1970, when women’s committees of the SUA and the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) joined with several other unions and with the Union of Australian Women (UAW) to Statements,” Free Labour World, no. 183 (1965): 20. NBAC, N68 Australian Council of Trade Unions, Box 672, “The Trade Unions and the Woman Worker”: Talk given by Federal Secretary on behalf of ACTU at National Conference on the Status of Women in Employment, May 4, 1966, 2–4. 17 Burgmann and Burgmann, Green Bans, Red Union; Jim Hagan, History of the ACTU (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1981). 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 106

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

107

organize a two-day seminar on the subject of “Women and Trade Unions.” At that meeting, a transport worker who worked as a conductor on the buses spoke about how “union officials tended to forget women, and concentrate ‘on the boys.’” She believed her union, the Tramway and Motor Omnibus Employees’ Union, was “relatively good” as women conductors had enjoyed equal pay since the early 1940s. Still, she claimed, women wanted more than to be “just conductresses”; they now wanted “equality of opportunity—bus driving—with the men.” She hinted at the tensions this had caused with the men, from whom they had not always received support. But the women had persevered, and there were now ten women receiving driving instruction, one of whom, at fifty-nine years old, was close to retirement age.18 The early 1970s proved to be a turning point as feminism combined with rising numbers of unionized women workers, and there was a leftward shift in Australian federal politics. Until then, a little over one-third of women wage and salary earners were unionized compared with almost two-thirds of men. Within the first four years of the decade (1971–1975), the proportion of women unionists grew dramatically to virtually half of all wage-earning women (48 percent). The numbers of women in the labor force and the proportion of married women entering into full and part-time work had simultaneously increased.19 Women’s activism accelerated. The ACTU Congress of 1971 noted the dramatically increasing number of women in the work force and the speed of technological change that would continue to create more employment prospects for women. These factors “highlight[ed] the need for greater urgency in the implementation of policy . . . to obtain equal remuneration . . . [and] in achieving our objective of equal pay for the sexes.” At that Congress, the left-wing union, the Builders Labourers’ Federation, submitted an agenda item on the “Right of Women to Learn Skilled Trades” and to be admitted into these occupations. It read, “We urge Congress to initiate a policy of full support for the right of women to enter all skilled trades, and actively campaign against all prejudices, barriers and restrictions existing inside and outside the Trade Union Movement, that discriminate against women workers, to the detriment of themselves and society.” The document wanted the ACTU to be explicit about the concentration of women in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations at the lowest rates of pay: “Even if all these women received the rate for the job, they would still be the lowest paid section of the work force.” The agenda item urged training for women if they were not to be disadvantaged by technical progress requiring “[h]igher educational and Fred Wells, Industrial Reporter, “Solidarity Thy New Name is Woman . . . [sic],” Sydney Morning Herald, October 14, 1970, 6. 19 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions”; also “The Role of a Woman in the Unions,” Sydney Morning Herald, August 5, 1976, 12. 18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 107

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

108

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

vocational qualifications.” It noted that the experience of many highly industrialized countries was for technological progress to cause redundancy, which more harshly affected women workers. The submitted document was a scathing indictment of the union movement’s support of women workers to date: “Because of sheer prejudice, tradition, and craft narrowness, trade unions generally have played little or no part in championing the rights of women workers to learn skilled trades. This in turn reinforces the conditioning to which women have been subjected, that they are suited and capable only of performing the traditional ‘women’s work’ type of jobs, i.e., unskilled, monotonous, low paid work.” The example of the steelworks in the city of Wollongong, New South Wales was used to illustrate the strength of assumptions about gendered work. There, even though “industrial experts admit that many of the jobs in the steelworks could be done by women,” still “the giant Australian Iron and Steel Company (B.H.P.) continues to urge the Government to recruit more migrant labour, at great public expense, while thousands of women in Wollongong are unemployed.”20 The wording of the submission showed how the emergence of the women’s liberation movement in 1970 and its attention to trade unionism had brought additional grassroots pressures to calls for policy change.21 Over the next several years, ACTU officers “vigorously and at times bitterly opposed” the most overtly feminist demands. 22 The 1971 Congress watered down the original call to support women's entry into skilled trades, acknowledging only “the rights of young” (implicitly single) “female workers to enter all skilled trades.” This was intended to appease right-wing union objections to a blanket endorsement of married women’s right to paid work.23 Modifications also made it a non-communist initiative by explicitly incorporating the ACTU endorsement into the ICFTU’s agenda: “Congress call[ed] on all Unions to be more concerned with problems of working women many of which were elaborated at the ICFTU’s Third World Conference on Women Workers’ Problems held in 1968.” Specifically, Congress requested “the ACTU through its State Branches to extend their equal pay Committees to deal with all problems of women in industry” and sought to have the Executive convene a national conference within a year.24 While left-wing male unionists were seeking to shift the ACTU from within, women unionists began actively organizing an Alternative Trade Union Women’s Conference in parallel with the ACTU Congress. They aimed to act as a pressure

22 23

NBAC, N21 Australian Council of Trade Unions, Box 326. “Women’s Lib Turns to Union,” Canberra Times, August 9, 1971, 3. “Women Fight for Rights in ACTU,” The Australian, March 16, 1978. NBAC, N33 Amalgamated Metal Workers’ and Shipwrights Union (Tom Wright’s records), Box 21. 24 NBAC, N68 Australian Council of Trade Unions, Box 908, “Needs of Women Workers: Recommendation of the ACTU Executive to the 1971 Congress.” 20 21

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 108

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

109

group on the ACTU. The first in 1971 was followed by subsequent conferences in 1973 and 1975, reportedly to give all women the opportunity to discuss the needs of women in the work force.26 Also in 1971, a National Women’s Liberation Conference that focused on women at work and women and the trade unions met in Melbourne to coincide with the ACTU Congress being held in the city. There was mass leafletting in City Square, a march through the streets, and intense lobbying at the opening session of the ACTU Congress.27 Participants reported on the Women’s Liberation Conference for the communist newspaper, Tribune.28 While several were critical of the structure and organization of the conference or felt disappointed there were not more specific outcomes, all commented positively on the experience. One said the conference “showed clearly that women as workers are constantly discriminated against on the basis of their sex.” She welcomed the “variety of views on how women can best work around the issues raised” and also said that “a charter attempting to direct trade union attention toward alleviating the continued social and economic discrimination against women” had been “arrived at by discussion and consensus.” Another “saw the conference as ACTION—to involve as many women in industry and the work force as possible” and felt the papers presented were “important . . . as laying the basis for discussion.” She applauded, “The degree of interest, the numbers who registered, the stimulation of discussion in and around the conference of the serious issues involved.”29 The Women’s Liberation Conference engaged directly and in person with the ACTU. One participant celebrated standing “outside the ACTU Congress asking the delegates about the neglect of women by the unions. I don’t think any woman who was there will forget the smug smirks on the faces of some delegates, the chin-chucking and head-patting and the contemptuous remarks.” She appreciated that “we were acting together. . . . It was an experience of sisterhood made possible by the conference.” The Women’s Liberation Movement was still relatively new in Australia, and the conference was an impetus “for many women who attended and many who have heard about it” to initiate similar actions “in their own areas.” The issues that emerged as central were equal pay and, as with the women who wanted to drive buses, wider job opportunities for all women, along with what the author described as “the absolute right for women to work.” 25

Kaye Hargreaves, Women at Work (Melbourne: Penguin, 1982), 29; Strachan, “Changing the Unions’ Agenda”; Patricia Grimshaw, Nell Musgrove, and Shurlee Swain, “The Australian Labour Movement and Working Mothers in the United Nations’ Decade for Women,” in The Time of Their Lives: The Eight Hour Day and Working Life, ed. Julie Kimber and Peter Love (Melbourne: Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2007), 139. 26 “Unions—Women’s Lib Style,” Sydney Morning Herald, August 24, 1973, 1. 27 “Women go to ACTU,” Tribune (Sydney), September 1, 1971, 12. 28 “Women’s Liberation: Looking at the Melbourne Conference,” Tribune (Sydney), September 15, 1971, 10. 29 Ibid. 25

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 109

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

110

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

At least one report on the conference expressed concern “that unions will not support the women’s demands or at most only pay lip service or pass paper resolutions on them.”30 By 1975, International Women’s Year (IWY), women activists in the field of work were intensifying their pressure on unions and on the ACTU. They had lost patience with working together with union men on “general issues” as a way to achieve their aims. Instead, they recognized, “The need for a firmly formulated set of cohesive demands. . . . These demands could then be used as cornerstones for action on particular issues and as a stick with which to beat the unions, the ACTU, the government and employer groups.”31 The ACTU felt itself under attack even as it tried to acknowledge women’s issues: “The 1975 ACTU executive report gave space to IWY,” and two unions proposed the ACTU adopt a Working Women’s Charter.32 Union women looked to separate organizing strategies to achieve their aims. In 1975, a peak trade union organization that had not yet federated with the ACTU, the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (ACSPA), established a Working Women’s Centre with funding provided by the federal ALP government.33 It “provided a framework for women to intervene through official trade union structures and at the same time link up with women’s movement groups concerned with employment issues.”34 A year later, trade union women in Sydney established the Women’s Trade Union Commission to operate outside formal union structures with the purpose of becoming “a change agent for trade union women.”35 Their conference was attended by over six hundred women, and the Working Women’s Charter was presented for discussion.36 The Working Women’s Centre’s Charter called for education and training, including trade union training for women, as well as maternity and paternity leave, the provision of childcare, and the introduction of flexible working hours. Added to this was the demand for increased wages by means of equal pay for work of equal value and the expansion of trade union activities to increase women’s participation.37 Subsequently, a Working Women’s Charter Campaign was set up with the aim of having the charter adopted by the ACTU and individual unions. These Working Women’s Charter Campaign groups, organized Ibid. Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions,” 32. 32 Ibid., 41. 33 Ibid., 33. See also https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0012b.htm. 34 Strahan, “Changing the Unions’ Agenda,” quoting Anna Booth and Linda Rubenstein, “Women in Trade Unions in Australia,” in Playing the State: Australian Feminist Interventions, ed. Sophie Watson (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990), 124. 35 Booth and Rubenstein, “Women in Trade Unions,” 124; see also Lyndall Ryan, “Edna Ryan and Leadership: The Women’s Trade Union Commission, 1976,” Labour History 104 (2013): 119. 36 Unions Are for Women Too: A Report of the First Australian Women’s Trade Union Conference, Sydney, August 6–8, 1976 (Sydney: Women's Trade Union Commission, 1976). 37 Grimshaw, Musgrove and Swain, “The Australian Labour Movement”, 150–52. 30 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 110

2022.07.30. 22:42:14

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

111

throughout Australia, convened a number of conferences between 1975 and 1977.38 This activity spurred the ACTU into the presentation of its own charter, the ACTU Charter for Working Women, at the 1977 ACTU Congress. Driven by ACTU officer Jan Marsh, this was a more moderate document, but it still reflected the major issues of the Working Women’s Centre Charter.39 There were now two charters: one arising from women’s independent feminist activism and one from the ACTU in response to the pressure of the Working Women’s Charter Campaign.40 Even with a dedicated charter in place, the ACTU maintained that “action on behalf of women’s special interests should take place through the unions, and the ACTU and its State branches.”41 It was thus left to the still male-dominated unions to achieve the charter demands. As only one part of it directly exhorted the trade unions to act, there remained “much room for a displacement of responsibility onto other bodies in the workplace such as government and employers.”42 The ACTU charter was criticized by those wanting to do more to upset the status quo. It seemed the ACTU was paying only lip service to women members’ “well-defined dissatisfaction,” and so “it could be treated with disdain and complacency.”43 A key weakness of the charter was a lack of clearly defined, timebound, and measurable objectives that needed to be met. Suggested amendments attempted to ensure that there would be future action around the charter demands but were rejected by the ACTU Executive. While this indicated “a lack of practical commitment to the realization of the Charter demands,” a successful amendment required the Executive to report back to the 1979 Congress on their rate of success in increasing the numbers of women holding trade union office.44 While the press reported on the charter as “an attack on male domination of the trade union movement,” in practice this was very far from the case.45 There was no demand to change the existing power structures of unions, which required a defined proportion of women to be represented. Decision-making on women’s issues was also confined to male union officials and the all-male ACTU Executive. The Executive deliberately excluded the involvement of women’s groups when they rejected a proposal “that women’s organisations be directly represented on the body to develop the charter.” 46 This excluded the very Booth and Rubenstein, “Women in Trade Unions,” 124–25. Ibid. 40 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions.” 41 Hagan, History of the ACTU, 380–81. 42 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions,” 43, citing L. Cupper and J. Hearn, “The 1977 ACTU Congress: An Appraisal,” Research Paper No 60, University of Melbourne. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and the Australian Trade Unions,” 34, citing. “Unions Let Us Down,” Sun (Sydney), August 1976. 46 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and the Australian Trade Unions,” 42. 38 39

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 111

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

112

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

people—the Working Women’s Centre and the Women’s Trade Union Commission—who developed the original charter. The ACTU strategically adopted a centrist position amid the Left-Right polarity dividing the labor movement in the second half of the 1970s.47 One of the outcomes of the 1978 ACTU conference was that each state was now expected to set up its own branch of the Working Women’s Charter Committee.48 This further highlighted the problem of making the implementation of the charter “dependent on the energy, priorities and commitment of individual union officials” who were still mostly men.49 When that same year the ACTU held a Special Union Conference on the Working Women’s Charter, very few ACTU-affiliated unions attended. The SUA did not even submit items for the agenda on the grounds that it did not have any women members.50 The FEDFA sent its solitary member, Aileen De Gracie, who saw herself, according to press reports, “as an example for women and the work opportunities available to them.” Her work operating a stationary power engine had been “a virtual male preserve in the past.” She was a single mother of four whose weekly earnings were significantly more than most women’s: “The pay is good and there is no reason why a healthy woman cannot apply for a job as an engine driver or crane operator.” According to the journalist, “She told applauding delegates . . . that women needed to see other women working in unusual jobs to realise the opportunities available.” Otherwise, she argued, “a lot of us are inclined to hang back and not try.” She supported a successful move to recommend to the ACTU the formation of a special women’s unit to deal with working women.51 It is hard to disagree with the assessment that trade unions played, at best, a low-key role in advancing the position of women in the workplace; more often there was antipathy in their attempts to deal with the issue of women’s inequality.52 The Australian government had been acting to improve the situation for some working women, providing maternity leave for public servants and increasing childcare funding. They had also engaged with the question of education and training, setting up an inquiry into the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector. By contrast, even as the proportion of women union members increased rapidly in the early 1970s, women were largely excluded from exercising real power in union governance and had limited representation at conferences. Though they composed 25 percent of the membership of the Iola Mathews, Winning For Women: A Personal Story (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2019), 132. 48 For reports of the conference, see “Women Fight for Rights in ACTU,” The Australian, March 16, 1978; “Union Talks on Women’s Rights, Courier Mail (Brisbane), February 8, 1978. 49 Pauline Costello, “Women and Trade Unions: The Working Women’s Charter,” Melbourne Journal of Politics 15 (1983/84): 46. 50 NBAC, Z129 Seamen’s Union of Australia, Additional Box 35. 51 “Woman Engine Driver gives a Lead,” Sydney Morning Herald, March 16, 1978, 1. 52 Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions.” 47

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 112

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

113

ACTU, women made up just 4.5 percent of delegates at the 1977 ACTU conference (approximately thirty women out of a total of 650 delegates). Women continued to be “handicapped by structural influences” and were only “a peripheral subject of concern in trade union education.”53 Left-wing unions put pressure on the ACTU to act rather than on their own members. In turn, the ACTU, even as they acknowledged these demands through congress, emphasized the need for government action. As Galbally recognized, “The effect of responsibility being forced upward, always to some other body, meant that there was little practical action within the unions demanding radical reform.” Those unions that put pressure on the ACTU did not necessarily welcome women into their own trades and “were not recruiting women onto their executive to proportionately represent their female membership.”54 It is illuminating to explore the experience of some unions that did attempt to implement new policies on women’s employment opportunities. The maritime and railway industries, each with long histories of male dominance, provide useful examples.

“Giv[ing] the Girls a Go”: Dynamics of Change in the SUA In September 1972, a year after the ACTU called on unions to become more active on behalf of women, the SUA’s Committee of Management adopted a general principle of equality of opportunity for women to follow work in the “fields covered by our organisation.” They committed to giving women “every assistance . . . and protection as a Union member.” The leadership also undertook to seek changes to legal measures that prevented women from joining the industry. Implementation of the decision was to be done “in light of employment opportunities arising, accommodation and facilities on each vessel, and events arising from amalgamation” with the several other unions that organized crews on ships on the Australian coast.55 SUA Federal Secretary Eliot V. Elliott then “startled” the members by announcing the decision at the union’s national conference that month, saying that the union needed a policy to enable more women to join. Rather than think of women “only as crew attendants” or stewards, he urged the membership to see that women should be able to become crew members in whatever department of the ship’s crew that women themselves chose: “There are no logical reasons why a woman should not be a crew member on deck or below, there are no economic reasons, there are Ibid. Ibid. 55 NBAC, Z91 Seamen’s Union of Australia, Box 54. 53 54

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 113

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

114

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

no social reasons.” Elliott pointed out that women recruits would need training, but this was “no less true for boys than it was for girls, for women than it was for men.” Improved training would be needed for everyone “to cope with the technological impact . . . of today’s design and tomorrow’s anticipated ships.”57 Reaction to the announcement of the changed policy was mixed. SUA members who embraced the employment of women pointed out that “women today are gradually being accepted into jobs that have traditionally been a male domain: . . . as engine drivers, crane operators . . . and in progressive countries women are encouraged and given equal opportunities for all job faculties.” Other countries— Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and the USSR—provided the SUA with a model for the large-scale employment of women seafarers. By contrast, Australia had been slow to accord full equality to women: “We are lagging behind and we have to start sometime.”58 One individual who later became an official says the source of the change lay in the SUA’s belief that “the union was very progressive, we really wanted to show that we were progressive in the area of opportunities for women.”59 Some welcomed the changes in conversation and behavior they anticipated—”many of us will have to re-educate ourselves to fit into it”—or helpfully suggested how to go about implementing the change to “give the girls a go!”60 The Australian media quickly picked up on the initiative. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the decision in a matter-of-fact way; a television current affairs program interviewed crew members working on a ship; and an editorial in a Sydney evening newspaper enjoyed playing with the idea: “Little boys who got fed up have shared, for centuries, a wonderful dream. They could run away to sea. It was a man’s world that not even their mother could share. Sadly, not any more.”61 Women’s organizations responded favorably: the Union of Australian Women wrote a letter of endorsement, and the SUA federal office received telegrams of support from seagoing women and their families. One woman, identifying herself as “an Australian stewardess forced on to foreign ships,” congratulated Elliott on his attempts “to wake up merchant shipping in Australia that it’s now 1972.” Parents of another “Girl at Sea” on foreign ships similarly wished success to the campaign. However, a group of seamen’s wives thought the idea to employ women was outrageous while there were unemployed seamen on the coast.62 Some women seafarers recalled that “some of the older men had genuine fear of losing their jobs” at a time of downturn in the industry. Secretary Elliott pointed out to members attending the 1972 convention that other occupations—such 56

Seamen’s Journal (October 1972), italics in original. Ibid. 58 J. Milne, Seamen’s Journal ( June 1978). 59 Dean Summers, interview with Diane Kirkby, NBAC, 2006. 60 J. W. Clark, Seamen’s Journal (April 1974); T. G. Trembath, Seamen’s Journal (November 1974). 61 Editorial, Sun (Sydney), September 19, 1972 62 NBAC, Z129 Seamen's Union of Australia, Additional Box 35. 56 57

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 114

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

115

as journalists and transport workers—“were horrified when women were first employed,” but they had adapted themselves to the change, and he was confident SUA members would too.63 To adapt, SUA members had to overcome long-established prejudices against women in their workplace: an antipathy to women on ships that “permeated from the skipper to the deck boy,” according to Robert Coombs.64 The opinions canvassed by a supportive union member of the crew of one ship showed how controversial the subject was and how adamant many members were in their opinions. The majority of the crew was in favor of the principle but thought that in practice, with the high unemployment of seamen on the coast at that time, any proposals to have women on deck or in the engine room were neither practicable nor viable. The minority view was plainly, “Seamanship is not by any means suitable work for a woman. It is injudicious and silly to encourage them.”65 Similarly, most members at stopwork meetings voted in favor of the principle of having women at sea, but there were those who spoke out against “this nonsense” because “women’s place was in the kitchen and that’s where they ought to stay.” Some older seafarers simply asked, “Why change?” Branch secretaries and union officials had to help educate the membership to overcome divisions and “the ridiculous arguments about them [women] being bad luck.” Several officials were personally against the idea although they never said so publicly. Some thought it was impractical, that women would bring added friction to shipboard life that the union’s delegates would have to handle. Others embraced the idea, arguing “that we should assist and welcome women into the industry to normalise the industry, not so somebody could have a girlfriend on the ship,” but because “everybody else in the community had at least that level of normalcy, there were half women and half men in the community.” Women had got into coalmines and the steelworks, “and ‘We [too] should facilitate’, because women were demanding to go.”66 Three years on, the leadership reaffirmed the decision of the 1972 convention regarding employment and training, adding a recommendation that women join ships only where accommodation was suitable.67 Finally, six years after that initial announcement, the Seamen’s Journal announced that “the first female cadet to be employed in Australia” had been signed on as a deck apprentice. She was the daughter of a deck officer and the only girl among forty cadets (selected from two hundred applicants) taken on by the Australian National Line. The Merchant Service Guild covering deck officers and shipwrights now had one woman employed, but there were no recruits to departments covered by other unions. Seamen’s Journal (October 1972). Robert Coombs, interview with Diane Kirkby, NBAC, 2006. 65 Reported in the Seamen’s Journal ( June 1978). 66 Roger Wilson, interview by Diane Kirkby, NBAC, 2006. 67 NBAC, Z91 Seamen's Union of Australia, Box 61. 63 64

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 115

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

116

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

In the mid-1980s, the SUA was concerned that there had been little movement on the commitment made in 1972: the SUA now had one woman member who was an oiler, the Marine Stewards had one woman member, and the Merchant Service Guild’s three female members were the only women on deck. By then, women were employed in most other departments—bridge, radio, galley, catering and “even in the engine room”—making “the implementation of deck girls . . . now long overdue.”68 The shortage of women recruits was partly due to the lack of passenger ships engaging Australian crews. However, a greater impact was the decreased employment world-wide: the combination of factors, economic and technological, that was “leading to greater carrying capacity in larger ships and employing smaller crews.”69 Despite the reported downturn in the labor market and the depressed economic environment being unfavorable, women were seeking to widen their employment opportunities. Women’s inequality in the workforce continued to be pressed through organizations of women and to be debated within the unions. The issues did not simply die off, as had been the pattern in past recessions.70 While one of the early women recruits to the SUA reported that she had “never really had trouble with mutual respect as a [union] member,” a steward recalled the struggle she and other women had to get equality within the stewards’ union when it amalgamated with the SUA.71 Attending the first women unionists’ conference, the steward said, “was an eye-opener for the younger women there . . . the union was very male-oriented . . . some male unionists were helping, a greater number weren’t, some of them did some terrible things.” Women, she said, “were not equal at all in the union.” As a single person responsible for her own economic needs and well-schooled by her father in the importance of economic planning, she had expectations. So, when she applied for the Seamen’s Retirement Fund and was told, “No, it was only for men,” she was not pleased: “I don’t think they consciously made that decision. I think they just hadn’t thought about the fact that women would want to be in it. And it took us years. When we were admitted our previous service wasn’t counted.” The numbers of women members were not large enough to carry a lot of weight, and it took until the late 1980s for them to get credit for those early years of service and for long service leave. Their tactics were to be persistent without confrontation. She recounts: “We did it by having meetings, campaigning within the union, meeting with the Union Executive, we wrote to the Executive in Sydney, did some campaigning among our own people, got up at meetings, said this was unfair.” She noted a slow change within union and occupational culture and placed it in the context Seamen’s Journal (October 1984). NBAC, Z129 Seamen's Union of Australia, Additional Box 35. 70 Point made by Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions.” 71 Gisela Komono and Jane Holgate, interviews with Diane Kirkby, NBAC, 2006. 68 69

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 116

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

117

of the wider women’s liberation movement: “And gradually the younger people came across, and some of the older people who had more liberal ideas, and the whole world was changing then about women’s rights.”72

“Honest Desire and Will”: Competing Union Attitudes to Women Workers on the Australian Railways The railway unions took divergent approaches. In 1975, as the ACTU moved toward endorsing its Working Women’s Charter, the major union representing engine drivers and firemen (AFULE) was resisting a campaign to admit the first woman to engine driving.73 Its equanimity when Congress adopted the charter is perhaps indicative of the latter’s limitations.74 The Australian Railways Union (ARU), which represented all railway workers with the exception of drivers and firemen, was more progressive. In 1975, this union included four thousand women in the five eastern and southern states. Women represented about 9 percent of the membership and were employed in refreshment services, as station assistants, in clerical positions and cleaning jobs, with a few in the workshops. These positions, as the union’s Assistant General Secretary observed, were “in the main, the ‘accepted’ areas where women are ‘expected’ to be found.”75 By 1975, ARU policy imposed no formal limitation on the employment of women. The previous year, its Australian Council had endorsed the “principle that the filling of vacant positions in the railway industry should be determined regardless of sex.” However, the union had done little more to “popularise the idea of its offering greater opportunities to women workers” than to publish the resolution in its journals.76 In March 1978, unlike the SUA, the ARU participated in the ACTU’s Special Union Conference on the Working Women’s Charter, expressing the union’s “honest desire and will to promote and assist women in gaining equality. We have the principle laid down as policy—only the way had to be found.”77 As with the SUA, finding the way would prove slow Jane Holgate, interview with Diane Kirkby, NBAC, 2006. Sue Wills, “Seventies Chronology, Part II, 1973–1979,” Australian Feminist Studies 23 (2008), 131–53. 74 Steve Gibson, “1977 ACTU Congress Report,” Locomotive Journal 40, no. 1 (1977): 10–11. 75 NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office Deposit 1, Box 223, E. J. Stanistreet, Assistant General Secretary, ARU to Mrs. Sylvie Shaw and Mary Owen, Joint Co-ordinators, Working Women’s Centre, August 19, 1975. 76 Ibid. 77 NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office, Deposit 1, Box 223, David J. Northey, Asst. General Secretary ARU, Statement to Union’s Conference on Working Women, Melbourne, March 15, 1978. 72 73

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 117

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

118

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

going. Considerable caveats were attached to the removal of barriers. While the Council resolution had declared that vacant positions should be filled without regard to sex, this was conditional on the appointee being “medically and physically fit to carry out all the duties of this position,” “fully qualified,” first in seniority for the position, and “suitable amenities and conditions” had to be provided before the position was filled.78 Even so, women were beginning to encroach on previously male-only areas of railway work, with the first woman “signalman” employed in New South Wales in 1977. Her experience indicated that the rank and file did not necessarily share the commitment voiced by officials, and “her position description remained gendered as male [signalman].”79 Involving women in the activities of the union made similarly slow progress. In 1978, the National Convention admitted there was “little evidence to suggest the ARU has extended ‘Equal Opportunity’ to our female members for participation in all aspects of ARU affairs.” This was despite the 1974 “resolution on equal opportunities for men and women in the railway industry” and its support for the ACTU Working Women’s Charter. There appeared to be “little active encouragement for female members to become activists within the union in seeking positions as shop stewards, committee members, or sub-branch officers. The same was true of the union’s efforts in encouraging female members to attend trade union training schools . . . or their own ARU conducted courses.”80 The union had endorsed two rankand-file women delegates to the 1978 Special Conference on the charter. The Victorian Branch had elected two of their women members as delegates to the National Convention and was still the only one “to have had an elected female Organiser. Other branches have had female shop stewards and other honorary officials.”81 There was more progress in the 1980s. By November 1982, the New South Wales state branch had established a Women’s Committee. At its inaugural meeting, the committee adopted an ARU Women’s Charter. Based on the ACTU Working Women’s Charter, it incorporated “special requirements which were applicable to the ARU and the Railway Industry.”82 By the late 1980s, the ARU was involved in the process of rectifying the sexist language in job classifications, compiling a list of “possible alternative classifications in New South Ibid. Jim Longworth, “Railway Women in NSW: The Evolution of Female Employees,” Australian Railway History 62 (2011): 10–11. 80 NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office, Deposit 1, Box 223, Donaldson to Nolan, February 28, 1980; David J. Northey, Asst. General Secretary ARU to Mrs. Pat Grove, April 27, 1978. 81 NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office, Deposit 1, Box 223, Northey, Statement to Union’s Conference on Working Women, Melbourne, March 15, 1978. 82 NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office, Deposit 1, Box 223, Secretary’s Report, ARU Women’s Committee, November 24, 25, 26, 1982. 78 79

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 118

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

119

Wales [industrial] awards.” The first woman train guard began work on New South Wales suburban trains in late 1982. One of the leading metropolitan newspapers sent a journalist and photographer to report on the arrival of her first train at Sydney’s Central Station, signifying the “cultural significance” of her appointment.84 Three years later, the first woman train driver was working on the interstate train network. In a departure from earlier convention, her position description was re-gendered. By the end of 1985, five more women were working as locomotive engine drivers; by the end of 1988, there were ten.85 Progress in recruiting women train drivers would remain slow into the next century. 83

Conclusion The history of women in Australian trade unions has, to some critics, been a history defined by exclusion and its consequences.86 The 1970s was a period of turbulence and transformation even if the impacts of women’s activism were not immediately visible. Within and across unions, sometimes intersecting and overlapping with the activities of the wider women’s liberation movement, women workers themselves pushed for policies to recognize their distinct needs and to give them a greater voice at all levels of union politics. The ACTU— faced with mounting pressure from the political left and an increasingly vocal women’s movement as well as growing numbers of women members in their ranks—sought to move women’s issues from their grassroots origins into policy implementation.87 In this, the Working Women’s Charter was a notable achievement, albeit with the limitations noted above. It took several years from its first iteration in 1971 until its acceptance in 1978. Across those years and into the 1980s, there was also an expansion of women’s membership in white-collar public sector unions, which propelled women into positions of leadership and consequently led to further policy development regarding women and work.88 The ACTU Charter initially did little to challenge the balance of power within unions and relied on male officials to take action for the benefit of women workers. However, by 1980, priorities for action included the directive that NBAC, Z570 Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union National Office, Deposit 1, Box 223, Andrew Thomas, Industrial Officer ARU National Office to Branch Secretaries, June 28, 1988. 84 Longworth, “Railway Women in NSW,” 11. 85 Ibid. 86 A position argued by Galbally, “Women, Inequality and Australian Trade Unions.” 87 Mathews, Winning for Women, 132. 88 Strachan, “Changing the Unions Agenda”; Jude Elton, “Making Democratic Unions: From Policy to Practice,” in Strife: Sex and Politics in Labour Unions, ed. Barbara Pocock (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997), 109–27. 83

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 119

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

120

Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson

“The ACTU . . . together with affiliated unions, should actively encourage women members to stand for office.” This extended to direct intervention in the make-up of union executives: “Where necessary, positive provisions should be considered to provide specific representation of women to ensure that union executives are fully representative of all its members. Women should also be nominated as delegates on delegations requiring union representation.”89 Two years later, the first woman was elected to the national executive of the ACTU. Within a year after that, the ALP government—now under the leadership of Bob Hawke, who had been ACTU president through the 1970s—passed Equal Employment Opportunity legislation. In her memoir of working for the ACTU in these “exciting, tumultuous” 1980s, Iola Mathews wrote of the prospect that “the partnership between the unions and the Labor government would allow us to make significant reforms for women workers.”90 That reality is, however, still a work in progress. With a labor party in government federally in 1972–75 and again in 1983–96, and the recruitment of feminists (called “femocrats”) to take up decision-making and policy-formulation positions, hopes were high for meaningful change. These hopes were not realized fully even into the new millennium.91 In 1990, Australia had the most sex-segregated labor market in the countries of the OECD. At the turn of the new century, the Australian labor market remained “obstinately segregated by sex”: indeed, men’s share of male-dominated occupations had increased.92 Australia’s very high union membership and its unique system of wage-fixation through industrial arbitration procedures and tribunals meant Australian women’s experience differed in its particularities.93 Yet, the pattern of union and male workers’ resistance to women’s demands for liberation resembled the resistance women encountered elsewhere in the world.94 Social scientists have produced voluminous literature on women’s entry into male-dominated trades and workplaces, identifying the statistics of recruitment

Strachan, “Changing the Unions Agenda,” quoting ACTU, A.C.T.U. Working Women’s Charter (Melbourne: ACTU, c. 1980). 90 Mathews, Winning for Women, 126. 91 Hester Eisenstein coined the term femocrats for feminists employed by the government bureaucracy in Gender Shock: Practising Feminism on Two Continents (Sydney: Allen & Unwin; Boston: Beacon Press, 1991); see also Suzanne Franzway, Raewyn Connell, and Dianne Court, Staking a Claim: Feminism, Bureaucracy and the State (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989). 92 Barbara Pocock, “All Change, Still Gendered: The Australian Labour Market,” Journal of Industrial Relations 40, no. 4 (1998): 580–604. 93 Diane Kirkby, “Arbitration and the Fight for Economic Justice,” in Foundations of Arbitration, ed. Stuart Macintyre and Richard Mitchell (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989), 334–51. 94 Australian scholars Suzanne Franzway and Claire Williams contributed chapters to the international collection by Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith, eds., Gender, Diversity, and Trade Unions: International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2002). 89

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 120

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

“Traditionally Reserved for Men”

121

and quantifying pay differentials. Our historical account documents only the events of the 1970s. Gender differentiation and structural inequalities of opportunity, pay, and rewards persist in the twenty-first century. The story of the Working Women’s Charter illuminates only a small aspect of the bigger picture of women’s encounters with entrenched traditions, formal and informal institutions, and workplace cultures that continue to be obstacles to women working in occupations “traditionally reserved for men.” 95

Natalie Galea, Abigail Powell, Martin Loosemore, and Louise Chappell, “The Gendered Dimensions of Informal Institutions in the Australian Construction Industry,” Gender, Work, and Organization 27, no. 6 (2020): 1214–31.

95

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 121

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 1.indd 122

2022.07.30. 22:42:15

PART TWO WOMEN IN MOTION: RETHINKING AGENCY AND ACTIVISM AT THE WORKPLACE AND BEYOND

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 123

2022.07.30. 22:41:14

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 124

2022.07.30. 22:41:14

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks: Women Auxiliaries and the Ship Repair Workers’ Strike (Genoa, 1955)* Marco Caligari

I

n Italy in the second half of the 1950s, thousands of young women workers started to work in factories, and some of these women provoked labor struggles and played a new role in social conflicts both as domestic workers and as members of auxiliary groups. The Union of Italian Women (Unione Donne Italiane, UDI) encouraged women to take action in support of strikers and supported various of these women’s auxiliary groups. This essay focuses on women’s associations’ responses to the 1955 ship repair workers’ strike in Genoa in the mid-twentieth century. There are distinct elements of this story that make it relevant for feminist labor history, namely that Genoa was the most important Italian port and the strike lasted for 120 days. The chapter investigates the political connections between the groups formed by the striking ship repairers’ wives and other Italian women’s associations. On the one hand, the female auxiliary groups were tasked with supporting the male workers’ struggles as ancillaries; on the other hand, women sought to develop an autonomous sphere of political action. The sources reveal that the relationship between the women and men workers’ communities was complex. The leaders of women’s associations tried to advocate for a new relationship between women workers and housewives, encouraging political debate on the issue of women’s emancipation in the 1950s. The discussions of women’s leaders highlight the possibility of promoting the politicization of unpaid work within the home and the emancipation of women in the public sphere, both through additional domestic work and political activism. In the context of global scholarship, this essay takes a new approach by analyzing female support networks from a geographical perspective and examining the part played by similar auxiliary groups in the discussion and dissemination of the idea of women’s emancipation. * This study is dedicated to the memory of Sam Davies. During my studies at John Moores University, he provided me with relevant suggestions to write this paper. I would also like to thank Chiara Bonfiglioli, Michele Cangiani, Christian De Vito, Alessia Castagnino, Marta Lovato, Devi Sacchetto, Jordi Ibarz, and Giulia Strippoli.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 125

2022.07.30. 22:41:14

126

Marco Caligari

The chapter is divided in three sections. The first section includes an overview of the scholarship, the historical context, the principal demands of the ship repairers’ strike, and the nature of both the women’s groups and the UDI. The second section demonstrates the significance of women’s material and moral support for the port workers’ strikes. Finally, the third section analyzes the political discussions—in statements, speeches, and institutional and private correspondence—within the women’s associations regarding gender roles in Genoa and more generally throughout Italy and their proposals to promote women’s emancipation.

The Connection between Global Labor History and the Study of Gender: Genoa in the 1950s This section provides an overview of the methodology and the contours of international scholarship. It will also describe the political climate in Italy in the 1950s and identify the most important features of the ship repair sector, the labor market, and the primary social actors in mid-twentieth-century Genoa. According to R. Schröder, “historically, labor market intermediation proved to be not just an effective instrument of allocation, but also a first-class instrument of power, because it enabled participants to influence the entrance to the labor market.”1 Knotter argues that in the international literature on the history of port workers, a number of scholars have focused their attention on the labor market, although some historians have analyzed the links between the workplace and the workers’ families.2 In order to reconsider the Italian port workers’ strikes, this essay adopts Marcel van der Linden’s theoretical approach concerning the importance of “auxiliaries,” i.e., groups of non-strikers who provide strikers with moral and material support. Van der Linden looks at various cases where female

Rainer Schröder, “Arbeitslosenfürsorge und Arbeitsvermittlung im Zeitalter der Aufklärung,” in Arbeitsvermittlung und Arbeitslosenversorgung in der neueren deutschen Rechstsgeschicte, ed. H. P. Benöhr (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991), 24, quoted in Ad Knotter, “From Placement Control to Control of the Unemployed,” in The History of Labor Intermediation: Institutions and Finding Employment in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, ed. Sigrid Wadauer, Thomas Buchner, and Alexander Mejstrik (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), 117–50. 2 Sam Davies, Colin J. Davis, David de Vries, Lex Heerma van Voss, Lidewij Hesselink, Klaus Weinhauer, eds., Dock Workers: International Explorations in Comparative Labour History, 1790–1970, vol. 2 (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2000); Gordon Phillips and Noel Whiteside, Casual Labour: The Unemployment Question in the Port Transport Industry, 1880–1970 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). Colin J. Davis, Waterfront Revolts: New York and London Dockworkers, 1946–61 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003). Raquel Varela, Hugh Murphy, and Marcel van der Linden, eds., Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Workers around the World: Case Studies 1950–2010 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017). 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 126

2022.07.30. 22:41:14

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

127

activism helped male strikers, claiming that “scholars continue to use the ‘public sphere’ as an approach for studying the family.” Indeed, he explains that “to understand the true causes of collective resistance among workers, it is necessary to use the ‘private sphere’ as an approach for studying the labour protests as well.”4 He argues that during periods of economic difficulty, households attempted to improve their position by promoting social movements such as aid societies, cooperatives, trade unions, political parties, or a combination of these organs. Van der Linden writes that “Global Labor History focuses on the transnational study of labor relations . . . that involve not only the individual worker, but also his or her family where applicable. Gender relations play an important part both within the family and in labor relations involving individual family members.”5 He analyzes the work of unpaid housewives and working-class labor as connected rather than separate phenomena. Women’s associations formed an important element of strategies to improve the conditions of working-class households and survive periods of labor unrest. Mary Eleanor Triece’s On the Picket Line: Strategies of Working Class Women During the Depression has proved influential for this study. Triece examines female auxiliary groups and women’s activism during strikes and periods of labor turmoil in the United States. She studied working-class women who challenged “ideologies associating women with domesticity” through activism during strikes. These working-class women engaged in sit-ins and demonstrations. Triece adopted a critical approach to her historical sources to demonstrate the rhetorical and propagandist arguments women speakers used.6 In the Italian context, Eloisa Betti reports that the UDI encouraged and managed women’s activities in support of the workers who were victims of lay-offs as a result of political discrimination and unfair dismissals in different cities, including Bologna, Terni, and Piombino. She also specifies that UDI’s women’s solidarity networks developed across regional borders to connect women involved in struggles in different towns.7 Considering the struggle of women workers in Italy, Betti shows the importance of studying the provision of childcare, nurseries, and short-term care for children during school holidays as a practice run for the struggle UDI women faced in the 1950s. This article, however, highlights a new issue in women’s 3

Marcel van der Linden, Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 6, 28, 36, and 195–96. 4 Marcel van der Linden and Lee Mitzman, “Connecting Household History and Labor History,” International Review of Social History 38, no. 1 (1993): 163. 5 Marcel van der Linden, “Globalizing Labour Historiography: The IISH Approach (2002),” 2, italics in the original. 6 Mary Eleanor Triece, On the Picket Line: Strategies of Working Class Women During the Depression (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007). 7 Eloisa Betti, “Forme di solidarietà al femminile a Bologna nel secondo Novecento: Ipotesi di ricerca sul ruolo delle donne dell’UDI,” in Le italiane a Bologna: Percorsi al femminile in 150 anni di storia unitaria, ed. Eloisa Betti and Fiorenza Tarozzi (Bologna: Socialmente, 2013), 227–34, here 230–31. 3

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 127

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

128

Marco Caligari

struggles: the way in which propaganda made use of the words of children and emphasized the importance of children’s solidarity. Many gender studies scholars claim that women’s organizations that existed in the 1940s and during the early second wave of feminism have not received enough scholarly attention. Women’s organizations were central to women’s activism during the Cold War period, and such organizations promoted women’s participation in politics. Chiara Bonfiglioli argues that the primary sources of women’s organizations help document the complexity of the Cold War period in ways that avoid the “categories of 1970s second-wave feminism” and instead reveal the existence of women’s international networks. Likewise, Eloisa Betti shows precisely that “in analyzing anti-communism and labor movement repression, a gender perspective has not yet been adopted, while an increasing number of studies have analyzed women’s role in Cold War Italy and beyond.”8 She explains that “the socio-cultural model still prevailing in the late 1940s and early 1950s—even in left-wing organizations—was that of the male breadwinner, according to which women’s wages were seen as secondary and complementary to those of their male counterparts.”9 In particular, she claims that in the 1950s, the sexual division of labor in working-class culture was closely related to childcare and housework. Indeed, in this decade, “Within the same left-wing parties and trade unions, the perspectives on women’s work were very heterogeneous. In more advanced organs, the views expressed by the leaders on . . . women’s emancipation and the problems of working women coexisted with much more backward points of view . . . of a more traditional . . . woman whose role was considered intrinsically linked to the tasks of care and the sphere of the family.”10 This essay is based on sources that include economic data, letters, newspaper articles, and discourses by and about women. This combination of sources is necessary because “in postwar Italy, thousands of women workers were not registered as such in census data because they did not fit the male-oriented definition of a full-time worker adopted by official statistics.”11 It also allows for a consideration of women’s subjectivity in relation to gender relations more broadly. Eloisa Betti, “Gendering Political Violence in Early Cold War Italy: The Case of Bologna,” in Violência política no século XX: Um balanço, ed. Pau Casanellas, Ana Sofia Ferreira, and João Madeira (Lisbon: IHC–Instituto de Historia Contemporanea: 2017), 673–83, here 674. 9 Eloisa Betti, “Making Working Women Visible in the 1950s Italian Labour Conflict: The Case of the Ducati Factory,” in Myndighet Og Medborgerskap: Festskrift til Gro Hagemann på 70-årsdagen 3. september 2015, ed. K. H. Nordberg, H. Roll-Hansen, E. Sandmo, and H. Sandvik (Oslo: Novus, 2015), 311–22, here 319, https://www.academia.edu/19746221/Making_working_women_visible_in_1950s_Italian_labour_conflict._The_case_of_the_Ducati_factory. 10 Eloisa Betti, “Donne e diritti del lavoro tra ricostruzione e anni ‘50: L’esperienza Bolognese,” in Luoghi d’Europa: Spazio, genere, memoria, ed. Maria Pia Casalena (Bologna: Edizioni Quaderni di Storicamente 2011), 92–105, here 92, https://www.academia.edu/2049291/Donne_e_diritti_del_lavoro_tra_ricostruzione_e_anni_50.,_L_esperienza_bolognese. 11 Eloisa Betti, “Gender and Precarious Labor in a Historical Perspective: Italian Women and Precarious Work Between Fordism and Post-Fordism,” in “Precarious Labor in Global Perspective,” ed. S. Mosoetsa, C. Tilly, and J. Stillermann, special issue, International Labor and Working-Class History 89 (2016), 62–83, here 69, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547915000356. 8

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 128

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

129

This study focuses mainly on the 1950s, when the dominant gender paradigm held that men and women belonged to opposite spheres: work and home, respectively. I also embed my empirical case study within the global debate on gender relations, notably with regard to women’s struggles in the most masculine of industries: mining.12 Other scholars have suggested an innovative gendered historical approach to the working-classes and women working in the mines, similar to the approach taken and conclusions made here. On the one hand, they argue that “by the First World War era, working-class communities and their labor movements around the world embraced or accepted one kind of dominance, the ideal of households headed by a male breadwinner”;13 but on the other, there is the assertion that “in the process of supporting men’s labor rights, women often came to contest the gendered rules for protest and question their own roles in unions, families, and communities.”14 In the scholarship on Italy, Alessandra Pescarolo’s essential work, Women’s Labor in Contemporary Italy, provides a long-term perspective on the hierarchical relationship between men and women. In particular, she argues that: “The value and visibility of women’s work between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are at the intersection of two powerful ideologies: the first, which is centuries old, is the patriarchal one, which locates the two sexes in a transparent way, placing men on the upper tier. The second is the theoretical framework of the modern political economy based on the idea of the market and the division of labor that was born in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century and slowly penetrated Italian culture. While it appears to ignore gender, the second actually reclassified the sphere of women in a new way.”15 In the national political context of the 1950s, Italy was dominated by the Christian Democrats, and Catholicism, “Americanism,” and anti-communism were central themes that contributed to the Cold War ideology prevailing in Italy at the time. Rosario Forlenza asserts that during the aftermath of World In regard to the male breadwinner family debate in the historiography, see Angélique Janssens, “The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Family? An Overview of the Debate,” Supplement, International Review of Social History 42 (1997), 1–23, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0020859000114774; S. Sen, “Gendered Exclusion: Domesticity and Dependence in Bengal,” International Review of Social History 42, S5 (1997), 65–86, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0020859000114798; Lina Gálvez-Muñoz, “Breadwinning Patterns and Family Exogenous Factors: Workers at the Tobacco Factory of Seville during the Industrialization Process, 1887– 1945,” International Review of Social History Supplements, S87–128, https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0020859000114804; Colin Creighton, “The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38, no. 2 (1996): 310–37, https://doi. org/10.1017/S0010417500020296. 13 Laurie Mercier and Jaclyn Gier, “Reconsidering Women and Gender in Mining,” History Compass 5 (2007): 1000, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00398.x. 14 Jaclyn J. Gier and Laurie Mercier, “Gender, Mining Communities, and Labor Protests, 1900– 1960,” in Mining Women, Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to 2005, ed. Jaclyn J. Gier and Laurie Mercier (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 172. 15 Alessandra Pescarolo, Il lavoro delle donne nell’Italia contemporanea (Rome: Viella, 2019). 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 129

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

130

Marco Caligari

War Two, “Catholic anti-communism moved in the public sphere as a model of cultural practices and pervaded political language.”16 In major cities, the political climate was characterized by the hostility of the police, with whom the strikers frequently clashed in the streets, and conflicts between different trade unions.17 In Genoa between 1948 and the summer of 1954, labor struggles were promoted by workers to resist the effects of industrial demobilization. Genoa was the most important Italian port in the twentieth century, and the Genoese ship-repair sector was the largest in Italy, attracting many ships. In Genoa, there were about 4,000 dockers in the 1950s under the supervision of the Unique Corporation among Workers of Various Goods (Compagnia Unica fra i Lavoratori delle Merci Varie, CULMV, hereafter referred to also as the dock or port workers’ cooperative); approximately 8,532 workers were employed in this sector, 2,651 of which were members of the ship repair workers cooperative, Compagnia Portuale del Ramo Industriale del porto di Genova, which had control over the hiring hall. In the aftermath of World War Two, the ship repair workers established their position as breadwinners and took action to defend the economic security of their families.18 The workers’ decisions were closely connected to their family arrangements, as demonstrated by the words of dock worker Giovanni Battista Bazurro: “The women manage the family economy. The port workers trust their wives, and the women felt pride in their men’s jobs. Sons already working in the harbors have to ask their mother’s permission to spend their money because in port workers’ families, money is family property. The dock workers’ families live nearby and in the same neighborhood.”19 The ship repair workers sought to pass their jobs down from father to son because they were pursuing collective family strategies; decisions taken by the workers were not individualist in nature. The Autonomous Port Consortium in Genoa (Consorzio Autonomo al Porto di Genova, CAP) was established in 1903 to regulate port activities and, in particular, the workforce. Furthermore, the CAP tried to change the rules of the hiring hall with the approval of the national government in order to limit political activism within the workplace, thereby fulfilling the request of Genoese companies to increase productivity in the ship building sector. However, these changes did not prevent labor unrest, and the strike of Genoese ship repair workers that lasted from January 20 to May 18, 1955, 120 days, was the longest running Italian waterfront strike in history.20 Indeed, the main factors that led to the strike ranged from the Rosario Forlenza, “The Enemy Within: Catholic Anti-Communism in Cold War Italy,” Past & Present 235, no. 1 (2017): 207–24, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtx016. 17 Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and politics (1943–1988) (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003), 183–84, 190, 191. 18 Giorgio Lombardi, La disciplina del lavoro portuale (Genoa: Bozzi, 1983), 41. 19 Elena Tramelli, Nero fumo: storie di camalli (Genoa: Sagep, 2003), 20, 44. 20 Marco Doria, “Les dockers de Genes: Le travail entre economie et politique de 1800 a la seconde guerre mondiale,” in Dockers de la Méditerranée à la mer du Nord: des quais et des hommes dans l'histoire, ed. Jean Domenichino, Jean-Marie Guillon and Robert Mencherini (La Calade Aix en 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 130

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

131

conditions of the labor market, political activism in the workplace, and the control exerted by trade unions over the recruitment of workers. Additionally, after World War Two, the Genoese port workers’ cooperative began organizing its struggle to control the labor market and prevent the political repression of communist and socialist port workers and their families. Support for the strike among other labor unions was far from unanimous. In fact, the strike by the Genoese ship repair workers received the official support of only the Italian General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, CGIL). The Italian Confederation of Labor Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, CISL),21 the Italian Labor Union (Unione Italiana Lavoro, UIL),22 and the Christian Associations of Italian Workers (Associazioni Cristiane dei Lavoratori Italiani, ACLI) all opposed the workers’ shutdown and boycotted their actions. The waterfront strike of 1955 initiated by the exclusively male ship repair workers lasted as long as it did thanks to the support provided by women’s associations. The Port Families Committee (Comitato Familiari Portuali), which brought together the female relatives of the ship repair workers, and the UDI were directly involved in organizing support; this enabled the strikers, the Italian trade union CGIL, and female relatives of ship repair workers to build important solidarity networks. At the center of this network was the UDI. As Eloisa Betti explains, “the UDI . . . developed in Rome after the liberation of the city from Nazi control in 1945 out of the merger with the Women’s Defense Group. . . . The UDI was a mass organization politically close to left-wing parties, e.g., the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) and the Italian Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI), that reached millions of Provence: EDISUD, 1999), 15–43; Marco Doria, “Genova: da polo del triangolo industriale a città in declino,” Atti della Società ligure di storia patria 37, no. 2 (1997): 369–408, http://www.rmoa. unina.it/5895; Elisabetta Tonizzi, Merci, strutture e lavoro nel porto di Genova tra ’800 e ’900 (Milan: F. Angeli, 2000); Elisabetta Tonizzi, Traffici e strutture del porto di Genova (1815–1950) (Genoa: Centro stampa del Consorzio Autonomo del Porto, 1989); Elisabetta Tonizzi, I numeri e la storia del porto di Genova (Genoa: Comune di Genova Unita Organizzativa Statistica, 2004); Elisabetta Tonizzi, “Il porto di Genova: 1861–1970,” Memoria e Ricerca, no. 11 (2002): 23–39; Marc BadiaMiró, “The Ports of Northern Chile: A Mining History in Long-run Perspective, 1880–2002,” in Making Global and Local Connections: Historical Perspectives on Ports, ed. Tapio Bergholm, Lewis R. Fischer, Elisabetta Tonizzi (Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2007), 153–70. 21 “The CISL had a membership of about 3 million. A little over 43 percent of its working members are in the private and public service sector but a significant proportion is also found in industry (36 percent) and agriculture (20 percent) [ . . . ] The CISL was founded in 1950 following the withdrawal from the CGIL of the Christian trade union element to the Christian Democratic party.” Istituto sindacale europeo and Giuseppe Fajertag, eds, The Trade Union Movement in Italy: CGIL-CISL-UIL (Brussels: European Trade Union Institute, 1987), 41. 22 “The UIL had about 1.35 million members. 45 percent of the working membership are in the administration and services sector and 37 percent in industry. [ . . . ] the UIL was created in 1950 as a trade union organization of workers whose political sympathies lay with social-democratic and republican parties.” Istituto sindacale europeo, and Fajertag, The Trade Union Movement in Italy: CGIL-CISL-UIL, 50.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 131

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

132

Marco Caligari

women in 1950.” In terms of its politics, this group “included both communist and socialist women, [and] had grown increasingly skeptical of Soviet hegemony since the beginning of the process of de-Stalinization,” while in terms of its membership, “in the late 1940s and early 1950s [it] had enrolled approximately one million across the country.”24 The UDI had a close relationship with the Communist and Socialist Parties: the communist activist Maria Maddalena Rossi was its president, and the socialist Rosa Fazio Longo served as secretary. The UDI also had a periodical entitled Noi Donne, an important forum for women’s debates on a variety of topics that represented a “material instrument for promoting the political literacy of Italian women in order to foster the circulation of women’s struggles.”25 At the opposite end of the political spectrum, Catholic women founded the Italian Women’s Center (Centro Italiano Femminile, CIF). 23

Solidarity Networks of the Women’s Auxiliary Women’s associations provided both material and moral support to the strikers. This section describes the harsh material conditions experienced by strikers. It then examines the local, national, and international contexts of the strike, focusing on the cross-border solidarity networks constructed by women. It shows how the exchanges promoted by women’s associations challenged the divisions between these three different spheres of action.26 The extensive social participation and material support provided by individuals other than those directly involved in the strike, namely by politically engaged women acting as female “auxiliary supporters,” allowed the strike to continue for as long as it did. In the end, what made this period of unrest so remarkable was not simply the length of the strike or trade union participation; it was the connections cultivated between the workplace and the private sphere; the links between the strike at the port and women’s reproductive labor. Eloisa Betti, “Unexpected Alliances: Italian Women’s Struggles for Equal Pay, 1940s–1960s,” in Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present, ed. Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 276–299, here 279, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004360433_013 24 Chiara Bonfiglioli, “Cold War Gendered Imaginaries of Citizenship and Transnational Women’s Activism: The Case of the Movie Die Windrose (1957),” in Gender and Citizenship in Historical and Transnational Perspective, ed. Anne R. Epstein and Rachel G. Fuchs (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 166–85, here 176, 178. 25 Caterina Liotti, Rosangela Pesenti, Angela Remaggi, and Delfina Tromboni, eds. Volevamo cambiare il mondo: memorie e storie delle donne dell’UDI in Emilia Romagna (Rome: Carocci, 2002), 15, 79. 26 Silke Neunsinger, “Translocal Activism and the Implementation of Equal Remuneration for Men and Women: The Case of the South African Textile Industry, 1980–1987,” International Review of Social History 64, no. 1 (2019): 37–72, doi: 10.1017/S0020859019000166. 23

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 132

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

133

During the strike, Genoese merchants reported that strikers were facing major financial hardships as suggested by the reduction in the amount of fish, meat, and milk they purchased.27 Articles in local newspapers also clearly show that those on strike were unable to pay rent and feed their hungry families. L’Unità, the Italian Communist Party newspaper, published articles describing the homes of the ship repair workers and analyzing the poor conditions in which they lived, both to underline the private dimension of the port workers’ lives and to evoke readers’ empathy for the strikers’ children. One article published in L’Unità reported, “thousands of families see misery coming into their homes.” Reporting the poor condition of the strikers’ homes was an important part of CGIL’s and the UDI’s political propaganda, and trade unionists demonstrated their strength by building efficient support networks through the mobilization of powerful discourses.28 CULMV worked to give the strikers supplies of pasta, bread, and oil twice a week because the managers of CULMV were active in asking the citizens of Genoa to show their solidarity with the strikers.29 Genoa’s CGIL chapter listed the amount of food received from other Italian cities starting at the beginning of the strike in January to April 17, 1955: “Bologna: 10,000 kilos of flour, Reggio Emilia 3,800 kilos of food, Milan: 1,500 kilos of food, Vercelli: 1,000 kilos of rice, Savona: 200 chocolate eggs, Modena: 300 kilos of flour, Pavia: 2,000 quintals of rice, Siena 1,120 kilos of pasta, [and] Alessandria: 400 kilos of pasta,”30 as well as supplies of food from other cities. The strikers were also given money by Italian dock workers based in Livorno, Venice, and Taranto.31 Additionally, within these busy support networks there were specific female support links, for example, the “Women’s committee” in the Province of Pisa. Generally speaking, the “women relatives of the ship repair workers’ committee” were at the center of the support network that aided the male strikers, and there were also certain families that helped the strikers’ children during this period of unrest. The women activists received economic aid from farmers, mutual-aid “Un comitato d’iniziativa fra gli esercenti della zona del porto,” L’Unità, February 9, 1955. For their part, during the period of unrest, the port workers and CGIL used words and images referencing the fascist regime such as “free labor market,” which alluded to Fascist control over workers and the Fascist trade union. At the same time, the memory of the antifascist resistance (1943–45) played a powerful role in the public discourses of CGIL and the Compagnia Portuale. Archivio storico della Confederazione generale italiana del lavoro (hereafter ASCGIL), “Il consolato ed il consiglio direttivo della compagnia portuale lavoratori ramo industriale,” Memoria dei rappresentanti dei lavoratori nella commissione per lo studio della riforma del regolamento di lavoro del Ramo Industriale del Porto di Genova, coop poligrafici, Genoa (November 1954). 29 The written memoirs of the President of CULMV Giovanni Agosti can be found in Tramella, Nero fumo, 116. 30 ASCGIL, File 25, 415. Genoa 17 April 1955, “Comunicato n. 2 sulla solidarietà nazionale a favore dei portuali genovesi in lotta da 90 giorni.” 31 ASCGIL, Letter from Giuseppe Di Vittorio to the secretary of the Genoa CGIL, May 26, 1955. “During my trip to Taranto, the dock workers gave me a bank check in the amount of 10,000 Lire to present to the strikers of Genoa.” 27 28

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 133

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

134

Marco Caligari

associations, nursery schools, and bakers. Strikers and their “women relatives” travelled to northern Italian cities to hold demonstrations and public meetings, and they received money and foodstuffs from other citizens or workers. Women took on temporary or part-time jobs outside the home as cleaners, laundry workers, and restaurant cooks during the strike. This choice was the result of the fall in the family income, and it was generally made both for financial reasons and to prevent the men on strike from feeling guilty. The women’s associations involved in international, national, and local solidarity networks campaigned for other cities and regions to send food and money to Genoa. Trade union sources and reports by the leaders of women’s associations indicate that the UDI developed the on-going process of building solidarity across different geographical areas. The 1955 ship repair workers strike was an internationally significant action in that an international network of workers demonstrated their solidarity with Genoese dock workers. Italian emigrants and US, French, and Swiss trade unions sent money.32 Beyond traditional labor institutions, the UDI tried to communicate the significance of this local struggle to women around the world in order to highlight women’s activism and the relevance of female support networks. The UDI was no stranger to international organizing; according to Eloisa Betti, the UDI took an international approach in promoting the “Campaign for Peace” during World War Two and promoted political and material support for a population suffering the effects of the conflict.33 The UDI planned to speak in support of the ship repair workers’ struggle against the free market at the international Meeting for Peace in Paris, framing it as similar to the political discrimination against CGIL workers. UDI representatives explained that the best way to support peace was for women in Genoa, Florence, and Emilia to hold demonstrations.34 This was part of an effort by the UDI to place the Genoese strike in the broader European context. In particular, as Maria Maddalena Rossi explained, “at the international summit of ‘Mothers for Peace,’ we will tell the story of our struggle in support of Genoese ship repair workers and other workers in Milan [and] Turin.” UDI activists deemed the “Genoa model” a noble example they could share with other women’s associations at the global and international level.35 Furthermore, the UDI argued that the Archivio Storico Centro Ligure di Storia Sociale a Genova (hereafter AStoCLSSGeG), Archive CGIL, Box “Misc. 36,” Letter from an “Italian emigrant” living in Winterthur (Switzerland) to the dock workers of Genoa, April 16, 1955. 33 Betti, “Forme di Solidarietà al femminile,” 227–34, https://www.academia.edu/3430546/ Le_italiane_a_Bologna._Percorsi_femminili_in_150_anni_di_storia_unitaria_a_cura_di_ Eloisa_Betti_e_Fiorenza_Tarozzi. 34 “In one area of Italy, Emilia Romagna, the Communists reigned supreme from the end of the war onwards. The ‘Red Belt’ of central Italy afforded the PCI a quite extraordinary degree of support when compared with the rest of the country. By November, the party had nearly half a million members in Emilia Romagna, 19.1 percent of the adult population, organized in 1,272 sections and 11,640 cells.” Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy, 200–201. 35 AStoCLSSGeG, Box Misc. 35, Public speech by Maria Maddalena Rossi, women’s committee leader, p. 3. 32

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 134

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

135

reason that the Genoese workers were able to keep up the labor unrest for so long was because of the material support of their wives, sisters, and mothers.36 The UDI had proven that women were able to take a stand during the unrest in a variety of ways and had played a vital role in supporting the strikers from 1949 to 1955 because the aim of the principal trade union (CGIL) and the port workers’ cooperatives was to mobilize all members of working-class families, not just male workers.37 The newfound power of the UDI was reflected in its successful organization of an important national meeting that brought together sixteen delegations from fourteen provinces and was attended by 169 women. Local UDI groups and other “auxiliaries’ committees” were part of a national women activists’ network in Italy. According to Bonfiglioli, “in a period of great conservatism, the UDI became an ‘amplifier’ of social struggles and worked in particular on behalf of the most highly exploited categories of female workers.”38 UDI solidarity networks acted to support different labor struggles, for example, in San Severo (Puglia), Polesine (Veneto), and Reggio Calabria. Women took advantage of an important opportunity for political debate at the meeting held in Ancona during the action taken by Cabernardi employees and the committees organized by the relatives of workers in other factories. The UDI promoted the formation of local “auxiliaries’ committees” in Grosseto39 and Cabernardi.40 The network of women included housewives, women factory workers, and women farmers. In the aftermath of World War Two, the UDI supported the formation of women’s committees in various areas (Tuscany, Sicily, and Emilia) and workers from different industries, for example, miners or factory workers.41 In Tuscany, for example, the UDI held public meetings with the wives of Genoese ship repair workers, women factory workers, and anti-fascist partisans. At the same time, they asked other women workers to donate food for the strikers’ families. The sources show that UDI leaders emphasized that the strikers were tireless in their efforts to collect money and food from other associations in Genoa and in Italy. Women activists wrote that it was their aim to “support men in the glorious and hard struggle” and stressed that the wives of ship repair workers “were following the example of the wives of the Ansaldo and S. Giorgio workers (Genoa), those in Reggiane (Reggio Emilia), [and] the miners of Ca’ Bernardi (Ancona) and Sulfurs (Sicily).” In this way, they demonstrated the geographical nature of support networks, where the example of the “women’s Archivio Centrale dell'Unione Donne Italiane (hereafter ACUDI), Box 50, file 444, subfile 7 “Letter from ‘Il Comitato direttivo dell’UDI.’” 37 ACUDI, Box 50, file 444, subfile 7, “Convegno delle familiari dei portuali—Genova 29.05.55.” 38 Chiara Bonfiglioli, “Revolutionary Networks: Women's Political and Social Activism in Cold War Italy and Yugoslavia (1945-1957)” (PhD dissertation, Utrecht University, 2012), 205–11. 39 ACUDI, Box 50, file 444, subfile 7, Relazione di apertura di Elia Monicelli—Mamme, mogli e sorelle, figlie dei lavoratori delle miniere e delle cave—II° convegno nazionale Gavorrano di Grosseto il 26 Febbraio 1956—a cura di UDI e sindacato dei minatori di Grosseto. 40 “Donne di Cabernardi, Onorevole Ada Natali,” Noi Donne, July 5, 1952, 27. 41 “L’appello alle Donne alle Italiane dall’incontro nazionale di Genova,” L’Unità, May 31, 1955. 36

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 135

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

136

Marco Caligari

auxiliaries” were reported throughout Italy. The women’s meeting of May 1955 included women from Reggio Emilia, Piedmont and Lombardy, other Italian ports, Tuscany, as well as the wives of the miners in Luni and the Veneto. The meeting that took place in Genoa in May was nationally relevant because some of the women’s associations supporting the miners’ strike had the opportunity to talk about the history of female struggle from their own perspective.42 In May 1955, a women’s network involving the wives of workers from different sectors (farmers, train workers, DUCATI factory workers) was established.43 Some of the women from Bologna travelled to Genoa to show their support and participate in public meetings.44 As Eloisa Betti showed, during this period, UDI activists encouraged women to get involved in different kinds of action to support the working-classes; in particular, she emphasized that the women promoted a kind of cooperative solidarity—a two-way process—both as UDI and PCI activists.45 Angela Polleri, a PCI and UDI activist, wrote, “thanks to the struggles at San Giorgio and Ilva, there was an opportunity to gain invaluable experience and, above all, to create a broad popular front . . . through the mobilization of women workers and housewives.”46 In 1950, the Ansaldo workers launched a seventy-two-day period of labor unrest, and the UDI held demonstrations attended by women in Voltri-Genoa. The UDI also organized a meeting and demonstration involving six thousand women in front of the Prefecture and ran a leaflet campaign that distributed “10,000 flyers inviting family members to promote 250 meetings of women and 600 meetings in apartment blocks.” Polleri explained that the Ansaldo women’s solidarity committee mobilized “8 committees on the quayside targeting port workers distributing leaflet-invitations for their wives . . . [and] 3,000 leaflets addressed to the wives of port workers.”47 In this way, the “women’s auxiliary groups” in Genoa tried to re-think the position of women in society, challenging the separation of the private and the public spheres. The “women relatives of the [ship] repair workers committee” followed the political example of other Genoese women’s auxiliary groups. In Genoa, the women relatives of the ship repair workers had the political and material support of the wives of workers in other factories in Genoa, For more on women’s activities in the mining communities, see Jaclyn J. Gier and Laurie Mercier, Mining Women: Gender in the Development of a Global Industry, 1670 to 2005 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). On the Grossetto community, see ACUDI, Box 50, file 444, subfile 7, Relazione di apertura di Elia Monicelli—Mamme, moglie sorelle, figlie dei lavoratori delle miniere e delle cave—II° convegno nazionale Garovanno di Grosseto il 26 Febbraio 1956—a cura di UDI e sindacato dei minatori di Grosseto. 43 AStoCLSSGeG, archive CGIL, Box 35, Letter from the CGIL women’s committee of Bologna to the CGIL women’s committee of Genoa, May 23, 1955. 44 AStoCLSSGeG, Fondo CGIL, Box 35, Letter from the CGIL women’s committee of Genoa to the CGIL women’s committee of Bologna, May 25, 1955. 45 Betti, “Forme di Solidarietà al femminile,” 230. 46 Angela Polleri, L’U.D.I. e la lotta all’Ansaldo di Genova (Rome: La stampa moderna, 1954), 4. 47 Ibid., 10–11. 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 136

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

137

for example, S. Giorgio, Ansaldo, Fossati, and Bruzzo, and in Liguria—ILVA of Savona, and the OTO of La Spezia. Triece shows that female auxiliaries transformed local communities in the United States, and this essay similarly demonstrates that the strikers’ women relatives committee tried to change life in the working-class neighborhoods of Genoa. At the same time, strikers’ families received money from other supportive groups, for example, from working-class women relatives in Sestri Levante (Genoa). With regard to women factory workers, on January 30, 1955, striking ship repair workers went to the Berruti plant in Molassana (Genoa) to “study the working conditions of the women in this factory and to defend their working rights.”48 On April 27, 1955, the ship repair workers had a second political meeting with the women dismissed by the factory managers for political reasons. An article published in L’Unità underlines the political relevance of the meeting with the women working in the Berruti and Edilit factories. In this case, the port workers sought to demonstrate that solidarity in Genoa was a two-way process, and the communist narrative underlined the activism of women workers in the factories and the gender composition of working-class meetings.49 Overall, the women’s auxiliaries emphasized that they were “well organized and provided extensive support in the form of publicity, picketing, and the collection of food and money for strikers.” Women travelled to other cities in Liguria to collect money donated in solidarity so the strikers could pay their rent and bills.50 In general, Genoese shopkeepers organized a “committee of solidarity” with the striking shipbuilders. “Before the period of unrest, the delicatessen Tagliavini earned £25,000 annually, but the shop’s income dropped to £5,000, £3,000 of which was credit owed to the shop by customers.”51 This indicates that the strikers’ consumption of meat had slumped, and they had begun to run up debts with local shopkeepers who extended them credit. A hair salon also showed their solidarity by donating their services to the strikers in support. UDI leaders underlined that “the family home became the hub of a network to provide support during this period of unrest.” The women involved tolerated hardship and took on heavy labor obligations so their husbands could strike without worrying; these women also backed this protest against the “open labor market.” For their part, female leaders of “auxiliary” groups proved that they had developed a new capacity to mobilize a movement of women and transform the home into a space where they could debate and organize protests by women. On the one hand, the different kinds of mutual-aid associations in Genoa fed the children and families of the striking ship repair workers. Women in other “Incontro con le lavoratrici a Molannana,” L’Unità, February 1, 1955. ACUDI, Box 50, file 444, subfile 7, Deplian invito a “24 MAGGIO 1955—Incontro nazionale delle donne in solidarietà dei portuali in lotta.” 50 AStoCLSSGeG, Box Misc. 35, Fondo CGIL, Public speech by Cini. 51 “Un comitato d’iniziativa fra gli esercenti della zona del porto,” L’Unità, February 12, 1955.

48

49

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 137

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

138

Marco Caligari

cities provided accommodation for thirty children from families involved in the strike. These children spent the mornings at nursery schools and at night slept in the homes of women activists. This arrangement allowed children to have a brief respite from the unrest that had engulfed their families’ lives,52 and in this specific situation, the actions of the women’s solidarity networks allowed some strikers’ wives to look for jobs. On the other hand, wives and sisters of striking men began to work outside the home to earn their own wages.53 At the same time, news of the strikers’ situation was communicated to families throughout Italy, who in turn responded by offering support. During the strike, the Italian Communist Party and the UDI leaders adopted language intended to highlight their empathy toward the strikers. For example, the children of Villa Perla stated: “when the breadwinner in a family doesn’t work, we know that the situation is very sad, and we all turn our thoughts to the Genoa ship repair workers’ children who are enduring substantial hardship together with their mothers. We, the children of Villa Perla, do not have a lot of money, but with this small amount we would like to ensure that the port workers’ children do not feel alone at this particular time.”54 This letter was part of the Communist Party’s strategy to make use of language to support a specific working-class struggle. In a similar way, UDI leaders tried to link children’s educational activities with the financial difficulties of the strikers’ children because, as the UDI leaders underlined, every dimension of private life became politicized during a period of unrest. Propaganda concerning children’s hunger was used by the PCI and UDI in other struggles, for example, during the S. Giorgio factory dispute, when “the workers’ children went to the factory managers’ homes to shout that they were hungry because their fathers were not being paid. Furthermore, during a public demonstration, the workers’ children started to cry, and consequently, their mothers, the ordinary people in the square, and some members of the flying squad were reduced to tears.”55 In a similar way, during the Ansaldo unrest, women workers went to the nursery schools to explain the reasons for the struggle and to ask the pupils for material support for the strikers’ children. The PCI, CGIL, and UDI reports all explained that events involving the strikers’ children and the use of such forms of propaganda positively impacted general attitudes toward the workers actions.56 From an analysis of the discussions that took place among the leaders of the women’s associations, women were seen as auxiliaries to their husbands as AStoCLSSGeG, Archive CGIL, Box 35, Letter from Gianna Beltramini (Savona female commission) to Genoa CGIL female commission, March 30, 1955. 53 “Lettera delle donne di Sestri spedite al comitato delle donne,” L’Unità, May 19, 1955. 54 “I bimbi di Villa Perla per i figli dei portuali,” L’Unità, February 18, 1955. 55 Secondo Pessi, La Lotta dei Lavoratori della S. Giorgio di Genova (Rome: 1955), 15. 56 Polleri, L’U.D.I. e la lotta all’Ansaldo di Genova, 1954. 52

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 138

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

139

“it was not possible to leave the man to struggle alone in defense of his job and his family.” Moreover, the UDI and PCI claimed that during periods of labor unrest, communist women had to be “on the picket line in front of the factories, at the edge of the paddies, on the wharfs, and in front of the mines,” to use the rhetorical words of working-class relatives in Sestri Levante.57 A CGIL unionist noted that the solidarity displayed by wives of the ship repair workers was very important and confirmed that “without the moral support of wives and mothers, the workers’ struggles would be unable to achieve their goal.”58 The women leaders talked about the “unconditional support of their women, who have been able to face increasingly heavy sacrifices to allow strikers to continue their labor agitation.” One of the central challenges for a strike of this length is maintaining strikers’ morale. Morale was raised by a focus on foreign trade unions and their declarations of solidarity and strikes in solidarity taking place at external production sites. The CGIL declared that the “final victory” was in sight thanks to the active participation of ship repair workers’ wives.59 The sources and the press from the period indicate that the Genoa strike publicly demonstrated the significance of “women’s auxiliary groups’” support for the male workers’ strike. On the theoretical level, this essay shows that women’s auxiliary groups accepted the economic challenges of the ship repair workers’ strike in order to support the fight against the free-market labor project. As we will see below, through their support for the strike, they also promoted women’s emancipation from the patriarchal society of mid-twentieth-century Italy.

Women’s Critical Discourses on Patriarchal Society Through an analysis of the autonomous actions of women and their public discourses, this section first illustrates women’s critical attitude toward men’s authority and privileges. Second, it examines the issue of women’s work; and finally, it adopts a gendered perspective in its re-reading of the historical sources to explain the reasons women wanted to change the ways in which they were represented. UDI leaders tried to put forward both a complex program and a number of different cultural campaigns to promote women’s emancipation in society and in working-class families. Generally speaking, the relevant international scholarship shows the division between the male breadwinner and unpaid female worker from a global perspective, with some interesting exceptions. During the ship repair workers’ strike, some women began working outside the home again, and UDI leaders “Le familiari delle donne riunite in un grande fronte,” L’Unità, May 19, 1955. AStoCLSSGeG, Archive CGIL, Box 35, Public discourse of Novella, National Committee CGIL. 59 AStoCLSSGeG, Box Misc. 35, Fondo CGIL, Public speech by Novella. 57 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 139

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

140

Marco Caligari

deployed rhetoric to emphasize women’s capacity to earn money to contribute to the working-class family’s home economy. The gendered nature of relationships in the private sphere was raised by Nilde Iotti during the UDI’s fourth congress (April 10–12, 1953), when she observed that “the man is the head of the household . . . and he teaches the woman the importance of obedience and resignation; he keeps the family in a conservative mode of thought.”60 The communist parliamentary party painted a realistic image of patriarchal ideology that characterized the private sphere of Italian families and gender relationships within the home. Moreover, through a critical analysis of the arguments of the UDI leaders, the ship repair workers’ wives appeared as subordinate figures within working-class families, where the relationship between the genders was characterized by the ancillary role of women, and the unpaid labor of cooking and childcare were exclusively female tasks. The women’s communities made use of women’s networks in Liguria and throughout Italy to obtain material support for strikers, thereby challenging the patriarchal placement of women inside the home. The language women leaders used in their discussions underlined their ability to use the men’s strike to help women participate in the public sphere and criticize patriarchal traditions in the private sphere of the Italian working class. The UDI reports stress that female auxiliaries were only the beginning of the “process of building a new woman” to supersede the patriarchal model and the traditional roles of women during this historical period. Regarding the cultural dimensions of the ideology of the male breadwinner, my findings agree with those of Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries: “female domesticity and a male breadwinner became not only an accepted image but also a symbol of working-class respectability.”61 Male port workers had typically been the sole breadwinners, but during the strike, the leaders of the women’s organizations emphasized the time men would be able to spend with their children. One leader of the “female relatives” committee told a touching story but advanced a political interpretation of this private episode: “I have witnessed some touching and sweet episodes, for example, husbands who cooked for or took care of their children because the women were active in the political committee.” This narrative shows how the “women’s committee” sought to challenge the traditional image of working-class masculinity; to achieve this aim, they painted an image of a ship repair worker occupied in a “task traditionally carried out by a mother Nilde Iotti, speech at the 4th Congress of Italian Women, in “La donna Italiana costruisce il suo avvenire,” op. cit, 198, quoted in Soggettività femminili in (un) movimento: Le donne dell’UDI; Storie, memorie, sguardi, ed. Vittorina Maestroni, and Angela Remaggi (Modena: Poligrafo Mucchi, 2001), 65. 61 Sara Horrel and Jane Humphries, “The Origins and Expansion of the Male Breadwinner Family: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Britain,” International Review of Social History 42 (1997): 25–64, here 51, doi: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44735320. 60

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 140

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

141

in the traditional patriarchal model of the Italian working class.” Using these strategies, women’s political discussions promoted new goals and identities for working-class women beyond strike relief and solidarity. In the 1950s, the UDI arranged different public meetings about the work of housewives to explain that housewives were workers. At the same time, women’s activism made the part-time, temporary, and casual jobs undertaken by women more visible. The sexual division of labor was a very complex issue, as Pescarolo writes; in some working-class families, “adequate resources for subsistence were met by male earnings, and the breadwinner chose to exploit the unpaid female housewife in order to have a well-organized and comfortable house, denying the woman any income from working in the factories or undertaking other paid work.”62 The UDI encouraged activism among strikers’ wives in different industries in Italy after World War Two, focusing on both the cultural and material spheres. Taking action in support of men struggling against their employers was a central dimension of the UDI’s political activism. The UDI invited all women to actively participate in these initiatives, breaking with the tradition that required women to remain at home. The UDI argued that housewives became part of the working-class movement through this activism, and it was the only way to pursue women’s emancipation. Through the political action of the port workers, wives tried to change gender relations within working-class families, and women’s leaders promoted women’s work and female activism outside the private sphere. At the same time, port workers’ wives started to work as fish-sellers, and men had to clean the house.63 Women leaders’ emphasis on work outside the home during the port workers strike was part of the UDI’s political program because, as its report claims, “the way to realize women’s emancipation is through the job: the old idea that women are made exclusively for the family and to be the angel of the hearth is rejected, as is the idea that extra-domestic work is considered unnatural and accepted only because of financial necessity.”64 Furthermore, the UDI’s contribution to the national debate argued that in Italy, “the custom and the laws in force do not consider housewives as workers, claiming that they are outside the production process.” Agostino Novella invited strikers’ wives to create networks with other women employed as factory workers and with farmers to promote the struggle for “social justice and bread.” He also argued that the activism of the port workers wives in solidarity with their husbands would be an opportunity to obtain new rights for women.65 Articles in the Communist newspaper L’Unità Pescarolo, Il lavoro delle donne. AStoCLSSGeG, Box Misc. 35, Fondo CGIL, Public speech by Cini, 2. 64 Unione Donne Italiane, Per l’emancipazione della donna una grande associazione autonoma e unitaria, Documento per la preparazione del VI Congresso Nazionale dell’UDI (Rome, 1959), 3. 65 AStoCLSSGeG, fondo CGIL, Public speech by Novella, CGIL National committee. 62 63

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 141

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

142

Marco Caligari

emphasized the political relevance of the housewives’ activism: “women have mobilized not as workers but as housewives with the aim of obtaining rights and emancipation. . . . The housewives’ activism decisively breaks with the isolation to which they are condemned by tradition and laws.”66 As we can see, in this L’Unità article, women’s support networks and the emancipation of the housewife were presented as two different manifestations of the same problem. In the discussions of the UDI in Genoa, housewives played an important role that was in line with the national UDI’s political plan. In fact, “the UDI focused more on the relationship between productive and reproductive labour, concentrating on themes such as work-family balance, social services, and the conditions and rights of housewives.”67 The leaders of the “ship builders’ women’s committee” explained that this experience sparked a new awareness of their own power in the public sphere and improved their skills in managing political organizations. Rossi underlined the effect of the ship repair workers’ strike on gender relationships: “In four months of struggle and sorrow, we had the satisfaction of overthrowing the male idea that a woman isn’t capable of having significant impact. We are happy because now our husbands show their admiration and respect for our capacity to build political associations.”68 The women’s struggle was directed at the shipowners, the CAP, and the government, but at the same time, their political arguments used language to change the male port workers’ way of thinking. In their discussions, women leaders claimed there was a chance to advance the politicization of un-paid work within the home and highlighted women’s abilities to initiate autono- mous debate and thereby change their self-image and goals. The various initiatives carried out by the port workers’ relatives reveal the significance of links they were making between the workplace and domestic life. For example, women arranged public demonstrations in front of local institutions, such as the municipality of Genoa and the police headquarters. As Betti explains, in the 1950s, “Communist and Socialist women, and their associations, were harshly repressed by the police as happened to the Union of Italian Women . . . which upheld women’s emancipation and defended the rights of female workers.”69 Housewives demanded meetings with public figures and institutions such as the CAP President and the Minister of Labor. The women declared that they sometimes clashed with the police; they stressed that their action was strategically important to support the morale and enthusiasm of the strikers.70 The UDI, for their part, painted the image of women activists displaying Agostino Novella, “L’esperienza della lotta delle donne genovesi,” L’Unità, June 2, 1955. Betti, “Unexpected Alliances,” 287. 68 AStoCLSSGeG, Box Misc. 35, Public speech by Maria Maddalena Rossi, women’s committee leader, 3. 69 Betti, “Gendering Political Violence in Early Cold War Italy,” 667. 70 ACUDI, Box 54, file 421, subfile 5. January 1955, Relazione di attività in direzione delle famigliari dei lavoratori. 66 67

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 142

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks

143

great bravery, using the caption “heroic women in support of heroic strikers” to illustrate the battle with the police rather than organizing “tea parties” like women’s auxiliaries did elsewhere.71 Writing to the President of the Republic, the “women relatives of the ship repair workers’” committee asserted their political power: “We women, have tried to talk to the public institutions. . . . We started our struggle forty days ago. We sought to highlight that we had gained political autonomy from the men during the period of unrest.”72

Conclusion: The Complex Relationship between Women’s “Auxiliary” Role and the Emancipation Process This essay has demonstrated the relevance of women’s activism in the private and public spheres during the ship repair workers’ strike in Genoa in 1955. It has shown that the ship repair workers in Genoa were able to strike for so long because the “women’s committee” arranged a network of material solidarity, thereby ensuring that children were fed and rents were paid. More generally, by analyzing the Genoese case, this essay has explained the significance of the links between the port and the household. It has shown that in the rhetoric used by the PCI and UDI in their communications, the hunger suffered by children became a strategic issue used to change management’s general attitudes toward the strikers. The workers’ decisions were closely linked to their family strategies. Women as mothers and sisters played an important role in the family, which had an impact on the male-only nature of the ship repair workers’ work. With reference to Marcel van der Linden’s theory, this article has illustrated how some workers’ wives exploited their husbands’ strike as a way to challenge the traditional image of women and advance critical discussion about the gendered divisions and hierarchies of industrial society. When women highlighted the ability of a ship repair worker to take care of his children or the ability of wives to engage in informal work outside their homes, they were attempting to challenge the male strikers’ vision of masculinity. The women leaders of organizations emphasized cases where women stepped outside the realm of caring, kitchens, and children. In particular, by presenting a critical analysis of the women leaders’ rhetoric, this Triece, On the Picket Line. AStoCLSSGeG, Fondo CGIL, Box. 35, Letter from “female relatives of ship repairing workers” to Luigi Einaudi, President of the Italian Republic, February 28, 1955.

71 72

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 143

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

144

Marco Caligari

essay argues that they emphasized women’s ability to arrange autonomous meetings and demonstrations. Regarding the scholarship on global labor, this article has also shown that during the 1950s, despite being labeled “auxiliaries,” women’s associations did not play a mere auxiliary role. In fact, this essay has demonstrated the way in which the strikers’ female relatives attempted to challenge the port workers’ masculine identity, and female auxiliary groups promoted autonomous solidarity networks. Moreover, UDI reports advanced the idea of promoting the emancipation of women through their employment outside the home. Women’s leaders challenged the traditional gender relationship by building new women’s networks and exchanges. The debts run up by strikers were a core dimension of the political debate that emerged around the labor unrest. By revealing the action taken by women activists who travelled from Genoa to other cities to raise support for the strikers, we can thus see the part they played and the role of their solidarity networks in sustaining the strike. As a result of their efforts, food and money were sent from cities around Italy to the Italian port, allowing the strikers to continue their struggle.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 144

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”: Resistance and Protest of Women Workers in the Greek Tobacco Industry, 1945–1970 Thanasis Betas

I

t is now routine to assert that historians have never prioritized the study of women’s labor protests. The new social history of the 1960s argued that the low levels of women’s union activity and their lower rates of political participation were a corollary of their occasional and temporary employment in the secondary sector of the economy.1 Alongside this, resistance in the workplace has traditionally been identified with union membership, overlooking other forms of women’s collective action. Since the 1970s, however, feminist historiography has highlighted the role of women in labor protest movements, identifying the special characteristics of female working culture (their participation in family or local networks) that help scholars better understand and interpret practices of protest and resistance.2 In the case of Greece, historians studying labor protests have almost exclusively focused on the history of unions and issues like trade union rights, collective bargaining, and state-level labor policy. Unions were considered to be the labor movement in its purist form.3 The rise of the labor movement was also associated with the development of the country’s economic structures. Studies in this area advanced the image of a trade union movement that was fragmented and manipulated by political parties, Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1964); Edward P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963). 2 Louise Tilly, “Paths of Proletarianization: Organization of Production, Sexual Division of Labour and Women’s Collective Action,” Signs 7, no. 2 (1981): 400–417; Alice Kessler-Harris, Gendering Labour History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 21–37. 3 Christos Gekinis, 1870–1987: Το εργατικό κίνημα στην Ελλάδα [1870–1987: The labor movement in Greece] (Athens: Galaios, 1987); Yiorgos Koukoules, “Η συνέχεια στην ιστορία ως τραγική επανάληψη: Η περίπτωση του ελληνικού συνδικαλιστικού κινήματος, 1936–1948,” in Η Ελλάδα 1936–1949: Από τη Δικτατορία στον Εμφύλιο: Τομές και συνέχειες [Continuity in history as tragic repetition: The case of the Greek trade union movement, 1936–1948, in Greece 1936–1949; From the Dictatorship to the Civil War], ed. Hagen Fleischer (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2003), 235–90. 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 145

2022.07.30. 22:41:15

146

Thanasis Betas

employer mechanisms, and state intervention4 and unions that were constructed and dominated by men. More recent studies have questioned this model; they analyze trade unions through the prism of economic structures, generally ignoring the broader social history of the trade union movement. These studies have instead suggested that unions be studied as an institutional and cultural collectivity—through public opinion and the public sphere of the workers—in order to provide more nuanced interpretations of their political actions. This approach argues that more attention should be paid to tracing the perceptions that helped bolster forms of defense used by workers against their employers. For example, it has been argued, at least during the first half of the twentieth century in Greece, that strikes were a response to an employer’s attempts to rearrange the division of labor in the workplace in opposition to the workers’ own views of how labor should be carried out. Workers were collectively shaped through their common cause. The power of trade unions was vital for advancing the labor cause, but the effectiveness of strikes depended on the organizational capacities of unions. Trade unions thus played an active role in workers’ lives.5 Despite the different theoretical starting points of the aforementioned approaches, it is clear that they share a common point. Women’s labor protests have overwhelmingly been approached as complementary to or associated with those of men, and it is perhaps for this reason that women’s protests have not formed a separate research topic in their own right. The low rate of female participation in trade union bodies and women’s reduced participation in organized labor activities—especially in the most classical form of strikes—have usually been seen as evidence of their limited participation in labor protests. The gender-based dimensions of trade union and collective action have mostly been overlooked by scholars. In the Greek case, scholars have claimed that women’s relatively brief employment in factories in combination with the young age of female workers had a negative effect on the growth and expression of female labor protests.6 Such an approach has recently been disputed, however, as new research based on various Petros Pizanias, “Ο κύκλος και το τετράγωνο: Σχετικά με τη διπλή ζωή της ιστορικής πραγματικότητας” [The cycle and the square: about the double life of historical reality], Ελληνική Επιθεώρηση Πολιτικής Επιστήμης [Greek review of political science] 7 (1996): 155–78. 5 Kostas Fountanopoulos, Εργασία και Eργατικό Kίνημα στη Θεσσαλονίκη, 1908–1936, Ηθική οικονομία και συλλογική δράση στο μεσοπόλεμο [Work and the labor movement in Salonica, 1908–1936: Moral economy and collective action in the middle-war period] (Athens: Nefeli, 2006), 293–96; Kostas Fountanopoulos, “Εργασία και εργατικό κίνημα στην Ελλάδα” [Work and the labor movement in Greece], in Ιστορία της Ελλάδας του 20ου αι: Ο Μεσοπόλεμος [The history of Greece in the twentieth century, 1922–1940: The interwar period], vol. B1, ed. Christos Hadziiossif (Athens: Vivliorama, 2002), 313–16. 6 Efi Avdela, Δημόσιοι Υπάλληλοι Γένους Θηλυκού: Καταμερισμός εργασίας κατά φύλα στον δημόσιο τομέα, 1908–1955 [Female public servants: The gendered division of labor in the public sector, 1908–1955] (Athens: Institute of Research and Education of the Commercial Bank of Greece, 1990), 41–42. 4

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 146

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

147

companies’ archives has shown that the employment of women in industry was not strictly short term; it could also be long term and occasionally recurrent. Female labor and participation in protests is, therefore, a more complex phenomenon.7 Furthermore, through the example of workers in the textile industry, Leda Papastefanaki highlighted the ways in which trade unionism was structured as male. She argues that the social division of labor between the sexes and the inequality of wages between men and women were taken for granted, and for this reason, women were left out of the scope of trade union action. When female textile industry workers went on strike, as Papastefanaki notes, they were described as having qualities usually attributed to soldiers and warriors (“militant,” “heroic,” etc.). In this way, such strikes were defined by gender-based motifs. Conversely, in the press organs of political parties, women workers were generally depicted as vulnerable to the aggressive male sexual advances of employers and foremen, revealing stereotypes that saturated the trade union discourse of socialists and communists during the interwar period.8 This paper investigates the Greek tobacco industry, which was dominated by female labor throughout the twentieth century. I examine the trade unionism, protest, and resistance of women workers between 1945 and 1970 through the example of one of the largest Greek cigarette companies, the Matsaggos tobacco company, which operated in the town of Volos. What caused the disputes between workers and management? Which factors determined the participation of women in the protest and which factors inhibited their involvement? Along with the “official” forms of protest, such as strikes or temporary work stoppages, were there any other informal forms of resistance against the coercive practices of the factory system? In short, how did women workers in the tobacco industry use protest as a means to pursue their demands, make claims, and settle disputes, and how were these incorporated and expressed within the specific climate of Greece after World War Two and the civil war, where state repression, unemployment, and the general decline of the labor movement made such activity difficult? The legal framework for labor protests and strikes in the first decade after the civil war was repressive.9 This political era was marked by repression and an Leda Papastefanaki, Εργασία, τεχνολογία και φύλο στην ελληνική βιομηχανία: Η κλωστοϋφαντουργία του Πειραιά, 1870–1940 [Labour, technology, and gender in Greek industry: The textile industry of Piraeus, 1870–1940] (Heraklion: Crete University Press, 2009), 373–81; Thanasis Betas, “Καπνοβιομηχανία Ματσάγγος εν Βόλω, 1918–1972: Εργασία και επιβίωση στον Βόλο” [The Matsaggos Cigarette Factory in Volos, 1918–1972: Labor and survival in Volos] (PhD diss., University of Thessaly, 2015), 236–49. 8 Papastefanaki, Εργασία, τεχνολογία και φύλο, 435. 9 On the issue of labor legislation, the institutional framework for trade unions, and the models of strike activity in Greece from the 1950s onward, see Thomas Gallant, “Collective Action and Atomistic Actors: Labor Unions, Strikes, and Crime in Greece in the Postwar Era,” in Greece Prepares for the Twenty-First Century, ed. D. Constas and T. G. Stavrou (Baltimore, 7

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 147

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

148

Thanasis Betas

authoritarian state, almost non-existent trade unionism, and unions’ dependence on the state and employers. Such phenomena can be observed in this period not only in Greece but also in neighboring countries such as Italy.10 The general economic features of the first post-civil war decade: rising unemployment, flexible working conditions (underemployment and dismissals), and the salary squeeze made it difficult for labor to express its demands and for unions to assert themselves. The restrictions on political and union rights were the main obstacles to labor protests.11 Against the backdrop of tight state control and an illiberal trade unionism, and under the threat of unemployment and dismissals, it was difficult for an organized and mass labor protest to arise. In Volos, too, there were very few strikes at the Matsaggos tobacco factory during this period. The limitations on political and trade union freedoms were, undeniably, an obstacle to labor protests. Those who opposed the predominant political ideology were either automatically excluded from the factory area or were forced to conceal their political beliefs. It is significant that in the early 1950s, the town’s Labor Center expelled communists from the local trade unions. However, it was not only the political conditions of the period that made the expression of labor protest more difficult. A series of other factors also contributed to this, such as mass unemployment, which was a blight on the town throughout the 1950s, flexible forms of work, and short-term work contracts. To understand the concept, forms, and methods of women’s labor protests in Greece in the 1950s, it is particularly useful to understand the nature of the workplace, factory, and the place where the production process took place, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 149–65. Gallant argues that the post-civil war state aimed to strictly control the trade unions through labor legislation. For an analytical presentation of the legal framework between 1945–1960, see George Panteloglou, “Η αποτυχία του εκδημοκρατισμού του ελληνικού συνδικαλιστικού κινήματος στη μεταπολεμική περίοδο και η θεσμοθέτηση των παρεμβάσεων: Το ελληνικό συνδικαλιστικό κίνημα στην περίοδο 1945–1960” [The failure of democratization of the Greek trade union movement in the postwar period and the institutionalization of interventions: The Greek trade union movement in the period 1945–1960], in Η ελληνική οικονομία κατά τη πρώτη μεταπολεμική περίοδο (1945–1967) [The Greek economy during the first postwar period, 1945–1967], vol. 1 (Athens: Instituto Saki Karagiorga, 1994), 519–39. 10 Charles Tilly and Chris Tilly, for instance, mention that although strikes took place in neighboring Italy in the 1950s, they were relatively small scale and rare until the early 1960s. This strike action was invariably repressed by anti-labor governments and by factors such as unemployment. Charles Tilly and Chris Tilly, Η εργασία στον καπιταλισμό [Work under capitalism], trans. T. Athanasopoulos (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2001), 357–64. C. Sabel, when examining postwar Italy, argues that state repression, unemployment, and the decline of the labor movement made labor protests difficult and points out that at least 2,000 workers were fired by the FIAT car company for political reasons in the early 1950s. Charles Sabel, Work and Politics: The Division of Labour in Industry (London: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 146–48. 11 Elias Nikolakopoulos, Η καχεκτική δημοκρατία: Κόμματα και εκλογές, 1946–1967 [The peaky democracy: Parties and elections, 1946–1967] (Athens: Pataki, 2000), 180–81.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 148

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

149

the special relations built there, and their interconnection with other dimensions of the social life of female workers beyond the workplace. The “voices” of women, which are often difficult to detect, and their personal testimonies give us some insight into their own opinions on the questions that guide this study. To examine these issues, I have selected directly relevant material from the Matsaggos cigarette factory archive: staff records, personnel register cards, labor union records, and photographs and oral testimonies. This article is divided into two parts: in the first part, Ι investigate the geography and structure of labor in the Matsaggos factory as well as the family profiles of the female workers. In the second part, which is more extensive, I turn my attention to aspects of women’s labor protests within the climate of authoritarianism and unemployment in the 1950s. I note the characteristics of the phenomenon during the “short” 1960s, and, finally, I explore aspects of the “other” resistance, that is, the informal and “unofficial” forms through which female labor protests were manifested and expressed.

The Geography and Structure of Labor In the tobacco industry, and more specifically in those sections of the industry staffed mainly by women—packing, boxing, and packaging—jobs were performed in almost the exact same way for many decades. When new machinery was introduced, women workers were fired and there was little new hiring. However, the “domination” of manual labor by female workers was undeniable, and the production process depended on these workers. For this reason, the need to improve and control their productivity was one of the company’s primary concerns. The different workshops in the Matsaggos factory, as in any factory anywhere, were created according to the nature of the work and the needs of the production process: as seen in the photographs, the workshops were open, without internal partitions, and the production process took place on all floors of the factory. There were large halls with undivided, spacious areas where workbenches, machinery, and people could be installed. It could be argued that the architectural spaces were adapted to the needs of the production cycle, which then demarcated the space. However, in some cases, these spaces appear cramped, with large groups of female workers seated a few meters apart, in the order of their position in the assembly line, each worker next to or behind another. The photographs that depict this situation in the packing and boxing departments are typical of the factory as a whole. There, under the watchful eyes of their supervisors, who can be seen in the photographs standing directly opposite the line, supervising workers, female employees would repeat their monotonous actions. Thus, a basic factor that shaped the geography of the Matsaggos factory, the distribution of the workers within it, and the organization of production,

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 149

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

150

Thanasis Betas

was the need to supervise and control the labor force. Foucault has maintained that the principle of “individualistic policing” prevails within factories, whereby individuals are distributed within the space in such a way that they can be isolated, tracked, and evaluated. But this distribution must also be adjusted to a system of production that has its own needs. This means that the contribution of bodies and the spatial arrangement of the production system must be linked to the various types of activity that take place within such a distribution of positions.12 The organization of the work in the Matsaggos cigarette factory appears to have been subject to this principle. We can take a walk through these workplaces in our imagination—via photographs—and bearing in mind the employee records that documented the employees during their time in the factory, we can “feel” the supervision hovering in the background. Supervisors constantly checked the presence and performance of women workers and the quality of their work. They compared them, classified them according to their skills and speed, and watched over successive stages of production. The large, open spaces and the visibility they enabled between supervisors and female workers within the space of production imposed discipline and focus on the work. In other words, the exercise of discipline presupposes a mechanism “that forces even at a first glance.”13 The gaze of the supervisors in the factory pervades the spaces of production and allows them to keep watch even when they are not directly observing. Supervision and discipline were impressed on the memories of many female workers. The testimony of Georgia Dimitriou, a woman worker at Matsaggos from 1924 to 1966, is characteristic: “The supervisors were the ‘policemen’ of the factory. They recorded attendances, they checked the packs and the daily output of each female worker . . . those who didn’t produce work and extra output were sent away first . . . We were transferred to wherever there was work.”14 Kassiani Georgoula, who worked in the tobacco factories of Volos from 1948 to 1969, reports that the supervisors’ surveillance was not confined to control of production but extended to other areas as well: “In the factory, we were searched each time we left the building . . . in case we stole cigarettes. . . . The men could smoke as much as they wanted, but the women were forbidden to smoke. . . . We were told not to provoke with our behavior.”15 Kassiani also recalled: “We had a supervisor who was the ‘policeman’ of the bosses. . . . He used to scold us and call us names. . . . I myself had red cheeks and because of that, he shouted at me and told me off and said that I should not put makeup on. . . . In general, Michelle Foucault, Επιτήρηση και τιμωρία: Η γέννηση της φυλακής [Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison], trans. Keti Chatzidimou (Athens: Kedros, 2008), 192. 13 Foucault, Επιτήρηση και τιμωρία, 228. 14 Georgia Dimitriou, Interview, 14/5/2001, Audiovisual Testimonies Archive, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Collection S0001. 15 Kassiani Georgoula, Interview, 29/5/2001, Audiovisual Testimonies Archive, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Collection S0001. 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 150

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

151

the supervisors made us sweat our guts out. . . . If we made a mistake in our work, they fined us . . . took deductions from our salary.”16 The feelings of discontent captured in the above narratives that are a product of the lived experience of the work or, more correctly, of the mechanisms of memory through which the lived experiences emerged, paint a picture that is the exact opposite of the scene shown in the photographs which depict female workers in their place of work. The lack of spontaneity in the photographs can easily be observed as they were the result of a premeditated procedure through which the company apparently sought to demonstrate the perfect organization of the production process and, at the same time, show how content the workers were because they were participating in it. However, this satisfaction probably applied, at least up to a point, only to fast packers who, thanks to the skill required to perform their work, seem to have acquired prestige among the women workers and higher remuneration as well. Perhaps this gave them the sense of contentment that seems to be reflected in the photographs. Additionally, in the accounts of the female workers, we can see that women were proud of their skills and their “swiftness,” strength, and efficiency in the workplace.17 On the one hand, then, the geography of the factory and the distribution of bodies within it aimed at supervision, provoking female workers to protest. Yet, on the other hand, their direct contact with each other and the close proximity of their bodies helped create an atmosphere that boosted their sense of being part of a collective and their understanding of shared challenges. At the same time, young female workers’ belief in their ability to perform their work quickly boosted their confidence, which in turn strengthened their resolve to fight and resist the oppression of the factory system of production. Many of them fought not only for themselves but also “for their children and their families.” The following section provides an analysis of the family profiles of the women workers to understand who they were and what motivated them to adopt this family-centered rhetorical stance.

THE FAMILY PROFILE OF WOMEN WORKERS Figure 6.1 shows that almost half the women were married (39 percent), while a very small group were divorced (1 percent), and a slightly larger percentage (9 percent) were widows. The high rate of married women in the factory is evidence that, to a great extent, women did not leave the factory after marriage; on the contrary, they continued to work there. The equally high rate of unmarried Ibid. On the pride that female workers felt for the quality of their work, see Patricia Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900–1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 68–69.

16 17

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 151

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

152

Thanasis Betas

women (50 percent) includes those young women who were hired temporarily by the factory, for example, when the company needed more workers to deal with seasonal production increases. Some of those young women subsequently remained on as permanent employees in the factory. Figure 6.1. Marital status of 2,111 women workers in the Matsaggos factory in the postwar era (percent). Source: Matsaggos Archive, Personnel Register Cards.

In the company’s employee records, the female workers were asked about their “family burdens.” Their responses included discussion of people beyond their husband and children who were part of their extended family, such as grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, and nephews who, it seems, depended on them emotionally and financially. In Table 6.2, we can see the “family burdens” of female workers in relation to their family status. Although this data is indicative, it allows us to make some general assumptions about aspects of female workers’ family profiles. Table 6.1 shows that a large percentage of the women appeared to have “family burdens” and increased family obligations. It is characteristic that a large number (37 percent) of even unmarried women workers declared they had “family burdens.” Even larger shares of other categories of women, married, divorced, and widowed: 61 percent, 100 percent, and 77 percent, respectively, indicated their family responsibilities. The co-existence of paid labor and “family burdens” resulting from the extended-family household was due mainly to financial constraints, but this was not the only reason. We can assume that there were other factors relating to cultural values and role models. Young, unmarried female workers whose parental home was in Volos rarely left the city to find work. They remained in their parental home until marriage for financial reasons—to assemble their dowry—but also for moral reasons: the idea of a young woman leaving her family home could be considered an offense against the family’s honor. In this way, the working classes’ unfavorable situation resulting from the lack of a cohesive social

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 152

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

153

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

policy and strong welfare state may have been “counterbalanced” up to a point by family bonds and the values that prevailed in Greek society during this era. Additionally, members of the same family worked together in the factory: 167 families that had multiple members working in the tobacco factory at the same time have been identified in the Matsaggos Archive. Digging deeper into this data, there were around sixty-seven married couples, twenty-nine cases of parents and children (the most common combination was mother and daughter), and seventy-three cases where two or more sisters were employed together in the factory. There is no specific timeframe during which it was more common to see members of the same family working together in the factory; the cases are dispersed throughout the period of its operation. Table 6.1. Family burdens by marital status of women workers in the Matsaggos tobacco factory in the postwar era (percent) Family burdens

Marital status (percent)

Children

Unmarried

Married

Divorced

Widows

up to 2

1

38

72

43

up to 3

0

9

4

14

more than 3

0

5

4

11

Parents

14

7

20

Parents and brothers/ sisters

14

1

0

0

Brothers/sisters

3

1

0

0

Other relatives

1

None

67

0 39

8

1

0 0

23

Source: Matsaggos Archive, Employee Records, sample of 2,111 female workers. Table 6.2. Family labor force in the Matsaggos tobacco factory during the postwar era Form of kinship

Number of families

Spouses

65

Parents-children

29

Brothers/sisters

73

Total

167

Source: Matsaggos Archive, Employee Records.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 153

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

154

Thanasis Betas

Given all the above, we could say that low wages combined with the absence of a housing policy appear to have often forced members of working families to live under the same roof in order to survive. This means that married couples lived in the parental home (which was most often intended as a dowry for the daughter), while those who were unmarried mostly continued to live in their childhood homes until marriage. The income from various sources that came into the extended family household could therefore ensure its survival. When this situation was threatened by one family member’s (potential) job loss, this provided a powerful incentive for female workers to protest, and the women workers in the Matsaggos factory were heavily involved in such actions.

The Factory Struggle The main demand of workers’ strikes in Greece after the war was increased pay. Their demands can be summarized in two words: bread and survival, or food and wages. They demanded wages that would keep up with increased food prices so they could meet their basic dietary needs. The first strike by male and female workers at the Matsaggos factory in the postwar era broke out in January 1946. The strike lasted for two days, and the primary demand was similar to that of workers agitating in other sectors: the indexing of wages, that is, for wages to correspond to increases in the cost of living. A month later, in February 1946, the employees went on another two-day strike, again with the same demands. At the same time, a very specific set of demands was made solely by the female workers which concerned the terms and conditions of their employment. Women aggressively participated in the strikes, and the female workers at Matsaggos, along with those in the textile factories of Volos, put forward common demands: equal wages (to men) for equal work; better working conditions; three months off with full pay for women who give birth; the creation of a childcare center; free healthcare, and paid sick leave.18 After the war, most workers at the cigarette factory in Volos were women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. The figure of the young female worker seems to have dominated both this factory and the other factories that operated in the city. The article by the weaver Eftichia Sarantis entitled “The Workers of Volos” published in the local newspaper Anagennisi (Renaissance) in March 1946 confirms the overwhelming numerical presence of young women in the city’s factories in the postwar period, while at the same time highlighting the dynamic, militant voice of some of these women. By dissecting the unhealthy working conditions in which women in the textile and tobacco sectors worked, Sarantis eloquently underlined the demands of the workers and their families: Anagennisi, February 10, 1946.

18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 154

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

155

The female workers of our city, young women 20–25 years old, are the most vibrant part of our city. . . . Inside the factories, workers still function in unsanitary conditions. The combination of dust and humidity has left all the workers cachectic. . . . Pregnant women work until their final hour—no care, no welfare. The children are left on the streets all day long. The workers of Volos are determined to achieve their just demands. We should not have seen the torment of the mother who is required to work and does not know where to leave her children.19

Their demands were not met, however, and the outbreak of the Civil War in Greece just a few months later and its final outcome ushered in a completely different labor relations environment.20 Yet, the above description gives us insight both into the working conditions of women in Volos factories in the immediate postwar period and the prevailing social conditions for working families outside the production sector. The absence of a welfare state in postwar Greece and the lack of care provisions to meet the needs of working women and working families are all detailed by Sarantis. These conditions would continue to afflict the working classes of Greece for at least the next two decades. Apart from the deficiencies of the state apparatus in the postwar era, the demands made by protesting workers show that women sought to assert their right to work first and foremost. They wanted their jobs to be permanent rather than casual. This can be seen in the fact that their demands focused mainly on the issue of motherhood: working women demanded the implementation of welfare measures that would allow them to remain employed for wages outside the home even after having children. Their demands were economic: equal pay for equal work, but they were not limited to economic factors. They emphatically called for welfare measures for pregnant women and working mothers. They fought for the creation of welfare structures so women would be able to cope with their complex role as mother and worker so children are not “left on the Anagennisi, March 8, 1946. With the “Third Resolution” (concerning emergency measures for public order and security) passed on 18/6/1946, left-wing trade union activity was subject to repression. In 1946–47, the authorities gradually forced the closure of all leftist publications. In April 1948, during the 9th Conference of the General Confederation of Greek Workers, those trade unions that were considered unwelcome were expelled, namely those accused of having “communist goals.” Between 1948 and 1950, against the backdrop of the Marshall Plan, workers’ organizations were asked to avoid calling for wage increases. The practice of collective bargaining did not exist. However, the problems for labor became worse as attempts to control prices failed, and there was also a sudden rise in the cost of living. For the issue of the trade unions during the Greek Civil War, see Kostis Karpozilos, “Συνδικάτα και πολιτική στην Ελλάδα του Εμφυλίου” [Trade unions and politics in the civil war in Greece], in Ιστορία της Ελλάδας του 20ού αιώνα: Ανασυγκρότηση, Εμφύλιος, Παλινόρθωση 1945–1952 [The history of Greece in the twentieth century: Reconstruction, civil war, restoration 1945–1952], vol. D1, ed. Christos Hadziiossif (Athens: Vivliorama, 2009), 63–97.

19 20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 155

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

156

Thanasis Betas

streets all day long.” If, as it has been argued, during the interwar period, female workers’ youth and their relatively short time in the factory—until marriage— meant that they were mostly not organized and rarely made collective demands, “leaving” the demands for the implementation of the law or for equal wages to the men and labor organizations, left-wing parties, and, especially, the feminists of the day,21 in the immediate postwar period, women workers wanted to express themselves. In brief, not only did women workers’ demands in the late 1940s and early 1950s vary to some extent from those of the prewar period, they were now expressed by the working women themselves. And these were demands that, at least in terms of welfare provisions for themselves and their families, were being made for the very first time. The strikes that broke out at the Matsaggos tobacco factory in the 1950s were limited both in their number and duration. It was more common for the trade unions at the factory to threaten to go on strike, although these strikes never actually took place. The decision about whether to strike seems to have been completely dependent on the Workers’ Center of Volos and the General Confederation of Greek Workers. For example, on April 11, 1952, the first general strike organized by the Workers’ Center of Volos took place. This was more of a protest against the state over the economic decline of the city and the closure of its factories. The main demand was to reopen the factories and provide financial support to the companies in the city so that jobs could be protected. Workers at the Matsaggos factory, both men and women, also participated in the strike. The tobacco industry in the early 1950s lobbied the government for financial support so it could continue to operate. This could be considered a kind of directed trade unionism that was tolerated as long as it adhered to the collective consensus for local development and, thus, could be considered “legal.” In the late 1950s, the factory faced serious problems that threatened its survival, and the number of workers, particularly women, dismissed from their jobs increased dramatically. In the first decade after the civil war, the labor market that was emerging in Volos was marked by an uncontrollable rise in unemployment. Especially in the second half of the 1950s, when industry in the city began to decline, dismissing workers became an established policy among all Matsaggos’s managers, resulting in the company’s gradual shrinkage. In the post-civil war era, new terms came to dominate the rhetoric of the company to justify the dismissal of “redundant” personnel: “indiscipline,” “disrespect,” and “undignified conduct” accompanied the concept of “inadequacy.”22 These concepts were totally “harmonized” with Avdela, Δημόσιοι Υπάλληλοι Γένους Θηλυκού, 39–41. The relevant evidence that I found in the Matsaggos factory records shows that, from 1950 and later, these descriptions were the ones most commonly used to justify dismissals. For example, for those dismissed in 1950, the wording “he/she was insufficient and inadequate, undisciplined and with undignified conduct,” which the company used to justify their removal from the workplace,

21 22

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 156

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

157

the general political and social climate of the authoritarian post-civil war state. It could be argued that they are metonyms of behaviors that characterized the broader political conflict in Greek society, but, of course, they could not be described as such because, technically at least, the regime was democratic. These characterizations, which were the most common reasons cited for dismissal at Matsaggos during the first two postwar decades, were supplemented with new terms in the late 1960s, i.e., the period of the colonels’ junta. In other words, political reasons were also the cause or simply the excuse for the dismissal of some workers after the April 1967 coup d’état. In other instances, dismissals were considered a compelling factor in or condition of the “salvation” of the factory and its continued operation. In these cases, any clarification of and explanation for mass dismissals were deemed unnecessary despite the cynical way managers informed “regular” workers, especially female workers, of their dismissal, which sometimes caused tension and incidents in the workplace. For example, in December 1950, the employment contract of a worker named Μaria Μaroudaki was terminated. She had been a blend worker at the Matsaggos factory since 1947, and although she was unmarried, she had family responsibilities—a mother and a sister—mentioned on her individual register card. She was a resident of Agii Anargiri, an impoverished area in the west of the city.23 The directors of the factory stated that the reason for her dismissal was her well-known disrespect toward superiors, her neglect of work, and the fact that “she insulted other female workers, she was not careful in her work, and her productivity was low.” These behaviors justified the accusation of “indiscipline” lodged against her by the directors. The answer she gave when asked to explain her low productivity was considered to be the “height” of her “undisciplined” and “insolent” behavior: “I work as much as I can, and besides, I work as much as you pay me.”24 The case of Maria is an example of the resistance of women workers against the Matsaggos company. The phenomenon of mass firings at the Matsaggos factory throughout the 1950s negatively affected the rise of labor protests and union activity in general. However, it seems that sometimes dismissals were what led the employees to unite. The fear of being laid off fostered a growth in feelings of solidarity and mutual assistance that were expressed in different ways, from the simple disapproval of the employers to withholding labor and strikes. In May 1952, workers at Matsaggos threatened to strike in response to a round of layoffs. The union’s administration threatened a permanent strike if their colleagues were not rehired. The previous day, eighty-four workers, both men and women, were laid off. This triggered a reaction among the employees is almost commonplace. Matsaggos Archive, File: Various materials about dismissals in the 1950s Matsaggos Archive, Personnel Register Card of Μaria Μaroudaki. 24 Matsaggos Archive, Termination of Employment Contract, 10/12/1950. 23

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 157

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

158

Thanasis Betas

and led the union to call an extraordinary general assembly. In a spirit of unusual determination and militancy on the part of both male and female workers, the workers requested that a strike be declared not just in support of the dismissed workers but also as an expression of disapproval toward the employers.25 The secretary of the Union of Male and Female Workers of Matsaggos claimed that the employees’ dismissals were a manifestation of the terrorism committed by the management against workers and union administrators. He accused the factory management of imposing a terroristic system on workers that was carried out by factory supervisors and also asserted that the imposition of fines on employees were a form of plundering that targeted the paltry wages of workers.26 He then addressed two additional issues that concerned Matsaggos employees: unsanitary working conditions and the violation of the eight-hour workday. He noted that it was common practice for supervisors to encroach on the eight-hour workday and threaten workers with dismissal if they complained. The secretary criticized the role of the supervisors and the department heads and noted that they were coercing workers to work beyond the terms laid out in their contracts. The union’s treasurer, a woman worker, argued that dismissal was a matter of life or death for all the employees. She then addressed just the female workers: “We will not let anyone be dismissed. We will either all live together or all die of hunger together.”27 Unsanitary working conditions, the violation of the eight-hour workday, and, of course, the mass dismissals together with the permanent issue of low wages were the most important problems that preoccupied Matsaggos workers. But did they concern all male and female workers to the same extent and in the same way? Why did the treasurer address women only? It seems that some workers were “afflicted” by these problems to a greater extent than others and in different ways. One tactic used by the company was firing a number of employees from different departments to reduce the costs of production; but at the same time, it attempted to increase production of women workers through the introduction of remuneration per piece. This combination of dismissal and heightened tension was present in the factory throughout the 1950s. Male and female workers “answered” this with work stoppages as a sign of protest against the management. Their fixed demand was that the remuneration of all workers be increased by 30 percent. According to union officials, the raise should be given not only to those who were paid a wage but also to women workers who were remunerated “by the piece.” The workers also requested the provision of an unsanitary work allowance and the provision of free bread. However, two years after making these demands, it appears that none of them were met. Tachydromos, May 10, 1952. Ibid. 27 Ibid. 25 26

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 158

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

159

During one of the general meetings of employees in August 1954 in which one thousand men and women workers participated, the treasurer noted that the company was seeking to increase production, while at the same time, it intended to reduce the number of employees.28 She once more addressed only the female workers, underlining that the tension was mainly related to work performed by women. The treasurer argued that all the women employed in departments that paid by the piece must be given regular work, in this way protecting those the company was threatening to fire.29 She also claimed that the company terrorized the women workers through supervisors, whose number had grown from no more than twenty in the whole factory to eighty. Finally, she called on the women to fight “in order to safeguard the lives of our children and our families.”30 The women workers participated en masse in the general assemblies of the Matsaggos Male and Female Workers’ Union. Their dynamic presence alongside male workers seems to have been a matter of concern for both the company’s management and the local government of Volos. This could explain the attempt to create a second union, which the existing union argued served the interests of the company and the Volos Labor Center (Εργατικό Κέντρο Βόλου, VLC). The treasurer of the Matsaggos Male and Female Workers’ Union reported in August 1954: “The VLC is not interested in the workers. We need to be united in order to improve our working conditions. The establishment of the Matsaggos Tobacco Industry Employees Union (Επιτροπή Εργαζομένων Καπνοβιομηχανίας Ματσάγγου) is intentional.”31 Besides official trade unionism as manifested in the administration of the unions, the Labor Center, and the General Confederation of Greek Workers, we can also distinguish the voices of women workers who directly expressed their dissatisfaction to the factory management. For example, at noon on August 13, the chairman of the VLC had gone to the factory’s restaurant while workers were eating in order to speak to them. The workers vigorously reacted to his presence: “We were banging the forks on the tables, shouting . . . we did not give him any time to speak. . . . He was sent away by the workers. . . . He would think twice before visiting the factory again.”32 Some workers accused the VLC’s president of being a “traitor of the working class and labor union leaders . . . a president of the employers and not the workers.”33 This incident largely reflects the more general dissatisfaction of the workers beyond the official reasons given by the labor union’s leadership. Tachydromos, August 18, 1954. Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Thessalia, August 16, 1954. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 28 29

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 159

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

160

Thanasis Betas

Over the next few years, and until the beginning of the 1960s, the working conditions in the factory do not seem to have changed. Low wages, supervisors’ arbitrary behavior, non-existent labor regulations, large fines, intensive labor, undeserved and hidden payments, changes in the positions of the benefactors: all these were denounced in 1959; but this time, it was not by the official union of workers but by an unofficial workers’ committee. It is not clear when exactly this committee was created or who belonged to it. The only proof of its existence are a few copies of a notice found in the archives of the VLC. In the notice, the committee addressed both male and female workers and invited them to resist abuse from their employers, stressing that work had been double loaded onto workers through staff reductions and increased consumption while at the same time denouncing the attitude of the union for its mockery and indifference to labor-related problems. In order to resolve these issues, the committee noted the need for unity and action in the fight for workers’ rights and the holding of a general assembly.34 In July of the same year, forty-six Matsaggos employees wrote a letter to the VLC denouncing it for its decision to forego a general assembly at a time when the factory’s problems had produced a management regime that was even more repressive than ever before and which included increased pressure for ever-more exhausting work, staff rearrangement through transfers, hidden payments, and psychological pressure exerted on the employees in various ways.35 It is also not clear what the connection was between the aforementioned committee and the forty-six workers who wrote the letter. It seems obvious that they were related, although nothing excludes the possibility that they were totally different groups of people. However, both cases described above reveal the problems faced by Matsaggos workers and the gap between them and their representatives, namely, the union executive. Consequently, conflicts in the factory were not solely between workers and management but also between workers themselves and workers and their institutions. Finally, the existence of the two unions perhaps indicates internal conflicts within the form of trade unionism dominant at the time. On the one hand, there were trade unionists who sought to maintain a degree of autonomy from the employers, “relying” only on the state; on the other hand, the creation of the Matsaggos Tobacco Industry Employees Union was an example of “employer unionism” done crudely and in an overt way as the co-owner of the Matsaggos tobacco company himself was among the founders of the union.

Volos Labour Centre Archive, Volos Tobacco Workers Employers Association File, Matsaggos Tobacco Industry Workers’ Committee, 1961. 35 Volos Labour Centre Archive, Volos Tobacco Workers Employers Association File, Application of 46 employees to the administration of the VLC for the discussion of topics, 05/07/1961. 34

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 160

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

161

THE 1960s At the beginning of the 1960s, social turmoil engulfed Greece. In 1960, the press, postal workers, and rail workers all held strikes, and protests by teachers as well as tobacco workers broke out; in the case of the latter, this was due to rising unemployment caused by the introduction of new technology into the industry. Two years later, there were major protests in many cities involving many across the social spectrum which devolved into open conflict with the authorities. For many professional groups, the key demand of their strikes or work stoppages was higher wages. The protests also highlighted demands for democratization, social justice, and the resurrection of trade unionism. This period was also marked by changes in the trade union movement. General Secretary of the General Confederation of Greek Workers Fotis Makris’s leadership came to an end in October 1964 and was greeted by the democratic press and the trade union opposition “as the end of the ‘dark’ age in the history of the Greek trade union movement.”36 All this accompanied the stabilization of Matsaggos’s operations and its efforts to grow after 1964. This permitted the creation of a different organizational framework from the previous decade through which the demands of Matsaggos workers could be formulated and expressed. This framework lasted only briefly, however, and ended with the abolition of democracy in 1967. Some of the workers’ demands remained the same, such as better wages, but new demands were also made, reflecting the changes that were taking place at the time both within and outside the factory walls. At the heart of the union’s demands were social security issues. More specifically, the union called for the following: that all employees be classified as performing hazardous labor; the extension of the unhealthy work allowance (10 percent) to all staff; the return of the social resource of 50 cents per kilo to be added to the supplementary fund; a 30 percent increase in Greek Social Security Institute (Ίδρυμα Κοινωνικών Ασφαλίσεων) pensions, which would also allow for new employees to be hired as people retired; and the granting of a one-off or retirement pension to those who had earned 3,000 drachmas in insurance wages but who had not managed, upon reaching the age limit, to fulfil the conditions for retirement laid down in law.37 These demands appear to be broadly in line with the aspirations of the Greek working class to obtain social security, a demand that was regarded as an essential element of the postwar modernization of Greek society. In particular, the unions put the issue of workers’ health and workplace risks at the heart of the debate, risks that necessitated specific welfare provisions. The tobacco workers’ expectations for improvements to their and their families’ living conditions seems to have been revived at this time in comparison to the previous decade. This optimism probably reflected the union’s request, which had no connection Gekinis, 1870–1987: Το εργατικό κίνημα, 173. Matsaggos Archive, Matsaggos Tobacco Industry Workers Committee, 16/4/1967.

36 37

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 161

2022.07.30. 22:41:16

162

Thanasis Betas

with the tobacco company but was part of the general demands made by manual workers throughout Volos, that they be granted a higher amount than the total collected annually by the Workers’ House for recreational purposes and the entertainment and training of workers and their children.38 These demands can be placed somewhere between satisfied hopes and renewed expectations. The hope to secure work and thus survival had been fulfilled, and this made it possible to redefine one’s expectations.

THE “OTHER” RESISTANCE As has been emphasized many times, the space for workers’ reaction and resistance to the pressures and abuses of their employers was limited at Matsaggos. However, it should also be noted that the general assemblies of the unions were widely attended, as evidenced by the increased participation of the female workers who made up most of the tobacco labor force. Furthermore, a woman served as the treasurer of the main tobacco workers’ trade union for several years, and on several occasions, she put forward demands in relation to the problems faced by women workers employed at Matsaggos. Apart from these “official” forms of protest, however, it also appears that women workers expressed their dissatisfaction in atypical and “informal” ways. As Maria Monachou, who worked mostly in the boxing facilities at Matsaggos from 1953 to 1967, recalled: “When the supervisors were sometimes absent and I went to meet my friends who worked at other posts . . . we chatted, and the time passed by more pleasantly. . . . The breaks were short . . . and our supervisors called us to get back to our jobs quickly. . . . But we sometimes “got carried away” . . . and then we were reprimanded.”39 Maria Agathou also worked in the boxing facility for most of the time that she was employed at Matsaggos between 1936 to 1959. She recalled, “Life in the factory was difficult. . . . But we had a good time with the girls. . . . We used to tell jokes. . . . We were trying to make our day more pleasant. . . . We teased each other, we sang quietly . . . we mocked the supervisors. . . . Some of us went secretly to the toilet and smoked. . . . There was strict control.”40 The testimonies of Maria Monachou and Maria Agathou highlight the issue of subjectivity within the workplace.41 The memories of the two women enable us Thessalia, April 17, 1967. Maria Monachou Interview, 15/5/2001, Audiovisual Testimonies Archive, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Collection S0001. 40 Maria Agathou, Interview, 2/5/2001, Audiovisual Testimonies Archive, Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, Collection S0001. 41 Labor subjectivity is a matter of particular concern for sociologists of work. Christina Karakioulafi points out that older sociological approaches to work also focused on the various manifestations of the “illegal” within the Taylor model. This is a subjectivity that includes a series of informal and atypical practices and collectivity in workshops that served as a means 38 39

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 162

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

163

to express some thoughts about how the subjects themselves experienced everyday life in the factory and the ways in which they managed it, thus bringing the analysis of labor protest to a close. The women workers of the Matsaggos tobacco company, who composed the majority of workers and faced the most serious discrimination and workplace oppression, appear to have sought and discovered methods to alleviate the difficulties they faced and the fatigue of factory work, and at the same time found ways to “escape” the monotony, boredom, and surveillance of their supervisors and the directors of the company: “walks” from one post to another, songs, teasing, and “secret” conversations between coworkers and smoking breaks without the permission or approval of their supervisors.42 It could be argued that beyond their legal breaks (the statutory time set by the factory management as a rest period), workers sought and appeared to establish all kinds of “illegal breaks” during the course of their work, which may reflect the ways in which they themselves “managed” their resistance to what they felt subjugated them.43 In this way, workers may have fallen out with and resisted the demands and coercion of the factory system, either consciously or unconsciously. to escape or bypass the strict rules of the Taylor model’s implementation; in other words, it was a means of resistance to Taylorism. Recent studies in the sociology of work have argued that subjectivity in work is perceived as a set of social characteristics, practices, and behaviors that employees are pressured into performing by their employers within the framework of a Taylorist model of the organization of work. Karakioulafi discusses the scholarship of Danièle Linhart, who singles out genuine, spontaneous subjectivity as a form of resistance, escape, re-interpretation, or intelligent adaptation to standards and rules. See Danièle Linhart, ed., Pourquoi travaillons nous? Une approche sociologique de la subjectivité au travail (Toulouse: Erès, 2008). See also Christina Karakioulafi, “Ψυχοκοινωνικοί κίνδυνοι στους χώρους εργασίας: ερμηνεία από την σκοπιά της κοινωνιολογίας της εργασίας: Το παράδειγμα των αυτοκτονιών στην France Télécom” [Psychosocial risks at the workplace: An interpretation from the point of view of the sociology of work—the example of France Telecom’s suicides], paper presented at the 7th Historical Conference of the revue Historein, “The History of Work. New Approaches to a Permanent Issue,” Athens, May 20–21, 2011. 42 D. Roy, in his classic study of machine operators, has highlighted the methods and ways of adaptation used by the operators to “escape” from and relieve themselves of strenuous and tedious industrial work. The workers established specific “times” during which they stopped working to eat or drink. Every day, writes Roy, at exactly the same time, an operator stopped working to eat a banana he had bought from someone else before he called out, “Banana time.” These are atypical forms of social activity among workers through which they “fought” feelings of sluggishness and fatigue caused by the factory production system. See Donald F. Roy, “‘Banana Time’: Job Satisfaction and Informal Interaction,” Human Organizations 18, no. 4 (1960): 158–67. 43 For the concept of “legal” and “illegal” breaks, see Alf Lüdtke, “Cash, Coffee-Breaks, Horseplay: Eigensinn and Politics among Factory Workers in Germany circa 1900,” in Confrontation, Class Consciousness and the Labor Process: Studies in Proletarian Class Formation, ed. Μichael Ηanagan and Charles Stephenson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 65–95. A. Lüdtke argues that by taking illegal breaks, workers in Germany in around 1900 were seeking to regain their self-confidence within the factory employment system. The author introduces the concept of “Eigensinn,” which relates to the “sense of idling” created through “illegal” breaks. This is a way, according to Lüdtke, through which workers can “be” with themselves and with other workers.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 163

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

164

Thanasis Betas

Conclusion The collective action of women workers constitutes, to a great extent, an unexplored research subject in Greek history.44 The question guiding this analysis is why do female workers protest? This is a particularly difficult question to answer. The expression and development of collective labor action takes shape within diverse parameters. The forms and the extent of participation in collective action—the growth of women’s labor protest as well as men’s—are associated with the organization of production, labor organization, and the domestic division of labor but also with the particular economic, political, and cultural context of the period. The workers in the tobacco industry in the early postwar era in Greece persistently demanded the adjustment of salaries and wages to levels that corresponded with the rising cost of living as well as a collective bargaining agreement with management. Wage increases were the primary demand of all workers in the country after the end of World War Two. Women workers actively participated in the strikes that broke out at the large tobacco factories in Greece during this period. Apart from the common demands of both male and female workers, a series of demands that mainly concerned the terms and conditions of labor were made by women workers exclusively. Low wages, the arbitrary behavior of foremen, non-existent working regulations, large fines, intensive work, unfair and undisclosed wages, and special privileges for some workers were often denounced by women workers who actively participated in the general assemblies of their unions in large Greek tobacco companies like Matsaggos. The women workers stood up to the disciplinary rules in different ways. Apart from their participation in “official” forms of protest, such as strikes and periodic work stoppages, it seems that female workers also expressed their dissatisfaction in informal and “unofficial” ways too. A number of unofficial, informal There was, however, an explosion of scholarship on the varied sources and forms of women’s protest in the 1980s and 1990s in the international scholarship. In addition to feminist labor historians on women’s work culture and resistance, classic studies were produced by feminist sociologists and anthropologists such as Aihwa Ong, Louise Lamphere, and Patricia FernandezKelly. See Ava Baron, ed., Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991); Aihwa Ong, Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010); Louise Lamphere, From Working Daughters to Working Mothers: Immigrant Women in a New England Industrial Community (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987); June C. Nash and Maria P. Fernandez-Kelly, eds., Women, Men, and the International Division of Labor (Albany: SUNY Press, 1984). For an early contribution to the literature on the sociology of work that challenged the reigning ontological conceptions based on the male experience, see Peta Tancred, “Women’s Work: A Challenge to the Sociology of Work,” Gender, Work, and Organization 2 (1995): 11–20. For a later similar argument, see Dorothy Sue Cobble, “More Intimate Unions,” in Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies and the Politics of Care, ed. Eileen Boris and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 280–96.

44

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 164

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

“In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”

165

practices and collective actions were developed and adopted by women in cigarette factories as a means of evading or bending the strict operating regulations of the factory production model or, in other words, as a means of resistance to Taylorism. The attitudes of women workers toward resistance and protest in the workplace depended on their position in the factory, their qualifications, the jobs they performed, their professional expectations, and the strategies they used to realize them, as well as the broader unity of the labor force. But they were equally linked to certain conditions outside the site of production related to their position in the family distribution of labor with regard to their gender identity as members of families, the material needs they had to satisfy, and the expected roles they were required to play.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 165

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 166

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state: The Agency of Yugoslav Women Workers in Late Socialism (1976–1989)* Rory Archer

A

cross Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, technological advancement, industrialization, and urbanization forged new subjectivities according to the opportunities and constraints of socialist modernity. Scholars have convincingly demonstrated the myriad ways in which this both enabled and restricted female emancipation—a ubiquitous tenet of state socialism which Jill Massino and Shana Penn consider to be “often more strategic than genuine”—and tended to reinforce rather than challenge essentialist notions of gender.1 In Yugoslavia, as in other socialist states, inclusion in the labor market was the principal means of striving toward the equality of women and men and dismantling patriarchal structures. Susan Woodward details, in what remains one of the most thorough accounts of the status of women in socialist Yugoslavia, how the party sought both to emancipate women from both the rule of capital and their subjugation to men and acknowledge women’s commitment in the Partisan liberation struggle during World War Two.2 “The old order was to be destroyed and so too the bases for the subordination of women in the traditional Yugoslav family.”3 The 1946 constitution guaranteed Yugoslav women political, economic, and social equality, and their incorporation in the labor market would, according to the communists, “change consciousness [and] undermine traditional beliefs and allow relations between men and women to be restructured on the basis of equality.”4 In these circumstances, the “working mother gender contract” was established whereby women’s work both outside and inside the home (the * This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under Grant P27008. I am very thankful for the helpful comments and suggestions of Chiara Bonfiglioli, the volume’s editors, and the two anonymous reviewers. 1 Shana Penn and Jill Massino, eds., Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 2–3. 2 Susan L. Woodward, “The Rights of Women: Ideology, Policy, and Social Change in Yugoslavia,” in Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe, ed. Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985), 234–35. 3 Ibid., 235. 4 Ibid., 240, 235.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 167

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

168

Rory Archer

double burden) was valorized and naturalized, shaping, as Bonfiglioli details in her study of Yugoslav textile workers, a specific “structure of feeling” within garment factories.5 As in other industrializing socialist countries, the gender contract “assumed . . . the combination of family and work functions by women for which the state provided the necessary support (health care, benefits for working mothers, childcare) and guaranteed the preservation of their jobs.”6 Despite advances in the study of gender relations and women’s labor under socialism, in particular the use of Alltagsgeschichte-inspired approaches to “socialist normality” which challenged the totalizing excesses of Cold War narratives by offering more nuanced accounts of social life,7 such approaches have tended not to explore forms of women’s agency beyond the realm of formal organization, institutions, and articulated resistance. As James Scott cautions, focusing on visible events like organized protest or collective action can easily overlook subtle yet powerful and ubiquitous forms of everyday resistance.8 In the case of socialist states like Yugoslavia, many of the existing interpretations “emphasize state control over women and women’s lack of agency” and, as a result, “tell us little about women’s complex life experiences.”9 Alltagsgeschichte and micro-history approaches offer increasingly rigorous means to approach links between public, political, social, and private realms in state socialism, building on the developed scholarship of socialism and gender, family, consumption, and everyday life in Yugoslavia and other state-socialist settings.10 Such approaches to the Yugoslav experience of socialist modernity, however, have been critiqued by ethnologists Renata Jambrešić Kirin and Marina Chiara Bonfiglioli, Women and Industry in the Balkans: The Rise and Fall of the Yugoslav Textile Sector (London: IB Tauris, 2019), 55. 6 Tatiana Zhurzhenko, “Free Market Ideology and New Women’s Identities in Post-Socialist Ukraine,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 8, no. 1 (2001): 29–49, doi. org/10.1177/135050680100800103. 7 Penn and Massino, Gender Politics and Everyday Life, 4; Daniela Koleva, “Introduction: Socialist Normality: Euphemization of Power or Profanation of Power?” in Negotiating Normality: Everyday lives in Socialist Institutions, ed. Daniela Koleva (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012), vii–xxxiv. 8 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990; James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985). 9 Bonfiglioli, Women and Industry in the Balkans, 8–9. 10 For Yugoslavia, see Igor Duda, Pronađeno blagostanje: Svakodnevni život i potrošačka kultura u Hrvatskoj 1970-ih i 1980-ih (Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2010); Hannes Grandits and Karin Taylor, eds., Yugoslavia‘s Sunny Side: A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s–1980s) (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010); Breda Luthar and Maruša Pušnik, eds., Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Washington, DC: New Academia Publishing, 2010); Patrick Hyder Patterson, Bought and Sold: Living and Losing the Good Life in Socialist Yugoslavia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011). More broadly in Eastern Europe, see Paulina Bren and Mary Neuburger, eds., Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Cold War Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Penn and Massino, Gender Politics and Everyday Life; Koleva, Negotiating Normality. 5

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 168

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

169

Blagaić who warn of the invocation of “a genderless, nationless and classless Yugoslav everyman” in such scholarship.11 Alongside critiques of scholarship that unwittingly conceptualizes the worker as genderless or ontologically male, I also suggest that the overwhelming focus of scholarship has been on the beneficiaries of Yugoslav socialist modernity and so we know relatively little about the ambivalences of workers, both female and male, vis-à-vis the project of socialist modernization. I am particularly interested in the subjectivities of unskilled and semi-skilled female workers, their agency, and their understandings of political participation in late socialism, a context in which Woodward argues that class differences were rapidly displacing cultural divisions between women.12 While undertaking oral history research among working-class Belgraders in 2014,13 I was confronted with a curious phenomenon by which numerous socially competent unskilled female workers had, despite the economic difficulties of the 1980s, managed to increase their standard of living through entrepreneurial activity. Yet, such women tended to eschew participating in the League of Communists and the institutions of self-management (despite the potential for instrumentalizing these organizations for upward social mobility). In more recent research, a comparative study of Yugoslav factories in the 1980s,14 I was struck by the widespread phenomenon of absenteeism as a means of responding to the limitations of childcare provision in feminized industrial sectors like the textile industry. Sick leave (bolovanje) did not occur under the radar of the workplace or the party-state. Rather, it provoked heated discussions on the shop floor and in the workplace self-management and party institutions and was directly linked to the unenviable position of women in the workplace and wider society. This chapter explores the agency of Yugoslav working-class women beyond conventional organizing and institutions. I understand agency as incorporating less formal and overlooked activities and strategies of self-help in the workplace and wider community. I focus on two such phenomena: 1) absenteeism through sick leave due to the lack of childcare facilities and 2) the strategic avoidance of party-state institutions in the workplace. Sick leave as a way of dealing with insufficient childcare facilities available in many workplaces was so widespread that factory management and local authorities incorporated high levels of absenteeism into their plans. Yet, absenteeism consistently outpaced planned provisions leading to protracted discussions about how best to rectify childcare and Renata Jambrešić Kirin and Marina Blagaić, “The Ambivalence of Socialist Working Women’s Heritage: A Case Study of the Jugoplastika Factory,” Narodna umjetnost 50, no. 1 (2013): 43. 12 Woodward, “The Rights of Women,” 255. 13 For a detailed overview of the oral history methodology employed in this research, see Rory Archer, “‘It Was Better When it Was Worse’: Blue-collar Narratives of the Recent Past in Belgrade,” Social History 43, no. 1 (2018): 30–55. 14 Rory Archer and Goran Musić, “Approaching the Socialist Factory and its Workforce: Considerations from Fieldwork in (Former) Yugoslavia,” Labor History 58, no. 1 (2017): 44–66. See also https://yulabour.wordpress.com/. 11

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 169

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

170

Rory Archer

other welfare needs and balance the demands of productive factory work and social reproduction. I argue that taking sick leave was a strategic means of exercising agency in constrained conditions that ran parallel to calls to improve childcare arrangements and address the needs of Yugoslavia’s working women within institutional channels. The second phenomena examined in this chapter focuses on the ambiguous ways that one’s classed and gendered position in social space impacted participation and attitudes toward party-state institutions in the late socialist workplace. For working-class women, particularly those working in unskilled positions like cleaners, couriers, or in food preparation, their labor was devalued according to dominant Yugoslav factory hierarchies which favored direct production. Therefore, participation in institutions of self-management yielded different results for them than for more skilled (and usually male) workers.15 I suggest that non-participation in formal structures can be understood as a tactic of exercising agency on the shop floor. Unburdened by the pressures of party membership, some women were able to better advance their living standards and access welfare informally precisely because of their inactivity in the institutions of the party-state and workplace. The chapter concludes by suggesting that agency can be understood as an elastic concept in a feminist history of labor which should not be limited to formal organization and activism. In late state-socialist Yugoslavia and elsewhere, forms of action that may appear to be inert or disengaged can nevertheless be understood as a means of demonstrating and exercising agency within the constraints of class, gender, and the peculiarities of workplace hierarchies. At the same time, I do not go as far as to claim that such practices are best understood as a kind of “infrapolitics” and wish to avoid a dichotomous portrayal of Yugoslav society divided into discrete official and informal spheres. The less overt demonstrations of agency I examine overlapped with and were enmeshed in more official practices and institutions.

In the 1950s, socialist self-management was introduced to Yugoslavia, reducing the state management of enterprises. Managers of socially owned companies were supervised by worker councils. Self-management structures were also crisscrossed with party structures in the workplace, with managers and members of worker councils usually, but not always, being members of the Party.

15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 170

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

171

Sick Leave as Agency: Disrupting Production and the Case of the Zrenjanin Textile Industry in Late Socialism This section examines taking sick leave as an informal but pervasive means of exercising agency for young, mostly female workers in Yugoslavia in the absence of more robust childcare facilities. It details the case of the textile industry in Zrenjanin, an industrial center less than one hundred kilometers north of the Yugoslav capital Belgrade. Zrenjanin is the third largest town in the northern province of Vojvodina and has been a regional industrial center since the second half of the nineteenth century. Situated in a fertile area, Zrenjanin was well known in Yugoslavia for its food processing industrial heavyweights. The city was also a center for textiles and a number of products produced there— like “Udarnik” socks, “Begej” hats, and “Sloga” underwear—were familiar to Yugoslavs across the country. The textile complexes were dotted around the city in residential districts and in some neighboring villages rather than purpose-built industrial complexes. The decentralized and haphazard location of the textile plants was a consistent problem for the textile industry, and as the sector expanded in the 1960s and 1970s, greater impetus was placed on renovating and expanding the existing premises. However, the long-term goal of creating a unified state-of-the-art factory and robust childcare and catering facilities was never achieved. As Chiara Bonfiglioli writes in her study of the rise and fall of the Yugoslav textile industry, “the conditions of severe exploitation which existed in the textile sector before World War Two came to be used as the symbol and benchmark of an unwanted capitalist past, which the socialist system was meant to overcome.”16 Improvements in working conditions after the initial postwar period of austere reconstruction were a constant leitmotiv. Yet, textiles had a much lower place in the industrial hierarchy in Yugoslavia than did heavy industry, and the sector lacked investment. A 1977 session of the Executive Council of the Parliament of Vojvodina addressed the economic position of the textile industry, stressing that workers in textiles found themselves in an “unenviable position” in comparison to workers in other sectors in terms of the debt, working conditions, and incomes of the sector. The average income in Vojvodina textiles was lower on average by 30 percent compared to other sectors.17 The textile sector received far less state investment, ran on antiquated machinery, and was less protected than strategically important and symbolically recognized heavy industries. Bonfiglioli, Women and Industry in the Balkans, 26. “Veliki zaokret,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 30, novembar 1977, str.9.

16

17

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 171

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

172

Rory Archer

The textile industry was also, unsurprisingly, an overwhelmingly feminized sector. By the late 1980s, 80 percent of some 474,000 workers (17 percent of all industrial workers) employed in the Yugoslav textile industry were women.18 Much of the workforce was unskilled and received relatively low wages and faced difficult working conditions on the shop floor. “Sloga” was the largest textile factory in the Zrenjanin region. In the early 1970s, the average age of its workers, 90 percent of whom were female, was twenty-six years old. By 1977, the 2,552 workers had around 2,200 children under ten years old;19 thus, childcare, maternity leave, and sick leave were persistent topical issues in Sloga as in other Yugoslav textile factories. In the absence of developed childcare facilities, Sloga workers would routinely take sick leave in order to take care of young children either because the children were sick or simply because no alternative childcare arrangements could be made. The company acknowledged this fact, and in the firm’s periodical, a monthly newsletter focused not only on the production activities of the factory but also on issues of relevance for the workforce like housing, leisure, childcare, and political participation,20 much discussion was devoted to analyzing and tackling the phenomenon of sick leave. In 1976, for example, discussions focused on ways to decrease absenteeism—not through coercive or punitive means, however, but by attempting to implement practical solutions like a central kindergarten for the children of Sloga workers. The factory management and contributors to the Sloga newsletter acknowledged that the existing childcare facilities in Zrenjanin, individual workers’ homes, and their place of work were often located far from each other, dispersed as they were across the city.21 The most desirable solution was to build kindergarten facilities on site, but because of the decentralized nature of the Sloga complex, a single factory would first need to be built. Despite the factory’s expansion during the 1970s and 1980s, textiles were a particularly volatile industrial branch, and insufficient funds were available to invest in a centralized factory and accompanying childcare facilities. For mothers in their twenties with young Ilija Draganić, “Some Problems and Trends in the Development of Yugoslav Textile Industry,” Ekonomika preduzeća 7–8 (1991): 393–94, cited in Goran Musić, “Outward Processing Production and the Yugoslav Self-Managed Textile Industry in the 1980s,” in Global Commodity Chains and Labor Relations, ed. Andrea Komlosy and Goran Musić (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 256. 19 Erne Lazar, Milorad Martinov, and Radoslav Pavlović, Tekstilna industrija regiona Srednji Banat u vremenu od kraja 19. veka do početka 21. veka (Zrenjanin: Art Concept, 2009), 22–23. 20 For a detailed overview on Yugoslav factory periodicals as sources in labor history research, see Sven Cvek, “Class and Culture in Yugoslav Factory Newspapers,” in The Cultural Life of Capitalism in Yugoslavia: (Post)Socialism and Its Other, ed. Dijana Jelača, Maša Kolanović and Danijela Lugarić (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 101–20; and Archer and Musić, “Approaching the Socialist Factory and its Workforce.” 21 “Ravnopravnost žene je mnogo više od adekvatne zastupljenosti,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br.22, mart 1976, str. 10–11. 18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 172

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

173

children (the largest category of workers in Sloga in the late 1970s and 1980s), such investments were just a pipe dream; more immediate solutions and mitigation strategies were needed. When economic recession hit Yugoslavia in 1979, the chances of such investment in Sloga diminished even further. Sick leave was an issue routinely taken up by delegates of the League of Communists, who engaged with Sloga workers on the matter. For example, in a 1976 article in the company periodical entitled, “The Equality of Women is Much More than Adequate Representation,” worker Julijana Lucić stated during a public discussion: In our self-managing society, the position of women is complicated [složena]. Although we are formally equal to men, our position is far more complicated. Above all, one can see that in family life and in the workplace. We know that women with young children very often use sick leave [bolovanje]. The self-managing agreement in our [company unit] regulates sick leave so that for three days of sick leave, one receives 70 percent of their wage. For sick leave from three to 11 days, one gets 80 percent, and from 11—30 days, 90 percent of the wage. Mother are “forced to be sick” when their children are sick and so lose out on some of their wages. I want to emphasize that in these cases, “male” workplaces are in a more advantageous position than workplaces which are mostly female because it is normal that when a child is sick a father does not go on sick leave but rather the mother. It means that the enterprise where the mother works loses, especially enterprises like ours with a chain production system.22

Lucić’s contribution to the debate elucidates how the role of the mother as primary caregiver was normalized by both the company and wider society but was articulated and problematized by engaged workers like herself. Women were “forced” to be sick, and so Sloga integrated absenteeism into both production plans and self-management agreements. Lucić’s comments also suggest the emic understanding that workplaces were gendered.23 She contrasts a feminized Sloga to “male” workplaces in terms of production. As women were expected to take care of children according to the working mother gender contract, feminized workplaces with a chain production system like Sloga were at a disadvantage in the late socialist Yugoslav market. Wages were dependent on achieving production targets, and consequently, absenteeism would have an impact on both the Ibid. Author’s emphasis. Oral history accounts also suggest that Yugoslav workers understood certain factories to be “female” or “male” depending on the structure of the workforce and the industrial sector. Gendered workplaces were an emic concept [ženska fabrika/muška fabrika]. For example, Mirjana, one of the narrators in this chapter, detailed how the wood processing plant she worked in was a “male factory,” which she associated with sexual harassment and boorish behavior on the part of some of the management. Later, she moved to a textile plant, which she described as a “female collective” where most of the workplace problems that had affected her, her sister, and mother (all employed at the wood processing plant at some point) no longer occurred.

22 23

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 173

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

174

Rory Archer

individual worker’s monthly income (which would be reduced during days of absence) and the income for all workers of the production unit (regardless of their absenteeism). So, childcare was directly connected to discussions of productivity, company profits, and individual wages. The phenomenon of taking sick leave was so widespread that companies attempted to account for it by planning it into production projections. A 1977 interview with Lazo Todorov, director of one of the Sloga production units “Slavica,” revealed that management had planned for a 13 percent absentee rate of workers on sick leave, but to his alarm, this rate soon doubled. Nearly a quarter of the workforce would be absent due to sick leave on any given shift.24 What sick leave means for “Slavica” is well known, the production unit is conducting business under difficult conditions, unfulfilled capacities, a lack of raw materials and on top of it all—sick leave. It does not lend itself to rentability. . . . Of 312 workers, fifty regularly do not show up. The commission for sick leave is almost entirely powerless, so other measures are suggested.25

Other measures included a financial incentive for workers who did not take sick leave as well as moral appeals. Notably, none of the measures suggested were coercive in the sense that one’s job was never at risk due to excessive absenteeism. As Todorov publicly stated, a commission to oversee sick leave was toothless. Sloga’s workers and management alike understood that by not making suitable childcare arrangements, Sloga was violating its side of the working mother gender contract. Doctors and public officials would routinely provide letters and certificates granting sick leave, thus offering young female workers implicit support. Usually, other workers expressed understanding for the individuals taking sick leave while also complaining that it adversely affected the company’s production and wages. For example, in a 1977 interview with workers about sick leave, one of the workers polled, a woman named Radmila Kiš, was of the view that too much sick leave was being taken. However, she qualified this by saying, “[e]ven though I am against sick leave, we also have to understand the female workers. You see, it happens that there is nobody to take care of the children and so they go on sick leave. And here we have to admit, doctors have a very large role. They often allow sick leave where there is no (medical) need.”26 Her colleague Ester Boljoš added that the problem of childcare for preschoolers had not been solved, which greatly affected the work of factories like Sloga, where workers were overwhelmingly young women. “It all impacts the socio-political activities “Planirano bolovanje skoro udvostručeno,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br.31, decembar 1977, str. 8. 25 Ibid. 26 “Dokle ćemo da bolujemo i ‘bolujemo?’” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 37, jun 1978, str. 6–7. 24

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 174

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

175

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

of women workers [žena-radnik], not to mention their psyche.” Workers Maja Gligić and Ljubica Marjanović agreed with their colleagues, pointing out that because of the burden of domestic duties, women workers were not equal to men in Yugoslav society. 27

Whether you want to admit it or not, a woman has far more obligations than a man. She leads the essential chores at home, cooking, feeding, and clothing children, and after that, she has to come [to Sloga] and work a shift! Because of those domestic chores, I believe that on the second shift, we are at least 20 percent less efficient”28

Concluding the interview with their company periodical, the interviewees agreed with the saying “the house does not stand on land but rather on the wife.”29 The phenomenon of sick leave emerged within the working mother gender contract which did not usually question the role of women as primary caregivers in the home. Instead it foresaw the socialization of reproductive and domestic tasks though collective welfare services like canteens, laundries, and childcare provisions which would enable women workers to combine productive and reproductive labor.30 As in other socialist states, the battle for production always took center stage.31 The Sloga trade union, for example, appealed for “the greater care of children by society” because “childcare has a very important role in the battle for greater productivity of labor because only parents who leave their children cared for can work without distraction.” 32 Yet, collective welfare services were often the least developed in sectors like the textile industry as their provision depended on strong company earnings. The double burden faced by women workers was not erased. It featured prominently in company discussions, with appeals being directed from the shop floor to the company mechanisms of self-management and workplace communists right up to the upper echelons of the Yugoslav party-state. For example, Sloga worker Julijana Lucić made the following appeal when discussing issues facing workers in 1977: “We need to suggest to the Federal Council of the Yugoslav Parliament to freeze the work status [staž] of women until a child is two but Ibid. Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Bonfiglioli, Women and Industry in the Balkans, 9–10. 31 Cf. Malgorzata Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Stephen Kotkin “Coercion and Identity: Workers’ Lives in Stalin’s Showcase City,” in Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class and Identity, ed. Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Ronald G. Suny (London: Cornell University Press, 1995), 274–310; David Kideckel, “Miners and Wives in Romania’s Jiu Valley: Perspectives on Postsocialist Class, Gender, and Social Change,” Identities 11, no. 1 (2004): 39–63. 32 “Sindikat—za veću brigu društva o deci,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 28, septembar 1977, str. 8. 27 28

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 175

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

176

Rory Archer

include those years later for pension purposes.” Seamstress Bosiljka Ninković, a member of the communists in her unit, was critical of the work of Sloga delegates to the municipal League of Communists and implored them to listen more to women workers in production: For those of us from Sloga, where mostly women work, for example, a very important question is the work of kindergartens and childcare centers [vrtići i jaslice]. What has our delegate done about that question? Almost nothing; but if he had our view of the issue, he would never raise his hand in favor of the childcare centers only working before noon. They must work on two shifts. Then we from production would worry about our children less and would have a greater impact, and productivity would be at an enviable level. I think we can see from all that I have said that future delegates must be open to learning more [from us in production].33

It is also evident that the company understood its paternalistic role in the working mother gender contract in the sense that sick leave was expected, planned for, and (usually extremely weak) solutions to reduce its prevalence were put forward for discussion. Company reactions to increased sick leave among workers in the late 1970s and 1980s suggests that women workers were successfully exercising agency by simply not coming to work. They did so with the understanding (though not approval) of a web of actors—their colleagues, local communists, doctors, and even company management. During the late socialist period, reports suggest that sick leave was increasing year-on-year. In 1978, the factory reported that there was 29 percent more absenteeism than foreseen in the plans. For each productive worker, Sloga estimated that an average of thirty-eight days of sick leave would be taken, while in actuality, it amounted to an average of fifty days per worker.34 In 1979, of 324 workers in one production line, an average of fifty-nine workers were on sick leave each day.35 In 1981, 420 Sloga workers (out of some 2,500 in the company) would typically be absent on sick leave on any given day.36 Widespread absenteeism can be understood as indicative of the limits of the working mother gender contract in late Yugoslav socialism. Tying welfare provision capabilities directly to company profitability ensured that decentralized textile plants like Sloga were not able to provide the kind of facilities (childcare, “Neophodna je čvršća veza,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 77 februar 1982, str. 8–9. 34 “Bolovanja veća od planiranih,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 44, februar 1979, str. 10. 35 “Na zalihama više of 65 miliona,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 56, mart 1980, str. 8. 36 “Pronaći uzorke i razloge,” Sloga: list radnih ljudi fabrike miderske robe, trikotaže i konfekcije Zrenjanin, br. 74, novembar 1981, str. 12. 33

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 176

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

177

leisure, continuing education, canteens, socialized housing) that were routine in workplaces which performed better on the Yugoslav market. Sloga and similar textile plants also demonstrate how gendered divisions of labor—the idea of “male” factories and “female” factories—would result in different material outcomes with feminized sectors at a disadvantage in terms of overall production and individual wages. Yet, perhaps we can also interpret the case of widespread absenteeism as indicative of the expression of agency by unskilled young female workers in constrained conditions. A micro-level examination of Sloga in Zrenjanin demonstrates that workers used both official self-management institutions and informal solutions to deal with the immediate deficiencies in childcare. Parallel to appealing for better facilities and demands that wages be minimally affected by sick leave, women also simply exercised agency by not coming to work and, thus, directly impacting production. By going on sick leave, they intervened in “the main axis of organization of social life” in state socialist society—the workplace.37

Non-participation in Party-state and Workplace Institutions as a Means of Exercising Agency The difficulty of fully engaging workers in the decision-making process and keeping them informed and active was an issue identified both by analysts of Yugoslavia’s self-managing system as well as workers themselves.38 In Sloga, workers complained that their delegates failed to properly circulate information between the municipal communists and the workers on the shop floor.39 “They are obliged to inform us and seek opinions for every question, but they do not attempt to keep us informed. We seek a circulation of information. There are so many important questions which cannot be solved without us!”40 Other Yugoslav workers complained about the procedural and simulated nature of self-management meetings in the factory. For example, Marko Bekčić, a young worker in the Belgrade engine producer “21. Maj,” complained that “we have got into the habit of just raising our hands in agreement at meetings.” He qualified this by pointing out that productive workers were laboring according to norms and so Maria Ciechocińska, “Gender Aspects of Dismantling the Command Economy in Eastern Europe: The Polish Case,” Geoforum 24, no. 1 (1993): 31–44, here 32. 38 Sharon Zukin, Beyond Marx and Tito: Theory and Practice in Yugoslav Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 92; Josip Obradovic and William N Dunn, eds., Workers Self-Management and Organizational Power in Yugoslavia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 1978). 39 “Neophodna je čvršća veza.” 40 Seamstress Bosiljka Ninković interviewed in “Neophodna je čvršća veza.” 37

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 177

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

178

Rory Archer

did not have the time to read the relevant materials for discussion (which in any case were usually received the same day).41 The lack of time was even more pressing for female workers who were expected to undertake most domestic chores. Scholars have detailed the “double burden” of paid and unpaid labor for working women across the socialist world and the very limited way in which the socialization of feminized household labor unfolded in practice,42 extending this idea to encompass a “triple burden,” which reflects the stress placed on the additional duty of political engagement.43 In the lively Yugoslav factory press of late socialism, occasions like International Women’s Day prompted reflection on these challenges. Journalists and workers alike lamented that women were not as politically engaged as they “should” be in the factory but often cited objective reasons for this, such as the insufficient socialization of housework, and even openly highlighted sexist practices whereby workplaces would not permit men more flexible working hours to participate in childcare duties.44 As one Belgrade workplace periodical lamented, “A woman is, in addition to their obligations in the workplace, in most cases obliged as a mother to carry the greatest burden in the family, which leads to the situation that a woman does not always manage to be active in socio-political work as well as carrying out her labor in the workplace.”45 Biographical accounts provided by working-class women can illuminate some of the challenges associated with political participation in the workplace for a worker-citizen (in the gendered parlance of the time—woman-worker [žena-radnik]). Oral history is “well positioned to make connections between individual biographical experience and the larger socio-historical context in which biographies are played out and inform on the meaning that events and processes held for individuals.”46 As Alessandro Portelli writes, oral history is capable of revealing “not just what people did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing, and what they now think they did.”47 In this Z. P. “Čime privući mladog radnika?” Informator DMB, br. 142, 04.02.1981, str. 2. Wendy Z. Goldman, Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917–1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Donna Harsch, Revenge of the Domestic: Women, the Family and Communism in the German Democratic Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Penn and Massino, Gender Politics and Everyday Life. 43 Barbara Einhorn, “Where Have all the Women Gone? Women and the Women’s Movement in East Central Europe,” in “Shifting Territories: Feminism and Europe,” special issue, Feminist Review 39 (1991): 16–36, here 18, https://doi.org/10.2307/1395436. 44 Svetlana Jugović, “Ne odustajemo—Prihvatamo sve obaveze,” Informator DMB, 13. mart 1981, str.4–5. 45 “Osmi mart praznik žena,” DMB Informator: Bilten kolektiva fabrike motora dvadeset prvi maj. 15.03.1973, br. 5. str.1. 46 Patricia Leavy, Oral History: Understanding Qualitative Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3. 47 Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” in The Oral History Reader, ed. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London: Routledge, 1998), 67. 41 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 178

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

179

section, I analyze accounts of two Belgrade-based workers to elucidate how and why strategic non-participation in formal workplace institutions might still be considered a means of exercising agency. The story of Ljiljana illustrates how actually not participating in the institutions of self-management or not joining the League of Communists might have been beneficial in terms of allowing space for entrepreneurial self-initiative. Ljiljana was born into rural poverty, married in her late teens, and moved to the small town closest to her childhood home. She then followed her husband to Belgrade, where he had found work in the Industry of Machines and Tractors (Industrija mašine i traktora, IMT), one of the largest enterprises in Belgrade, which produced engines and tractors. Her husband arranged for her to get a job there through his supervisor. She began working at IMT in February 1979, initially working as a cleaner and then later as a courier, coffee-maker, and typist before moving into direct production in the casting factory. Finding suitable housing was one of the most acute problems facing Yugoslav workers, particularly new arrivals to large cities like Ljiljana and her young family. Receiving a socially owned flat (the normative model of social housing built by workplaces and local authorities and distributed to workers through waiting lists) was an extremely unlikely prospect for two unskilled workers in her firm.48 Ljiljana’s family was also not able to access sufficient credit to start building a home independently nor could they contribute to a housing collective because they lacked savings for the necessary down payment.49 Instead, the family rented a room. “We barely found a place; everywhere we looked nobody wanted to take us with children.” They found a room for rent in a village over twenty kilometers from the Belgrade city center. The conditions were miserable, a single room of four-by-four meters with an outdoor toilet and an unpaved street that turned into mud when it rained. Ljiljana described it as worse than the West Serbian village she had left as a teenager. The couple and their two children remained in the small room for four or five years. Ljiljana recalled how she and her husband, like many others, sought to improve their housing situation by attempting to squat in an unused communal space in an apartment building and convert it into a small flat. After years of renting the inferior room in the village, no alternative means to access suitable accommodation appeared feasible. The family would enter these spaces at night, breaking the lock of the door and immediately replacing it with a new one. Ljiljana was quick to explain the ownership structure of the apartment buildings, rightly pointing out that “those [socially owned] flats were built by different firms and distributed amongst their workers. IMT . . . Zmaj . . . Elektrodistribucija . . . those kinds of firms. They were Nenad Sanković, “Stan kao mislena imenica,” Beogradski radnik br. 10 (oktobar 1984), 16–17. Ljiljana interview with author, Novi Beograd, Belgrade, February 2014. See also Archer, “It Was Better When It Was Worse,” 47–48, for further narrative accounts of Ljiljana.

48 49

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 179

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

180

Rory Archer

not their personal property; they hadn’t bought them!”50 After numerous failed attempts resulted in temporary homelessness, Ljiljana and her family finally successfully squatted in a flat in New Belgrade (securing an understanding with the head of the tenants’ organization). In addition to taking initiative to solve her housing question, Ljiljana also demonstrated entrepreneurial skills by engaging in small-scale smuggling. In 1986, she began smuggling clothes from Turkey, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Germany to resell informally in her workplace for double or triple the price. Such undertakings, while illegal, were rather commonplace in Belgrade workplaces during the 1980s. A factory periodical in the city noted that this was a common occupation of coffee-makers like Ljiljana who were selling “better goods than at the flea market” and bringing the flavor of Ponte Rosso, a shopping area of Trieste, the largest shopping destination for Yugoslavs, into the Belgrade workplace.51 Although coffee-makers were deprivileged in terms of income and prestige, they could draw on wide social networks throughout the factory, which enabled small smuggling and reselling operations to thrive. As a result of her informal business, Ljiljana recalls that her personal financial situation stabilized (in contrast to that of the wider Yugoslav society, which was steadily deteriorating). After beginning smuggling and selling goods in 1986, she recounted that there was “no longer any big crisis for me and the children, to survive, . . . to buy clothes and eat.”52 I was curious as to why Ljiljana had never attempted to use party membership and/or active participation in self-management institutions in the workplace for the strategic goal of improving her living situation. Since she had candidly spoken about smuggling and illegally squatting in apartment buildings, I presumed an instrumental political move like party membership would not pose a moral hazard. Despite stressing how those who were members of the Yugoslav League of Communists “always had privileges” that included better access to housing, Ljiljana stressed that she never considered membership. Working as a cleaner, courier, coffee-maker, typist and later in production in IMT, she came into contact with such people “and saw how things went . . . these people got flats much more easily.”53 Yet, she claimed that these privileges were accompanied by disagreements and conflict: When I worked upstairs in administration, I saw how it led to fights, shifty business [prebacivanje] to this, to that, to disagreements . . . you do this, you do that . . . it irritated me, and I thought better that I am not in the party, see Ljiljana interview. P. T., “Smešno ćoše,”“ Informator DMD, br. 127, 29.02.1980, str.7. Also cited in Archer, “It Was Better When It Was Worse.” 52 Ljiljana interview. 53 Ibid. 50 51

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 180

2022.07.30. 22:41:17

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

181

how they are to each other . . . After 1980, interpersonal relations started to. . . . Hmm, disagreement and that. They didn’t get along [nije neko slaganje bilo]. . . . There were a lot of fights, a lot of insults exchanged. I never wanted. . . . I didn’t like, I never liked people fighting around me.54

Ljiljana also had a negative view of workers’ councils. Like many other narrators and protagonists in worker periodicals such as Sloga Zrenjanin, she believed that the influence of workers on such institutions was minimal: The workers’ council, they already agreed before they came to the meeting on what everything will be; people go formally but it is known who will say what and do what. . . . If you go against it, then they throw you out [of the council meeting]. You are not favorable [nisi podoban]. . . . They don’t throw you out directly though.55

Although not explicitly voiced in interviews, Ljiljana implied that in her case, strategic membership and self-management participation would not be advantageous to her. Had she been an active party member, she would have been placed under more scrutiny; she would have been required to behave as an example to other workers. Her smuggling and selling of goods as well as her family’s squatting in apartment buildings may well have been prevented. Ljiljana, like many unskilled female workers who rotated among positions across the factory from cleaning to serving in the canteen or to typing, was able to create a large network of workplace contacts. Though low in the factory hierarchy with its producerist ethos, she excelled in fostering social capital. Indeed, she relied on one such contact in administration to resolve her housing situation for a second time in the 2000s. Following an acrimonious separation from her husband, she found temporary accommodation in an old office space of IMT. Thanks to her close friendship with some of the administrative staff, she received an unexpected offer from a colleague who told her, “Ljilja, a small flat has turned up, the woman renting it returned it, here is the key, go there and if it is ok, move in, change the locks and we will sort everything out and legalize it later.” Ljiljana barely got the flat—another IMT worker had access to the keys and intended on using the flat, but Ljiljana succeeded in changing the padlocks and moving in just in time. She continues to reside there to this day. Examining the biographical narratives of Mirjana, another female unskilled worker in Belgrade, sheds further light on the intersection of class and gender vis-à-vis political participation. Unlike Ljiljana, Mirjana was an active party member for some years in the late 1970s and early 1980s while working as

Ibid. Ibid.

54 55

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 181

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

182

Rory Archer

a cleaner and courier in the Makiš wood processing plant on Belgrade’s southern periphery. She left the party, however, after she began working in production at the plant. She explained that one of the reasons she handed back her party membership card was because of incessant lies she encountered when engaging in political activity. Although it was clear that her firm was in dire financial straits and sustaining heavy losses, management claimed the company was prosperous. Mirjana had been offered the opportunity to be a delegate in the local municipality of Čukarica, but she rejected the offer and left the party “because you as a delegate would have to lie about things all the time, to be on the side of the director and the firm, and I didn’t want to do that.” 56 Mirjana furthermore describes the pressure put on her as a female unskilled worker and party member in the workplace. She was required to be a model worker: disciplined, obedient, never talking back to supervisors, always silent, and never taking sick leave. As I was in the party, I was supposed to be a good example to other workers, not allowed to make any mistakes. Because of [going for] a coffee for example, I faced a disciplinary action; because I drank a coffee! . . . I said to the director then, do you know what? You drink coffee as well during the working hours! I knew this because I brought them coffee, I was the coffee-maker [kafe kuvarica]! . . . An inspector from Banovo Brdo, from the municipality, some woman, she told me—you are free to report them, we will punish them too. Of course, I did not want to get into that.57

When Mirjana decided to leave the party, the factory officials were “not very pleased” and told her that it was “not very nice behavior.” She defended her departure by explaining that she had a small child, a husband recently diagnosed with heart trouble, and faced additional demands in the workplace. “You can always get out of it somehow. I did not want to say directly that I find it horrible and cannot stand it anymore; that is how I left it. You had to pay attention to what you are going to say. So they do not report me or something!”58 When she began working in another factory—the successful textile producer “Kluz”—in 1985, she was invited to rejoin the party but politely declined. For many working-class party members like Mirjana (or potential members like Ljiljana), far from being a privilege, party membership was often understood to be a burden. In addition to paying dues, members of the party were required to be “morally and politically suited,” the “politically conscious” part of society.59 Mrjana interview with author, Makiš, Belgrade, April 2014. Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Dejan Jović, Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009), 8–9. 56 57

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 182

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

183

As Dejan Jović writes, “By definition, to be a member of the Party meant not only to be admitted to a privileged club of those are conscious and suitable to educate and lead others, but also to be recognized as a subject . . . rather than an object of practical politics.”60 As such, membership could expose a worker to increased scrutiny but still not necessarily guarantee meaningful privileges. For Mirjana, membership was a burden. She could not drink coffee like other non-party-member colleagues, but neither could she take a coffee break with more privileged party members like her supervisors. She felt that she could not access the membership privileges of her male superiors, while by the same token, membership prevented her from engaging in the same activities as her other colleagues who were not LCY members. For Ljiljana, non-membership and disengagement with the self-management decision-making system ensured that she could have the flexibility to undertake entrepreneurial activities like the smallscale sale of smuggled goods because she was not subject to the same degree of scrutiny as party members. The non-participation of working-class women like Ljiljana and Mirjana in the workplace and municipal structures of power did not necessarily weaken these institutions. It did, however, further entrench these arenas as the preserve of male white-collar workers, with worker (both women and men) participation dropping off during the political and economic crises of the 1980s. In Belgrade in 1983, one in three new members were workers. The following year, only one in five new members were workers, and this trend continued until the dissolution of the system in 1990.61

Conclusion Philosopher Tietjens Meyers writes: “With regard to women’s agency, it seems that if women are systematically subordinated, their ability to choose and act freely must be gravely compromised. Yet, if feminist theorists are to respect women’s dignity and if they are to defend women’s capacity to emancipate themselves, it seems they must counter that women’s agency has been concealed or overlooked, not diminished.”62 Through an examination of two phenomena in late Yugoslav socialism— absenteeism and non-participation in official party-state and self-management institutions—this essay has sought to demonstrate that Yugoslav working-class women were not passive objects in the late-socialist workplace. Their agen Ibid. J. Marković, “Članovi, simpatizeri i prolaznici,” Beogradski radnik, 30.05.1985, br. 17, str. 9. 62 Diana Tietjens Meyers, Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women’s Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2.

60 61

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 183

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

184

Rory Archer

cy, however, has certainly been overlooked, particularly if we restrict social historical research to engagement with and participation within official institutions (even at the micro-level of the workplace). Those who did not actively partici- pate in the lively institutions of self-management and the party-state demonstrated agency to the extent that they engaged in widespread absenteeism and strategic disengagement from formal institutions of power. Facing insufficient childcare provisions, a huge number of women workers simply did not come to work regularly, disrupting production to the extent that sick leave became one of the most prominent issues in the textiles industry. Engaging in sick leave did not preclude proactive measures, however. Widespread absenteeism ran parallel to articulated demands to improve childcare provisions in the factory and the position of working women, particularly among politically active workers in the precarious textile sector who voiced their concerns as mothers but also as workers—the most powerful category in Marxist ideology.63 Between August 30 and September 6, 1988, Sloga workers initiated a strike which was to be the “longest work stoppage in the Zrenjanin municipality” according to the firm’s periodical.64 The strike was motivated by decreasing wages and rising living costs, and the workers travelled to Belgrade to seek assistance from the trade union leadership (also finding time to lay flowers at the grave of Josip Broz Tito en route, displaying an adherence to the rituals of Yugoslav self-managing socialism). The following week, the workers succeeded in replacing three leading directors of their company. While much recent debate regarding women’s agency in the party-states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union relates to official state socialist women’s organizations, I consider it is also extremely fruitful to conceive of types of agency that are external or ran parallel to formal institutions;65 by this, I do not mean dissident activism or demands made by women that run contrary to the postulates of the party-state. My focus has been on working-class women who took the existence of the system for granted and participated within it to varying degrees. The striking Sloga workers’ visit to Tito’s grave even in a period of great upheaval demonstrates how time could be found to affirm the postulates of Yugoslav socialism while still voicing discontent well within the bounds of the system of self-management. I have drawn upon biographical narratives of women who chose not to enter the party or, having experienced what they believed to be constraining Fidelis, Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland, 240. Andjelka Cuk, “Trnovit put do sloge u “Slogi” Tekstind: List SOUR-a “Tekstind” Zrenjanin 16.09.1988, br.118, str. 1–4. 65 For example, see Nanette Funk, “A Very Tangled Knot: Official State Socialist Women’s Organizations, Women’s Agency and Feminism in Eastern European State Socialism,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 21, no. 4 (2014): 344–60; Kristen Ghodsee, “Untangling the Knot: A Response to Nanette Funk,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 22, no. 2 (2015): 248–52. 63 64

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 184

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state

185

aspects of party membership, made a conscious decision to abandon this form of political participation. I suggest that based on a contextualization of two such experiences, non-participation could be an enabling strategy for some women workers to engage in activities which increased both their living standards and sense of autonomy. At the same time, conceiving of such agency solely in terms of “infrapolitics”—disguised or low-profile forms of resistance—would result in an excessively dichotomous portrait of working-class women in late-socialist Yugoslavia. Taking regular sick leave or consciously avoiding participation in the institutions of power in the workplace and local community did not preclude or hinder more overt forms of agency on occasions. Ljiljana was able to engage in entrepreneurial activities in her workplace due to social capital she accumulated by working in multiple positions across a factory in Belgrade. By being politically inactive, she avoided the scrutiny she would have faced had she been a party member or active in the factory self-management organs. Mirjana realized that her membership in the communist party exposed her to greater scrutiny, but due to her low position in the factory and political hierarchy, she could not access the symbolic or material benefits that other party members enjoyed. Thus, she left the party and found that work in another factory without any political participation was more fulfilling and rewarding. For both women, their role as unskilled/semi-skilled workers was key; their class position mattered as much as their gender. Due to their devalued position in their respective workplace hierarchies, they deemed it more effective to operate outside of the party-state mechanisms in their workplaces in order to be active agents of their own fortune.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 185

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 186

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body: Nurse Activism, Occupational Risk, and the Politics of Care in the United States* Elizabeth Faue

I

n 2018, after a long and controversial career, Rose Ann De Moro retired from her position as Executive Director of National Nurses United (NNU), a 150,000-member organization. A “transformative but polarizing leader,” DeMoro has a reputation for alienating some unions and political allies. She had earlier led the California Nurses Association. From that base, she challenged not only public and private hospital and insurance corporations but also the state government with demands for safer staffing ratios and a state health insurance program. Once she became head of NNU in 2009, DeMoro took the organization into active lobbying and electoral politics as an effective complement to workplace activism.1 DeMoro’s successor Bonnie Castillo now heads NNU, one of the largest health care unions and one of the most active organizations in the US labor movement. Her position as director has become more important and visible given the current global pandemic. In her bid to stake out new ground, Castillo engaged in the fight against the “very vicious profit-driven health care system” in defense of those “denied care.” Patient advocacy has become the hallmark of nurse activism. Through workplace action, lobbying, and protest, nurses—once known as caring but quiescent women professionals—have become the leading advocates I want to thank Joe Rector, John Popiel, Eileen Boris, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors of this volume for their insights in revising this essay. 1 Graham Vyse, “How Nurses Prove the Power of Unions,” Governing, February 2019, https:// www.governing.com/archive/gov-california-nurses-union.html; Alana Semuels, “The Little Union That Could: RoseAnn DeMoro and National Nurses United Are Gaining Strength as Other Organizations around the Country Lose Clout,” Atlantic, November 3, 2014, https:// www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/the-little-union-that-could/382206/; Bonnie Castillo, “What Nurses Really Want,” National Nurse (April/May/June 2019), 15; Adrienne Coles, “Fed Up with Unsafe Staffing, Nurses Are Organizing for Change,” AFT, June 6, 2019, https://www.aft.org/news/fed-unsafe-staffing-nurses-are-organizing-change; Michael Sainato, “High Turnover, Understaffing, Low Pay: US Nurses Fight to Unionize,” Guardian, August 22, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/22/us-nurses-fight-to-unionize. *

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 187

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

188

Elizabeth Faue

for safer workplaces, lower patient-to-nurse ratios, and national health insurance in the United States.2 Recently, nurses have lobbied for an emergency rule to require hospitals to provide protection for their employees during an unforeseen emergency such as the current pandemic.3 The rule would have “required hospitals and nursing homes to create a plan to protect their employees from infections and to provide nurses and doctors with respirators” and extend it to other workers “at high risk of contracting the virus, such as home health care aides.”4 Nurses, moreover, have gone out on strike. In 2018, more than 84,000 hospital workers struck. In 2019, nurses have led or joined workplace actions in California, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, a trend that has escalated with the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and increased workplace demands.5 On May Day 2020, nurses and other health care workers participated in 139 protests demanding PPE and safer working conditions. By November, health care workers in several states had joined them, among them more than 2,000 nurses in New York. By June 2021, nurses in the NNU had organized more than 2,000 collective actions.6 Nurses and their unions have led the way in demanding greater public response to the health disparities and dangers posed by the coronavirus epidemic. The emergence of nurses as a voice for health care as a public good could not have been predicted in the 1960s. Among the predominantly female service professions, nurses were the most reluctant to unionize. Their professional organization—the American Nurses Association (ANA)—harkened back to the earliest efforts of women to enter the nursing profession led by the iconic Florence Nightingale; and the ANA maintained a no-strike rule until 1968.7 Nursing as a female occupation had care work, not medical practice, as its Bonnie Castillo, “Shift Change,” National Nurse (2018), 4–5; RoseAnn DeMoro, “A Heartfelt Goodbye,” National Nurse ( January/February 2018): 12–13; Charles Idelson, “Great Leaders Never Retire, They Just Go ‘On Call,’” National Nurse ( January/February 2018), 14–19; Vyse, “In Anti-Union Era.” 3 Alexia Fernández Campbell, “The Labor Department Won’t Take Steps to Protect Health Care Workers from the Coronavirus,” The Center for Public Integrity, March 30, 2020, https:// publicintegrity.org/health/coronavirus-and-inequality/the-labor-department-wont-takesteps-to-protect-health-care-workers-from-the-coronavirus/. 4 Ibid. 5 Kim Moody, “We Just Remembered How to Strike,” April 20, 2019, https://www.jacobinmag. com/2019/04/strike-wave-teachers-nurses-labor-unions-kim-moody; Steven Greenhouse, “The Return of the Strike,” January 3, 2019, https://prospect.org/power/return-strike/. 6 Audrey McNamara, “Nurses Holding May Day Protests Nationwide, Demanding PPE,” May 1, 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/may-day-protest-nurses-ppe/; Ian Kullgren, “HealthCare Workers Turning to Strikes as Covid-19 Surges Again,” November 24, 2020, https://news. bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/health-care-workers-turning-to-strikes-as covid-19-surges-again; Bonnie Castillo, “400 Reasons Why,” National Nurse (April-May-June 2021), 11. 7 Susan Reverby, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Barbara Melosh, The Physician’s Hand: Work Culture and Conflict in American Nursing (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1982); Darlene Clark 2

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 188

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

189

brand; nursing education trained women first as caregivers. In the intervening decades, nurses and their advocates have continued to debate whether nursing is a craft, a calling, or a profession. What had been dedication to an “ethics of care,” a concept framed by the expectation of women’s voluntary nurturance and reproductive labor, adapted to new challenges in the workplace. Sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn has argued this means “the right to receive needed care” and “the right to provide care without excessive economic penalties or sacrifice of well-being.” As political scientist Joan Tronto argues, we need to reclaim care as a collective responsibility and a political act. Nurses have acted on the belief that nursing’s “care ethic” was no longer possible without a “care politics.”8 As Linda Briskin has argued, in the age of austerity politics, nurse activists have embraced “the politicization of care.”9 Nurses have engaged in broad collective action on the basis of how changes in their work—increased patient-tonurse ratios, a division of labor that meant less connection to or interaction with patients, and a further degrading of nursing skills—diminished the outcomes but not the responsibilities of care. Cutbacks in staff and in safety protocols have endangered health care workers—nurses, social workers, therapists, health care aides, food service and maintenance workers, among others—and the patients for whom they cared. Intervention through unions and in political advocacy was necessary if care as professional ethics and practice was to survive. Revitalized in its engagement with the women’s movement and contemporary labor politics,10 nursing’s shift to a politics of care was further shaped by three crucial developments: first, the restructuring of health care and the depletion of public health resources in the United States; second, the politics of austerity that resurfaced in state and federal defunding of health care; and, finally, contemporary public health crises—the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and struggles over national health care11 and the coronavirus. These crises have required that nurse associations and health care unions be forceful advocates for public health and workplace safety.



8



9



10



11

Hine, Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890– 1950 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); Catherine Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). Linda Briskin, “In the Public Interest: Nurses on Strike,” in Public Sector Unions in an Age of Austerity, ed. Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2013), 91–102; Joan Tronto, Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (New York: Routledge, 1993); Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 10–11. Briskin, “In the Public Interest.” The politics of austerity to which she refers has governed the agenda and public expenditure of Western welfare states since the 1970s. Susan Gelfand Malka, Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007); Dana Beth Weinberg, Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 2003). Specifically, the Affordable Care Act and subsequent campaigns for Medicare for All.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 189

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

190

Elizabeth Faue

In response, nurse activists have addressed how new workplace pressures and conditions affect the quality of health care and the quality of life for workers in the sector. On issues that range from needlestick injuries to workload, personal violence, and sexual harassment, nurse unions have led the way. National Nurses United, health care workers and nurses in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and in the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees (AFSCME), and nurses in the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have worked to resist patient-endangering cost-cutting measures and to demand predictable work schedules. As AFT president Randi Weingarten pointed out, nurses are “constantly asked to do more with less” even as they fight for “the people they care for, the resources and security to do their jobs well, for fair pay, for adequate staffing, for latitude and autonomy, and for the right to be treated as professionals.”12 Studies have shown that nurses are more likely to join such battles and unions in particular when they focus on the quality of patient care.13 In contemporary activism, nurses have taken up the cause of the undocumented, the uninsured, and the vulnerable. In doing so, they have transformed the meaning of “health” and “health care” into a common or public good and politicized the care work of women in particular.

The Shifting Conditions of Health Care Work The beginnings of nurses’ activism date back to the origins of nursing and the fundamental conflict between its professionalism and its commitment to a culture of care.14 The American Nurses Association, originally founded as Nurses Associated Alumnae in 1896, was committed to the difficult balance between these two commitments. It relied heavily on an ethics of care that at times ignored and diminished the needs of individual nurses. Nurse education shaped its curriculum around ideas of individual dedication and sacrifice in patient care, and nurse compensation often reflected their level of individual sacrifice. Married nurses were, for the first half of the twentieth century, anomalies. With the trend toward hospital health care in the 1930s, nursing staff saw the increasing rationalization of care work and a fragmented division of labor. Mike Elk, “Pennsylvania Nurses Inspired by Teachers’ Strikes to ‘Fight the Same Fight,’” Guardian, December 22, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/22/indiana-pennsylvania; Linda Briskin, “Nurse Militancy and Strike Action,” Workers of the World: International Journal on Strikes and Conflicts 1, no. 2 (2013): 105–34; Linda Briskin, “Resistance, Mobilization, and Militancy: Nurses on Strike,” Nursing Inquiry 19, no. 4 (2012): 285–96. 13 Paul F. Clark and Darlene A. Clark, “Union Strategies for Improving Patient Care: The Key to Nurse Unionism,” Labor Studies Journal 31, no. 1 (2006): 51–70. 14 This is a primary theme of most histories of nursing rooted in the disproportionately female labor force not just in nursing but in other health care jobs, such as home health care aides, medical technicians, and food service and sanitation workers. 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 190

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

191

This reorganization of work deprived some nurses of the patient relationship that was central to traditional nursing. Nurses as workers still received comparatively low wages, which often included live-in maintenance as compensation. This common arrangement proved increasingly difficult for the growing number of married nurses, some of whom also had children. An occupational culture fostering “spiritual care and humanitarian dedication” often neglected respect for individual autonomy and the value of nursing work. By the 1940s and 1950s, hospital staffing shortages, especially of nurses, created opportunities for greater leverage in employment, but not without also provoking questions about nurses’ dedication and capacity for collective action. When, in 1946, the ANA began to speak about an economic security plan for nurses, it was limited by labor laws that denied nurses in non-profit private and public hospitals access to the National Labor Relations Board and the right to strike. By 1968, faced with the discontent of staff nurses and deteriorating working conditions, the ANA repealed its no-strike rule when state associations began to actively engage in collective action. The ANA and other nurse associations, including union locals founded in the 1930s, began to advocate for better wages and working conditions and higher standards of patient care.15 How nurses understood their mission and their professional identity changed as new social movements reignited health care activism across the United States. The civil rights movement, women’s liberation, and rank-andfile unionism played a role in re-casting the role of nurses not only as care givers but as care activists. The Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR), which had as its original mission assisting the southern Civil Rights movement, sparked new forms of activism among health care workers and formed coalitions with Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW). With women’s health clinics and organizations, MCHR campaigned to repeal abortion laws and promote welfare rights. It treated the injured in urban riots, ran free clinics in poverty-stricken areas, and created COSH (Committees for Occupational Safety and Health) as a “regional coalition of workers, trade unions, and health and legal specialists” focused on occupational health and safety.16 In Detroit, where health care workers at Detroit General Hospital led efforts to keep the hospital open in the face of staff shortages and city budget cuts, Lillian Barlow, president of AFSCME Local 457, connected their efforts Melosh, The Physician’s Hand, 194–206. Phyllis Lehmann, “The Worker’s Right to Know,” Job Safety & Health 2, no. 6 (1974): 10–11; Ronda Kotelchuck and Howard Levy, “MCHR: An Organization in Search of an Identity,” Health/PAC Bulletin 63 (March/April 1975): 1; Dan Berman, “COSH Around the Country: Organizing for Job Safety,” Science for the People 12, no. 4 (1980): 11; John Dittmer, The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care, updated edition ( Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2017).

15 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 191

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

192

Elizabeth Faue

to the well-being of hospital workers and their patients.17 Edna Watson, a hospital nurse and a leader of the LRBW, worked with doctors and nurses involved with the MCHR in the 1960s and 1970s.18 HRUM, the Health Revolutionary Union Movement, was an outgrowth of those connections.19 In a newspaper, Watson described the MCHR’s first national convention as “speaking concretely to the health needs of working people.” Delegates heard about “the daily struggle of coal and strip miners in Appalachia against those in the mining industry who collaborate with union officials against miners.” In attendance were members of HRUM, Health-PAC, the Black Panther Party, the Motor City Labor League, and the Young Lords.20 Nurses and other health care activists increasingly saw a new politics of care as essential to their growing mission. As a consequence, MCHR, Health PAC, and new nurse unions engaged not only in the provision of care but in debates over national health insurance, disparities in health care, and improving the condition of health care workers. When in 1974 Congress amended the National Labor Relations Act to include nurses and other health care workers, it opened up the possibility of collective bargaining for the nearly 500,000 nurses in 7,000 health care facilities. Nurses were now able to organize and join unions and use federal mediation in labor disputes, subject to a ten-day cooling off period. Nurse unionism already had grown prior to the new rules in the face of new challenges in health care and the climate of labor activism in the 1970s. Between 1960 and 1974, more than one hundred nurse work stoppages occurred.21 Central to these stoppages was the realization that restructuring of the health care sector—mergers among hospitals, the reduction and reorganization of work, and increasing stratification of the health care labor force—threatened to undermine its care ethic. In 1966 during informational picketing, a nurse stated, “Salary isn’t the only thing. We “Resignations of Nurses Verify Hospital Crisis,” Michigan Chronicle, October 7, 1967; “26 Licensed Practical Nurses,” letter to the editor, Detroit Free Press, October 26, 1967; Betty De Ramus, “Her Blood Boils: Outspoken Women at Receiving Feels Employees Need a Voice,” Michigan Chronicle, November 1, 1969. 18 Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin, Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution, 3rd ed. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012), 221. 19 Ibid., 69. HRUM is at times referred to as the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement. 20 The Siege, “the National Voice of the Black Workers Congress,” 1971, Detroit Revolutionary Movement Records, LR000874, Box 17, Folder 16, Walter P. Reuther Archive of Labor and Urban Affairs (hereafter ALUA). Health-PAC stands for Health Policy Advisory Center. 21 Calvin Winslow, Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, eds., Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and the Revolt from Below in the Long 1970s (New York: Verso, 2010) covers several case studies of resurgent unionism. For labor conflicts in health care at the time, see Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich, “Hospital Workers: Class Conflicts in the Making,” in Organization of Health Workers and Labor Conflict, ed. Samuel Wolfe (Farmingdale, NY: Baywood Publishing Co, 1978), 41–50; Leon J. Davis and Moe Foner, “Organization and Unionization of Health Workers in the United States: The Trade Union Perspective,” in Wolfe, Organization, ed., 17–24. 17

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 192

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

193

come home every day frustrated because there aren’t enough nurses to provide adequate patient care.” Another nurse some years later shared the sentiment: “It you have any feelings of responsibility for the patients, you can’t stand it anymore.” A nurse’s aide summarized, hospital administrators “say they want patient care but they don’t make it possible.”22 One of the most notable nursing strikes was in the San Francisco Bay Area, where 4,400 nurses went on strike in 1974. Occurring at the same time as the American Nurses Association’s annual convention in San Francisco, the strike seemed to stimulate discussion—and activism—nation-wide. As Negotiating Council member Joyce Boone declared, “We are a new breed of nurses, fighting for our rights and those of our patients.” In the wake of a settlement with SEIU’s health care workers Local 250, nurses hoped that they too could come to an agreement. “Better Staffing Equals Better Patient Care,” their signs proclaimed. Reports of the strike settlement highlighted the salary increase and work toward the portability of nurse pensions, but the most significant outcome was that registered nurses had re-established their right for greater input in staffing and patient care, reviving an earlier contract provision and resisting cuts that threatened nursing’s standard of care.23 While staffing levels remained a source of conflict with hospital management, the conflict reflected the segmentation of the health care labor force and the health care industry’s increasing dependence on lower-paid and lesser-credentialed caregivers. As early as the 1960s, practical nurses (LPNs) and nurse’s aides were providing the vast majority of patient care, while RNs increasingly were assigned supervisory and administrative duties. RNs remained disproportionately white and, like the majority of nurses, were women; practical nurses, nursing aides, home health care workers, and nursing home attendants were and are disproportionately African-American, Latino/a, and immigrant.24 Between 1970 and 1983, the number of health care workers in the United States increased over 80 percent to nearly eight million, an increase fueled by the growth in the number of health care providers and in medical services; it doubled again to nearly seventeen million in 2018.25 The health care system, Don Stillman, “Militant Nurses: RNs Organize, Strike in a Quest for Raises,” Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1966; Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich, “Hospital Workers and Class Conflicts,” 45. 23 See “RN’S Strike: Between the Lines,” Health PAC Bulletin 60 (September/October 1974), 1–6, 10–14; “4,000 Nurses Start Strike at Hospitals in Bay Area,” New York Times, June 8, 1974; “Nurses on Coast Still on Strike,” New York Times, June 12, 1974; “Nurses in California End 3-Week Strike,” New York Times, June 29, 1974. 24 Kathleen Cannings and William Lazonick, “The Development of the Nursing Labor Force in the United States: A Basic Analysis,” International Journal of Health Services 5, no. 2 (1975): 185–216; Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor,” Signs 18, no. 1 (1992), esp. 23–32. 25 See Ariel Ducey, Never Good Enough: Health Care Workers and the False Promise of Job Training (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009); Weinberg, Code Green; Jeanne Stellman, 22

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 193

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

194

Elizabeth Faue

especially hospitals and networks of health maintenance organizations (HMOs), expanded dramatically even as many hospitals and health services merged to form regional networks.26 The system’s growth masked how already existing hierarchies in nursing care reinforced the racial division of labor in the health care sector. Struggles over staffing ratios, working conditions, and racial and ethnic divisions remained at the heart of labor conflicts in nursing in the succeeding decades. In the 1980s, while the number of strikes declined, the largest nursing strike at that time, involving more than 6,000 nurses in Minneapolis in 1984, similarly focused on working conditions and their impact on patient outcomes. When nurse unionism was reborn in the 1990s, militancy escalated as nurses confronted a health care system bent on cost-cutting and resistant to nurses’ demands not only for higher compensation but for higher standards for patient care.27 The lack of national health insurance for all, combined with the particular constraints on Medicare and Medicaid,28 contributed to dramatic changes in the health care sector. Managed Care became the new model for health care providers, but “managed” often meant restricted. New cost-cutting measures increased workloads for nurses and other hospital staff without adopting new safety technologies that could protect workers under deteriorating working conditions.29 As a result of these new measures, between 1981 and 1993, the number of nurse caregivers at hospitals in the United States declined 7.3 percent, even as health care employers increased the patient-to-nurse ratio.30 In 1983, the shift in federal Medicare payments to a flat fee reimbursement to health care providers for service “Safety in the Health Care Industry,” Occupational Health Nursing (October 1982), 17–21; Stephen Zoloth and Jeanne Stellman, “Hazards of Healing: Occupational Health and Safety in Hospitals,” Women and Work 2 (1987): 45–68. For 2018 figures, see https://www.kff.org/ other/state-indicator/total-health-care-employment, accessed April 24, 2021. 26 Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 430; James C. Robinson, The Corporate Practice of Medicine: Competition and Innovation in Health Care (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 27 Melosh, The Physician’s Hand, 214–16; Joni Ketter, “Nurses and Strikes: A Perspective from the United States,” Nursing Ethics 4, no. 4 (1997): 322–29; Michael Miller and Lee Dodson, “Work Stoppage Among Nurses,” Journal of Nursing Administration (December 1976): 41–45; Briskin, “Resistance, Mobilization and Militancy: Nurses on Strike”; Kim Moody, “Competition and Conflict: Union Growth in the U.S. Hospital Industry,” in In Solidarity: Essays on Working-Class Organization and Strategy in the United States (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014), 249–74. 28 Established in 1965 under the Social Security Act, Medicare is a national health insurance program for the elderly and disabled; Medicaid, less well-funded, subsidizes health care for low-income individuals. 29 Kathleen Montgomery and Charles E Lewis, “Fear of HIV Contagion as Workplace Stress: Behavioral Consequences and Buffers,” Hospital and Health Services Administration 40, no. 4 (1995): 439–56. 30 Weinberg, Code Green, 10; Malka, Daring to Care, 138–44.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 194

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

195

opened up a new “era of managerial control and market mechanisms” that meant increased patient loads and mandatory overtime for many staff nurses.31 Even as the American Nurses Association tentatively tested the waters in state-level collective action, other unions such as SEIU and AFSCME organized hospital health care workers in other areas including technicians and patient aides. Between 1971 and 1985, SEIU recruited hundreds of thousands of members in the health care industry including nurses, health and human services workers, and hospital staff. As a result, the union became a leading advocate for new occupational safety measures and a central force in the fight for the reform of the US health care system.32 Joined by the California Nurses Association and other state associations, the SEIU challenged not only the power of health care corporations but new challenges in health care. Nurses, a predominantly female medical profession, led the way.

Nurse Advocates: The Realm of Safety Organized nurses and medical professionals faced other more immediately threatening challenges that prompted them to become public advocates for health system reform. In the 1970s and 1980s, they witnessed the health care industry’s inadequate response to new blood-borne diseases such as Hepatitis B (HBV) and HIV/AIDS. As nurse-activist Diana Jones recalled in 1996, “What [AIDS] brought to nursing is a much stronger understanding of patient advocacy.”33 The same could be said of Hepatitis B. Among health care workers, rising rates of HBV, a disease that if left untreated can be fatal, provoked similar activism. Both diseases could be acquired through needlestick injuries and blood exposure, which made them major occupational risks in health care. In 1981, the emergence of HIV/AIDS, a virus transmitted through blood, increased the visibility and the stakes for health care workers in confronting the dangers of workplace transmission through needlestick injuries. At the time, the disease was known as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency; a year later, the Centers for Disease W. Richard Scott, Martin Ruef, Peter J. Mendel, and Carol A. Caronna, Institutional Change and Healthcare Organizations: From Professional Dominance to Managed Care (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 17, quoted in Ducey, Never Good Enough, 256n2. 32 On the SEIU, see Don Stillman, Stronger Together: The Story of SEIU (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010), 18–19; Kim Moody, An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism (New York: Verso, 1988), 213–14; Steve Early, The Civil Wars of U.S. Labor: Birth of a New Workers’ Movement or Death Throes of the Old (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2011), esp. 50–81. 33 Quoted in Michelle Hehman, “Crisis in Care, 1980–2000,” in History of Professional Nursing in the United States: Toward a Culture of Health, ed. Arlene W. Keeling, Michelle C. Hehman, and John C. Kirchgessner (New York: Springer Publishing, 2017), 335. 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 195

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

196

Elizabeth Faue

Control (CDC) named it Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).34 Initial responses to the spread of the new disease ranged from the use of hazard suits in surgery to advocating for new standards of care. As one observer noted, workers soon burned out with “long hours [and] the frustration of witnessing the hopelessness and suffering of the patients.”35 Worker and patient anxiety and the lack of information about how the disease was transmitted prompted calls for containment and quarantine. The immune deficiency disorder made patients vulnerable to infections, rare cancers, and respiratory disorders, none of which were well understood even as the AIDS case numbers rose.36 Because health care workers could contract the virus through routine procedures such as injection by syringe, the placing of IVs, and blood collection, there was a clear need to institute new care protocols. Throughout the decade, an estimated one million accidental needlesticks per year resulted in some three hundred deaths annually from Hepatitis B among health care workers and an unknown but increasing number of occupational HIV infections.37 Although the number of health care workers who contracted the disease remained small—almost all through accidental needlestick injuries, the fear of the unknown and unresponsive health policy magnified the threat.38 Nurses were among the first observers and casualties of an unforgiving health care system, just as they had been in the 1960s and 1970s. Peggy Ferro, testifying in Congress under a pseudonym, described the routine hazards pres “Clue Found on Homosexuals’ Precancer Syndrome,” New York Times, June 18, 1982; Centers for Disease Control, “Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia among Persons with Hemophilia A,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 31, no. 27 (1982): 365–67. 35 Ibid., 654. 36 See G. M. van Servellen, C. E. Lewis, and B. Leake, “Nurses’ Response to the AIDS Crisis: Implications for Continuing Education Programs,” Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing 19, no. 1 (1988): 4–9; B. K. Boland, “Fear of AIDS in Nursing Staff,” Nursing Management 21, no. 6 (1990): 40–44; L. O. Gostin, ed, AIDS and the Health Care System (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990); Alice Abel Kemp and Pamela Jenkins, “Gender and Technological Hazards: Women at Risk in Hospital Settings,” Industrial Crisis Quarterly 6, no. 2 (1992): 137–52. 37 Reynolds Holding and William Carlsen, “Watchdogs Fail Health Workers: How Safer Needles Were Kept Out Of Hospitals,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1998; Stillman, Stronger Together, 77–80; William Muraskin, “The Role Of Organized Labor In Combating The Hepatitis-B And AIDS Epidemics: The Fight For An OSHA Bloodborne Pathogens Standard,” International Journal of Health Services 35, no. 2 (1995): 129–52; John Mehring, “AIDS at Work: The SEIU AIDS Project,” Labor Research Review 1, no. 16 (1990): 82–89. 38 For studies of occupational HIV transmission, see Jerry D. Durham and John Douard. “The Challenge of AIDS for Health Care Workers,” in Women, Children, and HIV/AIDS, ed. Felicia L. Cohen and Jerry D. Durham (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1993), 286– 300. See also Marcy Fraser and Diane Jones, “The Role of Nurses in the HIV Epidemic,” in Women Resisting AIDS: Feminist Strategies of Empowerment, ed. Betsy E. Schneider and Nancy E. Stoller (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996), 286–97; Yvonne K. Scherer, Brenda P. Haughey, and Yow-Wu B. Wu, “AIDS: What are Nurses’ Concerns?” Clinical Nurse Specialist 3, no. 1 (1989): 48–54. 34

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 196

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

197

ent in nursing work. Introducing herself as a health care worker with “a documented occupational transmission,” she reported how she had acquired HIV on the job. Her heavy patient case load included providing care for a patient who was medically unstable. In doing a routine task, she had been “exposed to an unprotected needle with enough HIV-contaminated blood to infect [me] and to change [my] life forever.”39 Nurses and nursing assistants like Ferro exposed the contradictions in occupational health care policy that led to frequent, routine, and unnecessary risks and the slow response to the threat of AIDS. The economic restructuring of health care, especially the rise of the managed care standard, had led to higher workloads and increased stress and resistance to the adoption of safer, costlier medical equipment. The way to safety on the hospital floor meant confronting these changes. Women health care workers challenged employers and federal agencies to address workplace health hazards through unions, professional groups, and women’s, gay rights, and public health organizations.40

Protecting the Worker in the Age of AIDS Nurses were a central force in these campaigns through unions and in professional associations. The campaign against all blood-borne diseases took on new importance even as the health care industry nationally ignored new occupational hazards. As ANA president Margareta Styles argued, “There are no bunkers, no sidelines for nursing today. We find ourselves the center of attention. As the government and corporate America fight escalating health care costs, AIDS is wreaking havoc and technology swells unchecked. Underpaid, overworked and overstressed nurses are in the midst of the conflagration. Nursing is in greater demand than ever before.”41 Among unions, the SEIU shared that sentiment, creating an AIDS Education Committee in 1983. In collaboration with others, it began lobbying Congress and state legislatures to establish a workplace standard on bloodborne pathogens. For the next two decades, the SEIU directed major resources to creating a culture of workplace safety by advocating the use “Jean Roe” (Peggy Ferro), Testimony, February 7, 1992. On the history of efforts to make OSHA and union health and safety committees more responsive to the needs of women, see Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience and Women Workers (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 57–110; Allison L. Hepler, Women in Labor: Mothers, Medicine, and Occupational Health, 1890–1980 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000), 113–26; Meredeth Turshen, Women’s Health Movements: A Global Force for Change (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 61–90. 41 ANA President Margareta Styles, quoted in, “ANA ’88: Pay Us More and Let Us Nurse,” American Journal of Nursing 88 (1988): 977. 39 40

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 197

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

198

Elizabeth Faue

of safety needles, demanding changes in work practices, and lobbying for federal and state needlestick safety laws. Targeting the health care industry’s resistance to greater protections, SEIU and other nursing organizations sought to support health care workers beyond setting limits on exposure.42 Located at one of the centers of the emerging epidemic, San Francisco General Hospital was the first hospital to create a specialized HIV/AIDS clinic in 1981.43 A national leader in assessing risks for AIDS transmission, including workplace and occupational exposure, SFGH health care workers belonged to SEIU Local 250, which represented some 30,000 workers in the Bay Area.44 Between 1986 and 1991, its members played a key role in lobbying for a workplace standard to protect workers against exposure to blood-borne diseases. LGBT health activists, some of whom were health care unionists, already were addressing the dramatic spread of Hepatitis B, especially in the gay community. Before it was known that the disease could be spread through sexual as well as blood transmission, gay health clinics were diagnosing and treating it. Preexisting health care organizations thus helped to generate a response when a new disease—HIV—emerged in 1981.45 San Francisco General became a leader in diagnosing and treating the emerging disease, including developing specialized patient care that served as a model for other hospitals. At SFGH, clinical nurse specialist Clifford Morrison created inpatient Ward 5B, an effort that expressed both the centrality of nursing care to the crisis and collaboration among organizations. SEIU Local 250 weighed in to address workplace exposures by advocating hospitals upgrade faulty, unsafe, and dated medical equipment with new engineering controls. Heightened public awareness of these dangers provided nurse associations the leverage to demand industry and government action. While Hepatitis B remained a pervasive but largely unacknowledged danger, health care workers benefited from the public attention to needlestick injuries that exposed workers to the more feared disease.46 Health care workers in the SEIU and AFSCME were well-placed to see how new demands at work—heavy patient loads, mandatory overtime, and floating Muraskin, “The Role of Organized Labor in Combating the Hepatitis-B and AIDS Epidemics.” 43 Michelle Cochrane, When AIDS Began: San Francisco and the Making of an Epidemic (New York: Routledge, 2004), 84; William Schecter, Robert Lim, George Sheldon, Norman Christensen, and William Blaisdell, The History of the Surgical Service at San Francisco General Hospital (San Francisco: Barnett Briggs Medical Library, University of California-San Francisco, 2007), 163–64. For a history of the SFGH HIV/AIDS unit, see Guenter B. Risse, Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 619–73. 44 See Local 250 Records in George Hardy Papers, Box 25-26, ALUA; John Sweeney Records, Box 33-34, ALUA. 45 Katie Batza, Before AIDS: Gay Health Politics in the 1970s (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 19–26, especially the reference to Diane Feinberg, “AIDS/Health,” Gay Community News, November 26, 1983. 46 Muraskin, “The Role of Organized Labor in Combating the Hepatitis-B and AIDS Epidemics.” 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 198

2022.07.30. 22:41:18

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

199

shifts—increased the likelihood of workplace exposure. They were aware that the most common form of occupational transmission for HBV was accidental needlestick injury, a common occurrence among health care workers in any setting. According to OSHA, about one percent of health care workers annually were infected with Hepatitis B. Medical staff in emergency rooms, surgery, and pathology had significantly higher risks of acquiring the disease, risks mitigated only by vaccination and safer engineering controls.47 Most health care employers, however, were not willing to pay when a Hepatitis B vaccine came on the market in 1981.48 Vaccination rates remained below 5 percent through the 1980s. In 1983 alone, an estimated 17,000 health care workers contracted Hepatitis B from occupational exposure at a time when 300 were dying from HBV annually. Despite expert recommendations, most hospitals and health care providers in practice declined to provide the HBV vaccine to their employees.49 Resistance to implementing vaccinations coincided with refusal to improve safety protocols, lower patient-nurse ratios, and switch to more effective protective equipment. As the HIV/AIDS epidemic became more visible, several members of SEIU Local 250 formed an AIDS Education Committee (AEC) in 1983. Widespread misinformation about and fear of the disease, especially in the health care community, 50 required a response. The AEC created and distributed a brochure entitled, AIDS and the Healthcare Worker. AEC conducted workshops for union stewards and hospital staff.51 Still, SEIU members realized that educational efforts were not enough to protect health care workers from the disease. The union’s earlier work on Hepatitis B transmission allowed them to respond to the emerging epidemic of HIV/AIDS; but only the federal government, by issuing workplace standards through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), had the power to compel employers to adopt stronger measures to control exposure and reduce risk of contracting either Women’s Health and Resource Center, “OSHA Aims to Cut Hepatitis Risk,” WOHRC News 6, no. 1 (1984): 2. Four years later, OSHA was still working on standards under new pressures due to AIDS exposures. See “AIDS: NIH Lab Worker Stricken; OSHA Issues ‘Guidance’ Only,” WOHRC News 8, no. 4 (1987): 1–2. 48 Borwegen, “Airborne Infections and Respirators.” Borwegen, who founded the SEIU’s Health and Safety Department in 1983, was centrally involved in the campaign for a bloodborne pathogen standard. See Muraskin, “The Role of Organized Labor in Combating the Hepatitis B and AIDS Epidemics,” 131. 49 F. J. Mahoney, Kimberly Stewart, Hanxian Hu, Patrick Coleman, and Miriam J. Alter, “Progress toward the Elimination of Hepatitis B Virus Transmission among Health Care Workers in the United States,” Archive of Internal Medicine 157, no. 22 (1997): 2601–5, cited in Borwegen, “Airborne Infections and Respirators,” 34n1. 50 For later studies, see van Servellen, Lewis, and Leake, “Nurses’ Response to the AIDS Crisis”; Boland, “Fear of AIDS in Nursing Staff ”; L.O. Gostin, ed., AIDS and the Health Care System (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). 51 John Mehring, “AIDS at Work: The SEIU AIDS Project,” Labor Research Review 1, no. 16 (1990): 85. See also W. F. Banta, AIDS in the Workplace (New York: MacMillan, 1993). 47

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 199

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

200

Elizabeth Faue

disease. For this reason, SEIU initiated a campaign in 1983 for a new OSHA standard on bloodborne pathogens, working with other occupational groups.52 HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B became linked causes in the struggle for a safer health care workplace. SEIU understood the power of that connection and believed that public fear of the new disease could provide the support needed for more effective measures.53 The stories of nurses brought the need for new legislation to the fore. In 1987, Mary Magee, a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, was changing a patient’s needle in a crowded AIDS ward. In disposing of an unsheathed needle, Magee stuck herself with the sharp tip. Several days later she tested HIV-positive.54 For nurses such outcomes were a wake-up call. As Lorraine Day, the Chief Orthopedic Surgeon at SFGH, testified, “the Centers for Disease Control have told us over and over again that the risk of a health care worker contracting AIDS from occupational exposure is low. I believed that until . . . a woman nurse at our hospital turned HIV positive from one needlestick on the job.”55 Nurse-activist Diane Jones concurred, “What [Magee’s] exposure did was cut through all our denial. It made me a better nurse and certainly a better advocate.”56 Needlesticks were no longer badges of honor; they were potential pathways for a deadly virus. In May 1987, the Centers for Disease Control issued several case reports of health care workers who became HIV-positive after exposure to blood. One of them, “a female phlebotomist,” was infected through blood splatters on her face and mouth when a blood collection tube failed. A female medical technician contracted the virus from blood spilled on her arms and hands. Stories abounded. By 1989, the CDC estimated that over twenty health care workers with “no other risk factors” had become HIV-positive from occupational exposure. Such reports likely underestimated the number of transmissions.57

Quoted in Muraskin, “The Role of Organized Labor in Combating the Hepatitis-B and AIDS Epidemics,” 132. 53 Ibid. 54 Carol Pogash, As Real As It Gets: The Life of A Hospital at the Center of An Epidemic (New York: Birch Lane Press Book, 1992) recounts the story at San Francisco General. On Jane Doe (Mary Magee), see pp. 3–4, 43–57, 72–78, 146–50, 204–8, 248–49. 55 Lorraine Day Testimony, November 9, 1989, Oversight Hearings on OSHA’s Proposed Standard to Protect Health Care Workers Against Blood-Borne Pathogens Including the AIDS and Hepatitis B Viruses, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Health and Safety of the Committee on Education and Labor: House of Representatives, One Hundred First Congress, Serial No: 101-83 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989). 56 Quoted in Errin Allday, “Nurse Who Contracted HIV with Jab Sheds Anonymity,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 10, 2011. 57 Centers for Disease Control, “Health Care Workers Infected When Their Skin Came in Contact with HIV-Infected Blood,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, May 22, 1987, 285; Centers for Disease Control, “Guidelines for Prevention of HIV and Hepatitis to Health Care and Public Safety Workers,” February 1989. 52

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 200

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

201

In the early 1990s, OSHA scheduled hearings in an effort to gather data on increasing occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens. Even as the agency drafted its standard, needlestick HIV transmissions continued to increase. Individual workers played an important role in responding to the crisis. Nurses who testified argued that employers should be required to provide nurses and other health care workers with safety equipment. Their experiences, moreover, highlighted how higher nurse-patient ratios and mandatory overtime contributed to heightened risks in the health care workplace. Being “told by management to be more careful,” one nurse testified, “is meaningless when you are working 12- to 16-hour shifts, being called in early, carrying double patient loads, and facing a shortage of trained staff.”58 During congressional hearings, both OSHA and the CDC came under fire for their slow response to the growing health care crisis. By allowing health care providers to deny employees vaccinations, OSHA was at least in part responsible for between 167 and 202 annual health care worker deaths from occupational exposure.59 These deaths, along with the continued threat of occupational transmission, were powerful motivations for OSHA to act. More than ten years after the HIV/AIDS epidemic broke in 1981, and five years after the SEIU and AFSCME campaigns began, OSHA issued a bloodborne pathogen standard that mandated HBV vaccinations, an important weapon against its spread. While the new standard “was a very far-reaching one and encompassed most, though not all, of what the unions sought,”60 it did not fully address the problem. OSHA had withdrawn its order for the adoption of safer needles, which would have stemmed the occupational transmission of HIV as well as Hepatitis B.61 Resistance to the adoption of new safety equipment meant that the struggle to create a safer health care workplace remained a primary goal for nurse and health care worker activism even as nurses, health care workers, emergency medical technicians, and medical residents remained at risk of HIV and Hepatitis B and C.

“Jean Roe” (Peggy Ferro) Testimony, February 7, 1992, Healthcare Worker Safety and Needlestick Injuries, 4–7. 59 Ibid., 137–40. 60 Ibid., 141. While the employer mandate for vaccinations was an important weapon against the Hepatitis B epidemic, the lack of mandatory engineering controls “threatened to become a major source of disagreement between the unions and OSHA” since the problem of HIV/ AIDS occupational transmission remained. Muraskin 129, 145. 61 Elizabeth Faue and Josiah Rector, “The Precarious Work of Care: OSHA, AIDS, and Women Health Care Workers, 1983–2000,” Labor: Studies in Working Class History in the Americas 17, no. 4 (2020): 9–33. 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 201

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

202

Elizabeth Faue

The Struggle to Control the Health Care Workplace Despite the passage of the OSHA standard, hospitals, health care providers, and medical equipment manufacturers resisted worker demands for safer needles and blood collection devices. As they argued, cost-benefit analysis guided their decision-making. The growing proportion of health care provided in private for-profit hospitals and clinics and the reduction in state support for non-profit and public health care providers added to their rationale. Safety equipment was expensive. Replacing conventional needles with safety syringes could cost a 250–300 bed hospital $15,000 a year; safer butterfly needles another $4,000 a year. Safer IVs cost more than $33,000; better syringes $67,000 per year. Hospital administrators further argued that their staff resisted adopting the new equipment and new practices.62 Obscured in the debate was that nurses and health care workers remained exposed and without adequate protection. In response, union representatives complained about OSHA’s failure to address the rising tide of needlestick injuries, “one of the more glaring, clear-cut and readily addressed occupational health hazards confronting workers in one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy.” It was a “no-brainer” to require safer needles.63 In 1998, the San Francisco Chronicle ran articles documenting the failed efforts to reduce the risk of needlestick injuries. As the Chronicle reported, 8.8 million health care workers remained at risk of contracting Hepatitis C, HIV, and other deadly diseases.64 Backed by the CDC and the American Hospital Association, the SEIU petitioned for new standards for health care workers that required safer needle technologies. It argued that “the spread of HIV infection constitute[ed] a national public health emergency requiring urgent steps to curb its transmission.” Calling for “Safe Needles Now,” the SEIU noted that more than one million health care workers were injured annually from accidental needlesticks. Thousands contracted chronic terminal diseases from these injuries, and about one hundred health care workers died annually from diseases acquired through unsafe needles. Up to seventy-five percent of these injuries, SEIU noted, could be eliminated by adopting the new technologies. California, where the state-level “Congress, OSHA Join Fight.” “Labor Official Criticizes OSHA’s Inactivity on Needlestick Legislation,” Inside OSHA, April 17, 2000, http://insidehealthpolicy.com/Inside-OSHA/Inside-OSHA-04/17/2000/ labor-official-criticizes-oshas-inactivity-on-needlestick-legislation/menu-id-219.html; Holding and Carlsen, “Watchdogs Fail Health Workers,” A1. For a recent parallel, see Meghan Bobrowsky, “‘OSHA is AWOL’: Critics Say Federal Agency is Where Workplace Covid-19 Complaints Go to Die,” Miami Herald, July 3, 2020, https://www.miamiherald.com/new/ coronavirus/article243816822.html. 64 “Needle Epidemic.” This remained true in 2010. See Mariah Blake, “Dirty Medicine,” Washington Monthly ( July–August 2010), https://washingtonmonthly.com/2010/07/01/ dirty-medicine-2/. 62 63

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 202

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

203

OSHA had prepared the way, was among the first to consider and pass legislation to require safer needles in 1998. Twenty other states followed.65 The congressional response came two years later with the Needlestick Prevention and Safety bill. As its co-sponsor argued, “Health care workers should not have to risk their lives while saving the lives of their patients.”66 State laws and persistent political pressure led to congressional hearings. Before the Workforce Protections subcommittee, SEIU Local 790 nurse Lorraine Thiebaud charged, “In most hospitals across the country, needles without safety devices continue to be used. Little has changed.”67 Karen Daley of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, SEIU’s Bill Borwegen, and Thiebaud all testified that there was an urgent need to reduce the risk of injury and exposure to save lives. It was time for a national law to protect health care workers. The testimony had a familiar ring. Like Peggy Ferro, Daley contracted HIV after a needlestick in a hospital where she had been a nurse for more than twenty years. Five months later, she has “received the horrifying news that [she] was HIV and Hepatitis C positive.” She explained, “this injury didn’t occur because I wasn’t observing the necessary precautions . . . this injury didn’t have to happen and would not have happened if a safer needle disposal system had been in place.” For more than twenty years, there had been safer needles and syringes. Adopting them would sharply reduce “life-threatening risks” to health care workers.68 In “Victims’ Stories,” health care workers recounted accidental needlestick injuries and infections. Kerry Aalbue, an Emergency Medical Technician; LaShawn Johnson, a housekeeper; and nurses Karen Darden and Cecilia K (a pseudonym) testified how working conditions and the lack of safety protocols had increased their exposure to blood-borne disease. Needles that had been carelessly misplaced or over which workers lost control exposed workers to contaminated “SEIU Launches Campaign to Protect Health Workers from Needle Injuries,” Solid Waste Report 30, no. 15 (1999); “Accidental Needlestick Legislation Points Direction for Syringe Market,” Health Industry Today ( July 1999); “Labor Official Criticizes OSHA’s Inactivity on Needlestick Legislation,” Inside OSHA, April 17, 2000. 66 “OSHA Targets Reducing Needlesticks Among HCWs,” AIDS Alert 13, no. 11 (1998): 28– 32, accessed May 24, 2021, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11365970/; “Congress, OSHA Finally Join Fight to Mandate Needle Safety Precautions,” AIDS Alert 14, no. 7 (1999): 73, accessed May 24, 2021, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11366415/. See also Jordan Barab, “SEIU Retires its Health and Safety Program,” Confined Space: A Newsletter of Workplace Safety and Labor Issues, June 20, 2018, http://jordanbarab.com/confinedspace/2018/06/20/ seiu-retires-safety-health-program/. 67 Lorraine Thiebaud, RN, SEIU Local 790 Union Officers, Testimony, June 22, 2000, OSHA’s Compliance Directive on Bloodborne Pathogens and the Prevention of Needlestick Injuries, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and the Workforce, Workforce Protections Subcommittee. 68 Karen Daley, RN, OSHA Compliance Directive on Bloodborne Pathogens and the Prevention of Needlestick Injuries, June 22, 2000, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and the Workforce, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, Hearings, 11–12. 65

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 203

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

204

Elizabeth Faue

blood. Health care workers spoke as well of the fear and trauma related to the injury and the wait to know whether one had contracted a potentially fatal disease.69 Requiring health care facilities to provide safer devices and report needlestick injuries, the Needlestick Safety and Protection Act prescribed new safety regimens in hospitals and clinics, ambulances, and labs. In response to growing public support, Congress passed the legislation. It became law in November 2000.70 Looking back, SEIU’s Bill Borwegen recalled, “Never did [they] envision that it would take twelve years to win this fight.” As nurse activists noted, millions had been injured; thousands had become ill, and “too many ha[d] died” waiting for the government to act. Now it had.

New Waves of Nurse Activism Since the passage of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, nurse and health care worker unions have taken on the corporatization of health care, especially the working conditions in hospital systems where nurses and health care workers face consistent pressure for faster work and heavier workloads. The intensification of health care work has meant increased risks in the workplace both for patients and for workers.71 Hospitals and other health care facilities have seen increases in physical injuries due to lifting, greater psychological stress, higher rates of workplace violence (nearly 75 percent of it patient-caregiver), and sexual harassment.72 During our current pandemic, nurses and health care workers have had to advocate repeatedly for adequate personal protective equipment and plead for the public to shelter in place, to avoid overwhelming the capacity of “Victims’ Stories,” OSHA Compliance Directive, 227–34 “Needlestick Safety Prevention Act Becomes National Law,” Business Wire, November 6, 2000; Melissa Martin, “Clinton Signs Needlestick Prevention Bill,” Occupational Hazards 61, no. 12 (2000): 23; Stephanie Reed, “A Victory for Nurses,” American Journal of Nursing 100, no. 12 (2000): 22; M. Alexander Otto, “‘This Won’t Hurt Me a Bit’: New Rules Aim to Protect Health Care Workers from Accidental Sticks,” Washington Post, April 24, 2001, 7; Bill Borwegen, SEIU Health and Safety Officer, Statement, November 2000, http://lists.unc.edu/read/archive?id=3338756. “Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act at the Ten-Year Mark,” Ambulatory Quality and Compliance 11, no. 1 (2011): 1–3, includes an interview with Karen Daley. 71 For a recent study, see “Columbia: Study Finds Link Between Healthcare Associated Infections and Nurse Understaffing,” June 4, 2019, https://www.aspph.org/columbia-study-finds-link-between-healthcare-associated-infections-and-nurse-understaffing/. 72 California Nurses United led the fight for legislation that required hospitals to have a workplace violence plan. A 2007 NIOSH study reported high rates of workplace violence in the health care industry. Much of this violence is directed at housekeeping and health care staff. See Leslie Small, “Nurses Want Solution to ‘Epidemic’ of Workplace Violence,” January 15, 2015, https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/nurses-want-solution-to-epidemic-workplace-violence.

69 70

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 204

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

205

the health care system. It is not only the system that faces the threat of being overwhelmed. The physical and emotional toll of such work on nurses, doctors, and other health care workers will undoubtedly present its own threat to public health. By early April 2020, more than nine thousand health care workers had been infected and at least twenty-seven died. A year later, and more than 3,600 health care workers in the United States had died.74 In recent years, nurses have been a significant voice in the revitalization of labor politics in the United States. If that has been primarily expressed in NNU’s political advocacy, it is rooted in collective actions by the SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, and the NNU that have changed the calculus of the health care sector. In 2018, 485,000 workers were involved in strikes and lockouts, with an even greater total anticipated by the end of 2019. If “the crest of the wave has primarily been ridden by school workers,” with a nation-wide wave of teacher strikes, health care workers have played an equally vital role. More than 84,000 hospital workers were on strike in 2018, constituting about 20 percent of all strikes. The most important of these were in the University of California’s medical system in May 2018, when nearly 40,000 AFSCME members went on strike. In October, 15,000 workers came out again. In December, 4,000 mental health workers employed by Kaiser health care went out on strike when the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) took on the health care conglomerate. In each case, the issues were unsafe staffing levels, with high patient-nurse ratios and attendant high injury rates and levels of workplace violence. Computer technology that tracks personnel, electronic medical records that require more intensive labor, and the reduction of nurse autonomy in care with standardization has underwritten many of these protests.75 73

Zoe Schlanger, “Begging for Thermometers, Body Bags, and Gowns: US Health Care Workers Are Dangerously Ill-Equipped to Fight Covid-19,” Time, April 20, 2020, https://time. com/5823983/coronavirus-ppe-shortage/; National Nurses United, “Nurses Nationwide to Hold 139 ‘May Day’ Actions,” Press Release, April 30, 2020, https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/nurses-nationwide-hold-139-may-day-actions-demanding-covid-19-protections-nurses-health-care. See also Megan Ranney, Valerie Griffeth, and Ashish K. Jha, “Critical Supply Shortages: The Need for Ventilators and Personal Protective Equipment during the Covid-19 Epidemic,” New England Journal of Medicine, no. 382 (April 30, 2020): e41, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006141. 74 David Waldstein, “CDC Says That More Than 9,000 Health Care Workers Have Contracted Coronavirus,” New York Times, April 14, 2020; Jane Spencer and Christina Jewitt, “Twelve Months of Trauma: More Than 3,600 US Health Workers Died in Covid’s First Year,” Guardian, April 8, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/08/us-health-workersdeaths-covid-lost-on-the-frontline. 75 Michael Arria, “Over the Last Week, At Least 85,000 Workers Were Out on 13 Different Strikes,” In These Times, October 28, 2019, https://inthesetimes.com/article/workers-strikelabor-ctu-seiu-uaw-gm-tentative-agreement; Moody, “We Just Remembered How to Strike”; Elk, “Pennsylvania Nurses Inspired by Teachers’ Strikes to ‘Fight the Same Fight.” See also Rebecca Kolins Givan and Amy Schrager Lang, eds., Strike for the Common Good: Fighting for the Future of Public Education (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020). 73

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 205

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

206

Elizabeth Faue

The nurses’ protests have been influenced as well by teacher activism. In an Indiana, Pennsylvania hospital, 370 nurses went on strike to protest changes in hospital management in December 2018. Organized as part of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents over 120,000 health care workers, the nurses demanded changes in nurse-patient ratios as well as better compensation. Workplace conditions connected their own welfare with that of underserved patients. “Just like educators who care for our nation’s children, nurses are constantly being asked to do more with less,” argued Randi Weingarten, AFT president. She continued, “Nurses and educators are on the front lines every day, at great personal sacrifice, unselfishly taking care of our most vulnerable.”76 The current epidemic has only made the role of nurses, medical technicians, home health care aides, and other care providers as critical front-line workers and advocates of public safety and the common good clearer.

Conclusion: Health Care as a Public Good and the Current Crisis of Care Women health care workers, particularly nurses, led the fight for the 1991 OSHA bloodborne pathogen standard and the 2000 Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act. The OSHA standard promoted employee vaccinations and reduced the incidence of Hepatitis B, and the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act required safety needles and blood collection devices that had a similar impact. By 2012, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that needlestick injuries declined by 38 percent among hospital employees. Nurses and their unions have provided similar leadership by revealing and addressing the risks of the Covid-19 pandemic and the problems of the underlying health care system.77 Creating a culture of workplace safety while still emphasizing the importance of patient care limits risks for everyone in the health care system.78 Still, women workers remain at particular risk as they constitute nearly 80 percent of the health care labor force. Nursing has become, as the SEIU and the Elk, “Pennsylvania Nurses Inspired by Teachers’ Strikes.” National Nurses United, “National Nurse Survey,” https://nationalnursesunited.org/press/ national-nurse-survey-reveals-health-care-employers-need-to-do-more-to-protect-workers. 78 “Study: Needlestick Safety Act Dramatically Decreased Sharps Injuries,” Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, March 9, 2012, https://www.ishn.com/articles/92715-study--needlestick-safety-act-dramatically decreased-sharps-injuries; Elayne K. Phillips, Mark R. Conway, Janine C. Jagger, “Percutaneous Injuries Before and After the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act,” New England Journal of Medicine, no. 366 (February 16, 2012): 670–71. See also Rebecca Kolins Givan, The Challenge to Change: Reforming Health Care on the Front Line in the United States and the United Kingdom (Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 2016) on the creation of a workplace culture of safety. 76 77

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 206

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

Work and the Politics of the Injured Body

207

National Nurses Union have argued and the current pandemic demonstrated, a dangerous profession. Yet, nurses are only some of the many health care workers at risk in even more ordinary times. Respiratory therapists, nurse assistants, x-ray technicians, phlebotomists, housekeeping and food service workers also experience high injury rates, viral infections, and chemical exposure. Home health care workers are exposed to bloodborne pathogens and infectious agents in less regulated environments.79 The intensification of labor in corporate-managed health care continues to make the health care industry more dangerous than it need be. What is more, the conditions that led to increased occupational risks such as higher patient-nurse ratios, unsafe or inadequate supplies, and mandatory overtime endanger not just health care workers but the patients in their care. Since the 1970s, workers in the health care industry have faced the consequences of industry deregulation and a general retreat from the government protecting workers. Opposition to government regulation but also the desire to reduce costs and cut staff caused many of the problems the epidemic has revealed. Diane Feinberg, a nurse activist in the campaign for a workplace standard of protection, argued that “AIDS [was] not just a medical crisis. . . . [It was] a profoundly political crisis as well.”80 Caught up in a union struggle, another nurse reasoned that, “Nurses must be prepared to stand up for what they believe in, not only for themselves but also for their patients. When we come to grips with that, we can begin to negotiate for working conditions that benefit the hospital, the patient, and nurse.”81 Today’s global pandemic has all the hallmarks not only of a public health disaster but of a parallel political crisis that nurse and health care worker-advocates now face. What remains for us to accomplish is persistent action on behalf of workplace safety measures, improved health care access, and rigorous public health standards. As NNU head Bonnie Castillo recently noted, nurses have engaged in more than 2,000 collective actions to demand life-saving protections for health care workers and patients alike.82 The current crisis compels us to address the continuing failures of the system. Advocacy for public health and worker Leslie I. Boden, Grace Sembajwe, Torill H. Tveito, Dean Hashimoto, Karen Hopcia, Christopher Kenwood, Anne M. Stoddard, and Glorian Sorensen, “Occupational Injuries among Nurses and Aides in a Hospital Setting,” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 55 (2012): 117–26; Judith Green-McKenzie, Ronda B. McCarthy, and Frances S. Shofer, “Characterisation of Occupational Blood and Body Fluid Exposures beyond the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act,” Journal of Infection Prevention 17, no. 5 (2016): 226–32. On home health care aides, see J. Lipscomb, R. Sokas, K. McPhaul, B. Scharf, P. Barker, A. Tinkoff, and C. Storr, “Occupational Blood Exposure among Unlicensed Home Care Workers and Home Care Registered Nurses: Are They Protected?” American Journal of Industrial Medicine 52 (2009): 563–70. 80 Batza, Before AIDS, quoting Feinberg, “AIDS/Health,” Gay Community News, November 26, 1983, quote on 15. 81 Quoted in Ketter, “Nurses and Strikes,” 324. 82 Castillo, “400 Reasons Why.” 79

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 207

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

208

Elizabeth Faue

safety has disproportionately fallen to the women-dominated sectors of the labor force that have increasingly embraced a politics of care—especially nurses, health care workers, and even physicians and medical residents. The actions of front-line workers and their unions have kept the debate over national health insurance and public health protections alive and, with it, the promise of health and healing as a public good.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 2.indd 208

2022.07.30. 22:41:19

PART THREE HOW THE PERSONAL REVEALS THE POLITICAL: WOMEN ACTIVISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES AND BEYOND

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 209

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 210

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s Isidora Grubački

D

iverse and relatively dynamic, the women’s and feminist movement in the interwar Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes/Kingdom of Yugoslavia was mainly active in the urban centers of the kingdom.1 It primarily focused on issues like suffrage rights, equal professional opportunities and equal pay, and equality before the law.2 However, as interwar Yugoslavia was a predominantly peasant country, it is meaningful to explore aspects of feminist interwar activism oriented toward peasant women. The purpose of this chapter is to address the question of the character of feminist and gender activism in a predominantly agricultural country in Southeastern Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. More specifically, the chapter discusses women’s activism and peasant women in an interrelated way by exploring two specific case studies from the 1930s.3 With the categories of gender and class in mind, the chapter examines in detail two different and somewhat opposing ways women activists in interwar Yugoslavia addressed the issue of peasant women’s work and asks the following questions. How did the interwar women activists perceive and discuss peasant women’s work? Which problems regarding peasant women’s work did they identify and what solutions did they offer? Finally, what actions did women activists take regarding the question of peasant women’s work?4 The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established in December 1918 and was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. For the purpose of simplification, I will mainly use the term Yugoslavia throughout this paper. 2 Thomas A. Emmert, “Ženski pokret: The Feminist Movement in Serbia in the 1920s,” in Gender Politics in the Western Balkans: Women and Society in Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav successor states, ed. Sabrina P. Ramet (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 37–39, 40–44; Miroslava Malešević, “‘Ženski pokret’—feminističko glasilo između dva svetska rata” [“Ženski pokret”—the feminist journal between the two wars], in Žensko (Belgrade: Srpski genealoški centar, 2007), 9–40. 3 This chapter is based on parts of my MA thesis, “Emancipating Rural Women in Interwar Yugoslavia: Analysis of Discourses on Rural Women in Two 1930s Women’s Periodicals,” defended at Central European University in Budapest in 2017, as well as on research done for my current PhD project under the supervision of professors Francisca de Haan and Balázs Trencsényi. I would like to thank the editors, the two reviewers, as well as Professors Pieter Troch and Lucy Delap for their helpful comments and questions, which helped me improve the text in its final stage. 4 The category of nation is also very important for the analysis of the two case studies; however, it is beyond the scope of this particular chapter. 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 211

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

212

Isidora Grubački

So far, the historiography on the peasantry in Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe more broadly has paid little attention to peasant women and peasant women’s work,5 with some important exceptions, including sociologist and anthropologist Vera Stein Erlich’s seminal research on family in transition in interwar Yugoslav villages. 6 Women’s agricultural labor has also been left out of historian Jovanka Kecman’s seminal 1978 book on the women of Yugoslavia in the interwar workers’ movement and women’s organizations; namely, she focused on women’s syndical organizing, with only scarce mentions of peasant women in terms of statistics.7 In recent decades, however, feminist historians have started re-evaluating labor history written during the state-socialist period8 and shifted the attention to previously un- or under-researched topics, including domestic workers, housewives, and, to a limited extent, female agrarian workers.9 Furthermore, there has been a growing body of scholarship in the same period on women’s and feminist movements, activism, and women’s education, which has See, for example: Ruth Trouton, Peasant Renaissance in Yugoslavia, 1900–1950 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952); and Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics, and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955). The situation is similar in the more recent literature on, for example, agrarian ideologies in the Balkans: Roumen Daskalov, “Agrarian Ideologies and Peasant Movements in the Balkans,” in Entangled Histories of the Balkans, vol. 2, Transfers of Political Ideologies and Institutions, ed. Diana Mishkova and Roumen Daskalov, 281–354 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2014). 6 Vera St. Erlich, Jugoslavenska porodica u transformaciji (1964; repr., Zagreb: Liber, 1971); published also in English as: Vera St. Erlich, Family in Transition: A Study of 300 Yugoslav Villages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966), later referenced also as Vera Štajn Erlih. See Andrea Feldman, “Vera Erlich Stein: Odyssey of a Croatian Jewish Intellectual,” in Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe, 1860–2000: Twelve Biographical Essays, ed. Judith Szapor, Andrea Pető, Maura Hametz, and Marina Calloni (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2012), 327–48. See also Mary E. Reed, “Peasant Women of Croatia in the Interwar Years,” in Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe, ed. Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1985), 98–112. For more recent literature, see: Momčilo Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji u prvoj polovini 20. veka [Peasant woman in Serbia in the first half of the twentieth century] (Belgrade: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, 2008); Susan Zimmermann and Piroska Nagy, “Female Agrarian Workers in Early Twentieth-Century Hungary: The Making of Class- and Gender-Based Solidarities,” Aspasia 12, no. 1 (2018): 121–33. 7 Jovanka Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije u radničkom pokretu i ženskim organizacijama 1918–1941 [Women of Yugoslavia in the workers’ movement and women’s organizations 1918–1941] (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 1978). For an earlier focus on women’s work that also includes agricultural women and domestic servants, see Gábor Gyáni, Women as Domestic Servants: The Case of Budapest, 1890–1940 (New York: Institute on East Central Europe, Columbia University, 1989). 8 See articles by Alexandra Ghit, Natalia Jarska, Susan Zimmermann, and other articles in DOSSIER: “Labour Histories Revisited—L’histoire ouvrière revisitée,” European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no. 1 (2018): 1–100. 9 Dirk Hoerder, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Silke Neunsinger, eds., Towards a Global History of Domestic and Caregiving workers (Leiden: Brill, 2015). See the articles by Silke Neunsinger, Karen Hunt, et al. in “Gendered Activism and the Politics of Women’s Work,” International Labor and Working-Class History 77, no. 1 (2010): 3–108. 5

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 212

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

213

significantly expanded our knowledge of Southeastern and Central European women’s and feminist history.10 The study of women’s education in the region has—with good reason—mainly explored education through the categories of nation and nationalism,11 with some studies addressing peasant women as well.12 Although our knowledge of feminist and gendered activism is expanding, the nature of feminist activism aimed at peasant women as well as the place of peasant women’s work in this activism has been insufficiently researched or theorized, with Ana Stolić’s recent research on the relationship of women activists with peasant women in Serbia before World War One as a noteworthy exception in Serbian historiography.13 Building on this scholarship, this essay expands our knowledge of the relationship between feminist activism and peasant women’s work, examining two dominant feminist activist approaches to peasant women in 1930s Yugoslavia, with the caveat that they were dominant at least in the Serbian parts of interwar Yugoslavia.14 The first case is the activism of Darinka Lacković, the editor of Seljanka: list za prosvećivanje žena na selu (Peasant Woman: Periodical for the Enlightenment of Women in the Countryside, 1933–1935, hereafter Seljanka), the first and only periodical in interwar Yugoslavia published specifically for For an excellent overview and bibliography, see Krassimira Daskalova and Susan Zimmermann, “Women’s and Gender History,” in The Routledge History of East Central Europe Since 1700, ed. Irina Livezeanu and Árpád von Klimó (New York: Routledge, 2017), 278–322. 11 Ana Kolarić, “Gender, Nation, and Education in the Women’s Magazine Žena (The woman) (1911–1914),” Espacio, Tiempo y Educación 4, no. 1 (2017): 1–23, https://doi.org/10.14516/ ete.142; Katerina Dalakoura, “The Moral and Nationalist Education of Girls in the Greek Communities of the Ottoman Empire (c. 1800–1922),” Women’s History Review 20, no. 4 (2011): 651–62. 12 Krassimira Daskalova, “Nation-building, Patriotism, and Women’s Citizenship: Bulgaria in Southeastern Europe,” in Girls’ Secondary Education in the Western World, ed. Joyce Goodman, Rebecca Rogers, and James Albisetti (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010); Maria Bucur, Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), 149–64, esp. 171–77. 13 Ana Stolić, “Građanke i seljanke: stavovi predstavnica pokreta za emancipaciju žena o ženama na selu početkom 20. veka” [Female citizens and peasants: attitudes of representatives of the women’s emancipation movement toward village women in the early twentieth century], in Selo Balkana: Kontinuiteti i promene kroz istoriju [The Balkan village: Continuities and changes through history], ed. Srđan Rudić and Svetlana Ćaldović Šijaković, 179–90 (Belgrade: Istorijski institut Beograd, Muzej na otvorenom Sirogojno, 2017). See also Svetlana Stefanović, “Nation und Geschlecht: Frauen in Serbien von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg” (PhD diss., Universität Leipzig, 2013). 14 Although some references are made to Slovenian and Croatian activists, this chapter is limited to the Serbian perspective. An important discourse missing from this analysis is that of the Croatian Peasant Party. However, I decided to limit my analysis in this text to the two examples that are predominantly Serbian, but they aimed to influence the whole country. I do not tell a comprehensive story about the Yugoslav case here, and including sources from Croatian, Slovenian, or Macedonian parts of Yugoslavia, for example, would certainly complicate the picture. 10

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 213

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

214

Isidora Grubački

peasant women. Second, I will focus on the left-feminist15 communist women who in 1935 formed the Youth Section of Ženski pokret (The Women’s Movement) as well as founded their journal Žena danas (Woman Today, 1936–1940), which brought a different view to rural women’s labor than that of Seljanka. As will be shown, both cases are connected in different ways to Ženski pokret, the first feminist organization established in Belgrade in 1919.16 I will analyze the discourses in the two journals, focusing on the arguments, but also on the practices, behavior, and institutional context that accompanied a certain mode of argumentation.17 In examining periodicals, I am influenced by literary historians who have significantly contributed to the field of periodical studies in Serbia in recent years; particularly important here is Stanislava Barać’s study in which the author writes about the two journals examined here, in addition to other women’s periodicals from interwar Serbia.18 To analyze the discourse in Seljanka, I find a biographical perspective useful for exploring the work and activism of Darinka Lacković, the journal’s editor and an important feminist activist in the interwar period, whose life and work has not been the focus of historians probably due to the fact that it was mostly focused in and on the countryside.19 I argue that in Yugoslavia in the 1930s, peasant women’s work was one of the key concerns for feminists and women activists who focused their attention on rural women. Furthermore, the two cases analyzed indicate a contested meaning of peasant women’s work among feminists. For the purpose of this chapter, I will characterize both approaches as feminist in the sense that they were in different ways connected to the Yugoslav feminist movement, and they both sought to positively change peasant women’s lives. 20 However, while both groups I explain the term in the beginning of the second section of this paper. Ženski pokret will be further discussed in the first part of the chapter. 17 For this I find Foucault’s understanding of discourse and power useful. See Michel Foucault, “On Power,” in Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and other Writings 1977–1984, trans. by Alan Sheridan and others, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: Routledge, 1988), 102– 9. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 92–102. 18 Stanislava Barać, Feministička kontrajavnost: Žanr ženskog portreta u srpskoj periodici 1920– 1941 [Feminist counterpublic: The female portrait genre in Serbian periodicals 1920–1941] (Belgrade: Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2015), 188–235 and 267–88. See also Slobodanka Peković, Časopisi po meri dostojanstvenog ženskinja [Magazines by and for respectable women] (Novi Sad, Beograd: Matica srpska, Institut za književnost i umetnost, 2015); Ana Kolarić, Rod, modernost i emancipacija: Uredničke politike u časopisima “Žena” (1911– 1914) i “The Freewoman” (1911–1912) [Gender, Modernity, and Emancipation: Editorial Politics in the Periodicals “Žena” (1911–1914) and “The Freewoman” (1911–1912)] (Belgrade: Fabrika knjiga, 2016); and Lucy Delap, Maria DiCenzo, and Leila Ryan, Feminist Media History: Suffrage, Periodicals and the Public Sphere (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 19 For the relationship between feminist biography and feminist history, see Barbara Caine, “Feminist Biography and Feminist History,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 2 (1994): 247–61. 20 In using the term feminism, I follow historian Karen Offen’s approach to the history of feminism. Offen proposed considering both individual and relational modes of argumentation 15 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 214

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

215

observed the difficult position of peasant women in terms of their workload, this chapter will show that the solutions they offered were quite different and that these were two of several competing discourses on the status of peasant women. On the one hand, Seljanka’s approach focused on the profession of peasant women and sought to improve peasant women’s position within the patriarchal system and a peasant-state economic system based on a combination of subsistence and commodity production without calling for a change of the system itself. On the other hand, the activists connected to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, in this chapter encompassed under the analytical label of left feminism, focused on a discussion of the double subjection of peasant women with regard to both gender and class; offered a solution in terms of political rather than professional education; and ultimately called for social revolution.21 By discussing the two divergent conceptualizations of peasant women’s work and the shifting forms of activism in these two cases, I aim to underscore the importance of examining the women activists’ relationship to peasant women’s work in research concerning feminist and women’s activism in various historical contexts, particularly in places where the peasantry was the quantitatively predominant social group, as was the case in interwar Yugoslavia and East Central Europe broadly. In this context, exploring the relationship between peasant women’s work and urban women’s activism can further enhance our understanding of the asymmetrical relationship between educated activist women and the largely uneducated peasant women in the majority as well as the ways this asymmetry was maintained or transgressed.22 This chapter also contributes to the scholarship on interwar Yugoslavia and its political history by looking beyond the intra- and used historically by women to argue for women’s emancipation from male control. This approach allowed for expanding the geographical scope of the research of feminism, which in the Yugoslav case was relational rather than individualistic, although these two modes of argumentation are not always easily separated. As Offen clarified: “Viewed historically, arguments in the relational feminist tradition proposed a gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organization. They featured the primacy of a companionate, non-hierarchical, male-female couple as the basic unit of society, whereas individualist arguments posited the individual, irrespective of sex or gender, as the basic unit.” Karen Offen, “Defining Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach,” Signs 14, no. 1 (1988): 119–57, particularly 135–36. For a discussion about individual and relational feminism in Serbian historiography, see, for example, Ana Stolić, “Uvod” [Introduction], in her Sestre srpkinje [Serbian Sisters] (Belgrade: Evoluta, 2015), 5–22; Ana Kolarić, “Beyond the National: Notes on the International Women’s Movement(s) in Žena (‘The Woman’),” Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics 4, no. 2 (2020): 6, accessed September 11, 2020, https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/8514. 21 In Theda Skocpol’s definition, “Social revolutions are rapid, basic transformations of a society’s state and class structures; and they are accompanied and in part carried through by class-based revolts from below.” Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (1979; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 4–5. 22 This issue was recently brought up in Zimmermann and Nagy, “Female Agrarian Workers.”

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 215

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

216

Isidora Grubački

inter-party struggles and placing women at the center of the analysis.23 Finally, an analysis of the two competing ideological currents together provides more knowledge and nuance to our understanding of not only interwar feminist activism in general but also of communist women’s activism before World War Two in Yugoslavia and the broader region.24 The chapter is divided into three sections; after discussing the socio-political context and the conditions of the economic and political crisis in Yugoslavia in the interwar period, it analyzes the two case studies separately, followed by a third section that compares the two cases and provides concluding remarks.

Yugoslavia and the Women’s Movement in the Interwar Period The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was established after World War One as a centralized parliamentary kingdom under the leadership of the Serbian royal family Karađorđević. The kingdom was a multi-national and multi-confessional country which unified uneven political, economic, and legal entities.25 Different contextual aspects could be chosen to analyze the two cases I discuss in this chapter, in particular the multi-national character of the country and the tensions between nations.26 However, I will limit this chapter to Yugoslavia’s status as a predominantly peasant country that went through an economic crisis in the 1930s; moreover, during this same period, Yugoslavia had an active and Dejan Djokić, Elusive Compromise: A History of Interwar Yugoslavia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Christian Axboe Nielsen, Making Yugoslavs: Identity in King Aleksandar’s Yugoslavia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014); Pieter Troch, Nationalism and Yugoslavia: Education, Yugoslavism and the Balkans before World War II (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016). For some of more recent scholarship on the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, see, for example, Hilde Katrin Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, Communist Leadership and the National Question (London: I.B.Tauris, 2012); and Stefan Gužvica, Frakcijski boji v komunistični partiji Jugoslavije med veliko čistko 1936–1940 [Faction struggles in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia during the Great Purge, 1936–1940], trans. Marko Kržan (Ljubljana: Sophia, 2019). 24 See, for instance, Jelena Petrović, Women’s Authorship in Interwar Yugoslavia: The Politics of Love and Struggle (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 27–53; Donna Harsch, “Communism and Women,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, ed. Stephen A. Smith (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014), 488–504. 25 Branko Petranović, Istorija Jugoslavije: 1918–1988 [History of Yugoslavia: 1918–1988], vol. 1, Kraljevina Jugoslavija: 1914–1941 [The Kingdom of Yugoslavia] (Belgrade: Nolit, 1988); Richard Crampton, “The Balkans,” in Twisted Paths: Europe 1914–1945, ed. Robert Gerwarth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 244. 26 See, for example, Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992 [1984]), and a challenge to Banac’s analysis, Djokić, Elusive Compromise. 23

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 216

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

217

diverse women’s movement that advocated for political and legal changes regarding the position of women who were denied equal rights to men, including but not limited to suffrage rights.27 In 1931, according to the census held that year, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had fourteen million inhabitants, 76.5 percent of whom lived off of agricultural work, animal husbandry, and fishing.28 Yugoslavia was a predominantly agricultural country; there were close to two million small peasant farms,29 and its state income from agriculture was close to 60 percent. However, the regions of the kingdom were unevenly developed economically, and the land was also unevenly distributed. Due to economic crisis, the prices of agricultural products began to fall in 1929, whereas the indebtedness of the peasant households, which even before the crisis had generally low production rates, grew. Some studies of villages in the interwar period attest to the difficult position of the peasantry; for example, Rudolf Bićanić, a young economist and member of the Croatian Peasant Party, studied the ways the rural population lived in the poorest regions of Yugoslavia. As he noted, occupied as they were with the struggle for survival and the effort to satisfy their most basic needs, peasants felt that the year 1935 was worse even than 1917, which was remembered as a disastrous period of hunger during World War One.30 Jovanka Kecman has shown that the position of peasant women was particularly difficult as they had to do both work in the house (including the production of clothes and footwear), and agricultural work in the fields, which was enormously challenging due to the lack of modern technology.31 Closely connected to the economic problems was widespread illiteracy and the poor state of the educational system in interwar Yugoslavia despite ongoing efforts to modernize the educational system, especially after the introduction of the royal dictatorship in January 1929.32 Particularly troubling was the There were diverse legal policies inherited from the various pre-1918 legal systems, and the legal inequality was not the same in different parts of the country. For differences, see Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije, 57. 28 Erlich, Jugoslavenska porodica u transformaciji, 33–34. 29 Petranović, Kraljevina Jugoslavija, 56–85. The following claims are also based on Petranović’s overview. 30 In 1935, Bićanić set out on a journey around the villages of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia to become familiar with the way the people—narod—actually lived. According to R. J. Crampton, this research was a part of the Croatian Peasant Party and Peasant Economic Union’s (Gospodarska Sloga) efforts to “improve the material and cultural standard of the peasant’s life” by setting up co-operatives. R. J. Crampton, review of How the People Live: Life in the Passive Regions, by Rudolf Bićanić, Joel M. Halpern, and Elinor Murray Despotović, Agricultural History Review 31, no. 2 (1983): 28–29. See also Aleksandar Petrović, Banjane: Socijalno-zdravstvene i higijenske prilike [Banjane: Social, health and hygiene conditions] (Belgrade: Centralni higijenski zavod, 1932). 31 Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije, 24. 32 Troch, Nationalism and Yugoslavia, 43–50. 27

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 217

2022.07.30. 22:40:11

218

Isidora Grubački

problem of women’s education. According to the 1931 census, the literacy rate for women was 43.6 percent (with great differences between the regions: for Slovenia it was 94.2 percent; for Macedonia, the rate was 18.3 percent), whereas in the countryside, this proportion was often lower than 5 percent.33 With an undeveloped school system, peasant women were, in Kecman’s words, often excluded from social life and work.34 The rural population steadfastly refused to send female children to school, and much more than laws was needed to change this tendency in education. Apart from the official school system, there was a parallel way of educating peasant women including domestic schools in which women were taught the basics of hygiene and cooking. Before World War One, medical experts were the driving force behind the organization of domestic schools for peasant women.35 According to Ana Stolić, organized women began to increasingly discuss the difficult conditions in which peasant women lived in Serbia through the establishment of the Serbian National Women’s Council (Srpski Narodni ženski savez, a member of the International Council of Women and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance) in the early twentieth century.36 As Stolić showed, in the 1910s, the dominant elite women’s discourse about peasant women was that public health was more important than suffrage because the majority of peasant women still slept on the floor, and that the education of peasant women was necessary because it was their job to influence their husbands and sons.37 However, the state’s involvement in rural women’s education seems to have intensified in interwar Yugoslavia, and it was after the war when some women’s organizations took the lead in organizing peasant women’s education,38 including the first feminist organization in Belgrade, the Society for the Education of Woman and the Protection of Her Rights (Društvo za prosvećivanje žene i zaštitu njenih prava, soon afterward renamed Ženski pokret). Established in 1919, Ženski pokret engaged in actions that demanded changes in the political, social, and legal aspects of women’s position in the new state. Ženski pokret also took action to protect war orphans, children born out of wedlock and their mothers, and women engaged in prostitution. Finally, as the elite Ibid., 24–25. Ibid. The state’s attempts to have more female children enrolled in school were usually not successful. In 1929, for example, a law stating that elementary education was compulsory for all children was (not for the first time) implemented, but the number of girls in schools increased only for a brief period. Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji, 50. 35 Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji, 81. This was the case in other contexts as well. For example, historian Elizabeth B. Jones has explored how experts in Weimar Germany worked toward the rationalization of rural women’s labor in her Gender and Rural Modernity: Farm Women and the Politics of Labor in Germany, 1871–1933 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), particularly 127–59. 36 Ana Stolić, “Građanke i seljanke,” 182. 37 Ibid, 182–84. 38 Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji, 79–88. 33 34

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 218

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

219

of a predominantly peasant country, they were active in educating peasant women, which is the focus of this chapter.39 It could be argued that Ženski pokret’s role in establishing domestic schools for rural women in the interwar period was central. Already in the beginning of 1920, Ženski pokret cooperated with the Ministry of Education in conducting a census on literacy and suggested a program establishing domestic schools for peasant women.40 In September 1920, the Ministry of Education issued the Decree on the Arrangement of Domestic Schools, which defined the goal of domestic schools as “training and bringing up the female population as rational, respectable, and good housewives.”41 From 1922, with the financial support of the King’s Fund, Ženski pokret organized not only many domestic schools42 but also training schools for these domestic schools’ future teachers.43 Ženski pokret can be viewed as an important juncture between the two cases I analyze in this paper. Throughout the 1920s, the editor of Seljanka, Darinka Lacković, was the head of Ženski pokret’s Section for Domestic Schools and organized domestic schools funded by the King’s Fund, whereas in the 1930s, the schools were no longer associated directly with Ženski pokret.44 Interestingly, it was also under the auspices of Ženski pokret that young communist women established their Youth Section.45 This attests to the heterogeneous character of Ženski pokret and also to the fact that the two approaches were both broadly related to feminist politics and in indirect rather than direct conflict with each other. Although this chapter does not aim to explain why feminists had differing approaches to peasant women and their work, a partial explanation—apart from their differing ideological worldviews—could be the generational divide between Ženski pokret and its Youth Section.46 Thomas A. Emmert, “Ženski pokret.” Z. K., “Godišnja skupština Društva za prosvećivanje žene i zaštitu njenih prava” [Annual assembly of the Society for the Education of Woman and Protection of Her Rights], Ženski pokret, no. 2 ( June 1920): 14–16. See also Isidora Grubački, “The Emergence of the Yugoslav Interwar Liberal Feminist Movement and the Little Entente of Women: An Entangled History Approach (1919–1924),” Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics 2020 4, no. 2 (2020): 6–7, https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/8515. 41 Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji, 81; Arhiv Jugoslavije (Archives of Yugoslavia, hereafter AJ), Fond 74 Kraljev Dvor [King’s Court], 433-1. 42 In 1922, Ženski pokret organized ten courses for rural women in ten different villages of Vojvodina, Serbia, Slavonia and Bosnia. AJ, Fond 74, 433-9 to 433-12. 43 AJ, Fond 74, 433-13. 44 In 1929, Darinka Lacković was still a part of Ženski pokret’s board, so the reasons for this shift should not be viewed as anything resembling a conflict with Ženski pokret. “Nova uprava Ženskog pokreta u Beogradu” [New board of Ženski pokret in Belgrade], Ženski pokret, no. 17/20 (1929): 4. 45 In the case of Belgrade, this happened in 1935. 46 For more about generational conflict, see Isidora Grubački, “Communism, Left Feminism, and Generations in the 1930s: The Case of Yugoslavia,” in Gender, Generations, and Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond, ed. Anna Artwińska and Agnieszka Mrozik (New York and London: Routledge, 2020), 45–65. 39 40

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 219

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

220

Isidora Grubački

In the 1930s, feminist activists increased their focus on peasant women and offered differing solutions to the difficult position of peasant women. The relationship between feminist activists and peasant women in interwar Yugoslavia, therefore, must be understood in the context of the mounting economic crisis that hit the agricultural societies of Southeastern Europe particularly hard; a structural problem due to the absence of state modernization that resulted in relatively constant low literacy rates; and, finally, a growing and diverse women’s movement.

Domestic Schools, Darinka Lacković, and Discussions of Peasant Women’s Work in the Periodical Seljanka (1933–1935) A rewarding way to explore the first case study is by looking at the life and work of Darinka Lacković, an activist who organized numerous Domestic Schools for peasant women in the 1920s and the 1930s. Details such as the dates and locations of her birth and death are unfortunately unknown; however, it is certain that she belonged to Belgrade feminist and women’s activist circles. Already before World War One, Lacković had published in Milica Tomić’s47 journal Žena (Woman, Novi Sad, 1911–1914, 1918–1921), where she argued for a different education for women, maintaining that “a modern woman has long ago stopped being her husband’s maidservant” and inviting women to liberate other women in order to educate them differently.48 After the war, Lacković was described as a “tireless worker” who made a “great sacrifice”49 to educate peasant women, and she was arguably the central figure for the education of rural women in the Serbian part of interwar Yugoslavia, acting as the head of Ženski pokret’s Section for Domestic Schools during the 1920s.50 Beginning in 1929, she no longer worked in the framework of Ženski pokret; instead, she served as a director and educator of an institution she herself participated in establishing, the King’s Fund Domestic School (1929–1941).51 Between 1933 and 1935, she also published the For Milica Tomić (1859–1944), see “Milica Tomić,” ed. Ana Kolarić, Knjizenstvo, http:// knjizenstvo.etf.bg.ac.rs/en/authors/milica-tomic. 48 D. Lacković, “Cilj i zadatak ženskog pokreta” [The goal and task of women’s movement], Žena [Woman] 9 (1912): 541, as quoted in Ana Kolarić, Rod, modernost i emancipacija, 120–21. 49 This is how contemporaries described Lacković’s work. AJ, Fond 74, 433-7 and 433-8. 50 In June 1923, Ženski pokret formally established the Section for Domestic Schools, with Darinka Lacković as its head. The members of the section were Leposava Maksimović Petković, President of Ženski pokret; Darinka Lacković, head of the section; Jelica Jevđenijević, Srbijanka Mojić, Anđa Hristić, M. Ivenić, Slavka Glavinić, Mara Strahinić. AJ, Fond 74, 433-22. 51 For the basic information about the King’s Fond, see Aleksandra Ilić, “Fond za narodno

47

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 220

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

221

journal Seljanka. Looking at Lacković’s efforts in connection with this school and the periodical and analyzing the discussions about peasant women’s work in Seljanka enables a deeper understanding of her feminist activism in relation to peasant women’s education and work.

THE “APOSTOLIC” WORK OF DARINKA LACKOVIĆ: EDUCATION AND NETWORKING ACROSS THE COUNTRYSIDE Seljanka emphasized the importance of individuals who “live with the people” and who want to cooperate in “the difficult, but for [our] nation, much needed work in popular education.”52 With this in mind, I would argue that Darinka Lacković’s work had a very strong activist element which she clearly conceptualized in Seljanka. Namely, she characterized this type of popular education as challenging “apostolic” work that “looks for dedicated and enthusiastic workers.”53 Consequently, Seljanka invited only those “who realized that it is time that educated sons and daughters of our nation start working for the enlightenment and the revival of the nation” to join in this quest.54 In one of the journal’s programmatic texts, the importance of peasant women’s education was framed within the narrative of the progress of family and, consequently, the nation; or, in Barać’s words, the peasant woman was “stereotypically presented as the keeper of the traditional and collective values of the nation, state, faith, and family.”55 According to Seljanka, peasant women were the most deserving of the “attention of all our cultural and humanitarian male and female workers.”56 In this context, what were the elements of Lacković’s activism? The King’s Fund School differed from the previous local Ženski pokret schools because it was meant to enroll peasant women from all parts of Yugoslavia.57 For this reason, Lacković, as the school’s director, traveled for several months every year, taking personal initiative to ensure equal regional representation prosvećivanje Kralja Aleksandra Karađorđevića” [King Aleksandar Karadjordjević’s fond for public education], Andragoške studije: časopis za proučavanje obrazovanja i učenja odraslih 10, no. 1/2 (2004): 89–98. 52 J., “List ‘Seljanka’” [Paper “Peasant Woman”], Seljanka (December 1934): 8–9. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Barać, Feministička kontrajavnost, 273. 56 Olga Kerlic Peleš, “Naša seljanka” [Our peasant woman], Seljanka (February 1933): 2. 57 Darinka Lacković, “A Letter to Stanojka M. Jovanović,” Seljanka (December 1935): 14. The school was established the same year King Aleksandar proclaimed a royal dictatorship (1929– 1935) and introduced, among other things, the national ideology characterized as integral Yugoslavism, aimed at overwriting the particularist (i.e., “tribal”) Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian nationalisms and regional differences. See Troch, Nationalism and Yugoslavia, particularly 27. Darinka Lacković’s school should be understood in this context.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 221

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

222

Isidora Grubački

in the school. Given that persuading peasants to educate their daughters even in local schools was difficult, Lacković had to overcome great obstacles to convince parents to let their female child go away for so long.59 However, while traveling, Lacković also created and strengthened the network of people concerned about peasant women’s education and the progress of Yugoslav villages, and I recognize this as one aspect of her activism. This was, to a large extent, a network of women involved with the national women’s alliance—the Yugoslav Women’s Council (Jugoslovenski ženski savez).60 Apart from creating a network of activists interested in peasant women’s education, through her activism—somewhat extraordinarily—Darinka Lacković attempted to create a network of peasant women. She took great pains to keep in contact with her former students via visits and letters and was diligent in mobilizing the women to recommend prospective students. Yet, her visits had an element of surveillance, too, as Lacković would visit former students to monitor whether they had managed to introduce desirable changes into their households. The periodical Seljanka was an important medium for this peasant women’s network and at the same time, the most illustrative example of Darinka Lacković’s efforts to connect rural women with each other.61 Lacković’s letters with former students as well as her replies offer a unique space that could serve as a peasant women’s public forum for exchanging information about the group’s members’ well-being and progress.62 Lastly, the sources also point to attempts to include peasant women in the network of women activists. Seljanka’s introductory articles stated: “Here we are, our dear sisters, to take you into our circle [kolo] and, with our common work, prepare the happy future of our people.”63 Formal attempts to include peasant women into the feminist “circle” are also apparent in an article reporting that Natalija Nešić, a peasant woman, took part in a meeting of Jugoslovenski ženski savez in Zagreb in 1930. In her speech to the “ladies” (gospođe), the peasant 58

Barać, Feministička kontrajavnost, 269. Lacković complained that only a few people would let a female child go so far away from home. Darinka Lacković, “Izbor novih učenica i obilaženje svršenih učenica Domaćičke škole Kraljevog Fonda” [Selection of new students and visitation of finished students of the King’s Fund’s Domestic School], Seljanka ( June 1934): 8–9. See also Isić, Seljanka u Srbiji, 81–82. 60 Jugoslovenski ženski savez was the Yugoslav National Women’s Council, a member of the International Council of Women. Continuing the work of the previously mentioned Serbian National Women’s Council, Narodni ženski savez Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (National Women’s Council of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes) was established in Belgrade in 1919 and was renamed Jugoslovenski ženski savez in 1929. 61 Unlike the school, the journal was not financed by the King’s Fund; it was Lacković’s personal initiative, and it depended solely on subscriptions. However, even with a specific clientele group in mind, Lacković could not secure subscriptions and had to stop publishing the journal in December 1935. Darinka Lacković, “Nema više Seljanke,” Seljanka (December 1935): 11. See also Barać, Feministička kontrajavnost, 268. 62 Darinka Lacković to Darinka Ćosić, Seljanka, February 1933, 15–16; Darinka Lacković to Slavica Baltek, Seljanka (May 1933): 14. 63 Olga Kerlic Peleš, “Naša seljanka,” 2. 58 59

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 222

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

223

woman representative asked if peasant women should organize like the ladies had and demand the renewal of the villages. Quoting her grandfather, the speaker suggested that a ministry should be established in which a woman minister would take care of peasant women because “only a woman can understand the peasant woman, and we believe that the peasant woman will be educated only when a woman is in charge to take care of her.”64 This example stands out because at this time in urban centers, feminist organizations with Ženski pokret in the lead argued for changes regarding women’s equality to men in the legal, political, and professional spheres. In the rural context, their feminism took the form of educating peasant women and thus improving their everyday situation. Initial steps toward organizing peasant women and including them in the women’s “circle” were taken as well; yet, this kind of activism still reinforced the differences, as well as class hierarchies, between the two groups of women (gospodje and seljanke). Hence, although Seljanka conceptualized the work of “ladies” and peasant women as “common work” for the nation’s well-being, the work they had to do was evidently structurally different. But, if the job of elite women was presented as the “apostolic” work of educating rural women, how did Seljanka conceptualize peasant women’s work? THE “PEASANT WOMAN” PROFESSION Imagined as a specialized periodical for peasant women, the journal Seljanka defined the category of “peasant woman” as profession comparable to those of teachers, professors, engineers, craftsmen, peasant men, and so on.65 Seljanka formulated an idea of the “peasant woman as the coworker in agriculture”66 and argued that women’s work was equally valuable, although structurally different from their husbands’. The effect of this argumentation was twofold. On the one hand, it strengthened the gendered division of labor by insisting on the traditional work of a peasant woman as a housewife, wife, and mother. On the other hand, however, this kind of discourse aimed to make peasant women’s work visible and valuable in agricultural households that traditionally relied on subsistence production, but from the late nineteenth century, increasingly combined subsistence with commodity production.67 How did Seljanka aim to articulate the economic role of peasant women in this time of economic transition and crisis? Natalija V. Nešić, “Kongres Jugoslovenskog Ženskog Saveza u Zagrebu” [Congress of the Yugoslav National Council in Zagreb], Seljanka ( January 1934): 5–7. 65 Urednik, “Drage čitateljke” [Dear readers], Seljanka ( January 1933): 2. 66 D., “Seljanka kao saradnik u poljoprivredi” [Peasant woman as the coworker in agriculture], Seljanka ( January 1933): 5. 67 For changes in the economic and social structure of the Yugoslav peasantry, see Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics and Economic Change, particularly 160–202. For a discussion about agricultural, subsistence, and household labor, see Eric Vanhaute, “Agriculture,” and Eileen Boris, “Subsistence and Household Labour,” in Handbook: The Global History of Work, ed. Karin Hofmeester and Marcel van der Linden (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Publishers, 2018), 217–35, 329–44. 64

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 223

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

224

Isidora Grubački

First of all, peasant women’s roles as wives, mothers, and housewives were connected to what is termed social reproduction today.68 In many ways, Seljanka continued the pre-World War One women’s emancipatory discourse that Ana Kolarić analyzed in her research on gender, modernity, and emancipation in the Serbian women’s magazine Žena (Woman) before the Great War.69 As Kolarić demonstrated, there was an “amalgam of emancipatory and patriarchal discourses” in the years leading to World War One in which women argued for the women’s right to education and work without, however, questioning the notions of marriage and family.70 Similarly to Žena, women were primarily presented in Seljanka as mothers; apart from giving birth to and nurturing children, women, it was argued, were also the primary teachers of their children. Men/fathers were considered to be only “guests in the house,” so women were left the task of preserving the national customs, telling folk tales to their children, and developing their national sentiment.71 In addition to this, the articles in Seljanka offered basic information about health (how to boil soap, how to cook healthy food, and how to correctly preserve it for winter)72 and hygiene (every house needs to have a spittoon, rooms should be ventilated daily, members of the family should not eat from a common pot, etc.);73 the tasks of the housewife were intended to contribute to decreasing child mortality rates and promoting health. As child mortality was seen as one of the biggest problems in Yugoslavia at the time, Seljanka aimed to educate peasant women to perform their reproductive labor more efficiently, thereby contributing to the nation’s growth. As Seljanka was a journal for peasant women, it particularly elaborated agricultural work, which—arguably—can be categorized as a counterpart to urban/ educated women’s public work. However, rather than finding employment outside the home, a peasant woman was to become economically independent by working in her own peasant household. Strictly divided along gender lines, peasant women’s agricultural work in Seljanka’s conception encompassed poultry raising, Available at https://www.viewpointmag.com/2015/11/02/issue-5-social-reproduction/. As previously mentioned, D. Lacković published an article here. 70 Ana Kolarić, “Gender, Nation, and Education,” 7; Ana Kolarić, “‘Žena, domaćica, majka: od te tri reči zavisi ceo svet’: Analiza časopisa Žena (1911–1921)” [“Woman, housewife, mother: The entire universe is based on those three words”; An analysis of the women’s journal Žena/Woman, 1911–1921], Knjiženstvo: Časopis za studije književnosti, roda i kulture (2011), accessed November 5, 2019, http://www.knjizenstvo.rs/sr/casopisi/2011/zenska-knjizevnost-i-kultura/zena-domacica-majka-od-te-tri-reci-zavisi-ceo-svet-analiza-casopisa-zena-1911-1921. 71 Barać, Feministička kontrajavnost, 274–75. Đ. Karajovanović, “Majka” [Mother], Seljanka (February 1933): 7. 72 “Kuvanje sapuna” [Cooking soap], Seljanka ( January 1933): 13; “Naš kuvar” [Our cookbook], Seljanka (February 1933): 13. 73 Darinka Lacković to Ivanka Kuzmanović, Seljanka (February 1933): 15. Ivanka Kuzmanović to Darinka Lacković, Seljanka (September 1933): 15. 68 69

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 224

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

225

dairy production, and growing vegetables and flowers. Central to the discussion about vegetable gardens, the raising of egg-laying hens, and egg production was the economic profitability of the work.75 By emphasizing the economic profitability of women’s labor, Seljanka’s message was, in fact, that a peasant woman could make a significant income for the household through her agricultural work and by selling her products on the market.76 Rather than spending money on products from the market, a smart and educated peasant woman should work to grow her own vegetables, and by selling her excess products, make the household self-sufficient.77 The reasoning behind this was that peasant women’s productive work consisted not only of producing commodities for the market but also subsistence work; in terms of the household economy, saving money was as important as earning money. Through their work, peasant women contributed to both these spheres of economic activity. By insisting on the economic element of peasant women’s labor and by stating that the economic progress of the village depended mainly on peasant women, Seljanka emphasized the value of peasant women’s work, with the ultimate aim of empowering peasant women. The changes suggested in peasant women’s lives were radical in many ways: selling goods in the market, for example, was quite progressive for the time if we keep in mind that Lacković could hardly persuade peasant women’s mothers that part of a housewife’s job was to go to the market on her own to buy what she needed. In Seljanka, Lacković and her associates went even a step further, arguing that an educated peasant woman should “be left to conduct these small [agricultural] branches entirely autonomously because that would have a double benefit: a material benefit and her moral development as an independent person, the development of her personality. With this, she gets certain serious independent duties, but with them also rights, and in this way, she becomes conscious of her own role in this free peasant economy.”78 This was, Seljanka argued, the only way to transform a peasant woman from “a slave in the house” to a “free peasant woman, aware of her duties, a coworker, a workmate, 74

D., “Seljanka kao saradnik u poljoprivredi,” 5. It was elaborated in detail how one’s own garden could represent “a real savings bank for a peasant house” and how eggs could earn up to 2,000 dinars per year. “Podižite kućne baste” [Plant home gardens], Seljanka (March 1933): 6; “O gajenju živine” [On raising laying hens], Seljanka (February 1933): 3; “Našim mlađanima—vrtarima” [To our young ones—gardeners], Seljanka (April 1933): 8–9; “Kako da odaberem jaja za nasad” [How to choose eggs for raising chicken], Seljanka (April 1933): 7–8; “Nega stoke” [Livestock care], Seljanka ( June 1933): 4–5; “Kad treba voće brati” [When the time comes for fruit picking], Seljanka (August 1933): 10–11. 76 On the contrary, the larger income (from men’s work) was to be used for the improvement of the household in general, for example, repairing buildings, buying healthier cattle, and procuring more land, etc. D., “Seljanka kao saradnik u poljoprivredi,” 5. 77 It was even argued that cooking and food preservation, obviously crucial for health preservation, also had an economic element because through rationalized cooking and food preservation women could save money for the household. 78 D., “Seljanka kao saradnik u poljoprivredi,” 5. 74 75

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 225

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

226

Isidora Grubački

and an assistant to her husband.” In this way, feminist demands for equal labor opportunities and equal pay, when put into a peasant context, translated into arguing that women’s agricultural and household labor in peasant economies was as important as, if not even more important, than that of their male counterparts.80 79

Ženski pokret’s Youth Section and the Discussions about Peasant Women’s Work in Žena danas In Belgrade in 1935, young communist women joined Ženski pokret and formed its Youth Section81 as a part of the Communist Party’s strategy to legalize the aspect of its activities having to do with women’s rights.82 The Communist Party had been illegal in Yugoslavia since December 1920, and its activities were to a large extent limited throughout the 1920s, intensifying in the early 1930s as a response to the rising political and economic crisis and the dictatorship introduced by the king in 1929. In the interwar period, the Communist Party’s approach to the peasant question was not uniform. The party’s focus was on the working proletariat, and the question of whether or not the working proletariat could cooperate with the peasants was highly contested.83 For instance, whereas in 1919, the resolution from the Congress of the Unification of the Communist Party stated that the unification of peasants and proletariat into one class was not possible,84 after 1924, the party started to support peasants who did not exploit workers following a new argumentation that peasants had changed since World War One and that the peasants could protect their interests only in alliance with the working proletariat.85 For more than a decade, though, the peasant question was dealt with mostly on the level of discussion. It was only after the Fourth Land Conference in December 1934 that the Communist Party adopted Ibid. “I would even go a step further and say that the destiny of our peasant nation is in large part in the hands of our peasant woman. What kind of nation we will have, in terms of both its moral and physical aspects, depends on her as well as the economic progress of our villages, as we will see further.” Ibid. 81 For the most detailed overview of Ženski pokret’s Youth Sections in Yugoslavia written so far, see Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije, 318–48. 82 Petranović, Kraljevina Jugoslavija; Jovanka Kecman, Žene Jugoslavije; Neda Božinović, Žensko pitanje u Srbiji u devetnaestom i dvadesetom veku [The Woman Question in Serbia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries] (Belgrade: Devedesetčetvrta, Žene u crnom, 1996). 83 Srđan Milošević, “Komunistička partija Jugoslavije o seljačkom i agrarnom pitanju u periodu između dva rata” [The Communist Party of Yugoslavia on the Peasant and Agrarian Questions in the interwar period], Tokovi istorije: Časopis instituta za noviju istoriju Srbije 2 (2015): 103. 84 Ibid., 103–6. 85 Ibid., 107–8. 79 80

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 226

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

227

a special resolution regarding cooperation between peasants and the nationally repressed masses.86 The analysis of left-feminist activism shows that the women followed the party line after 1934, when the focus indeed shifted. However, the analysis will shift the focus from the Party’s directives to women’s actual activism and show the level of nuance with which left-feminist activists approached peasant women. The examples will attest to the genuine interest and willingness of these activists to contribute to changing what they saw as the incredibly low position of peasant women in 1930s Yugoslavia. One aspect of Ženski pokret’s Youth Section’s activism was the publication of the journal Žena danas (1936–1940), and the representations of peasant women in this journal can enhance our understanding of the way they conceptualized peasant women’s labor. Žena danas functioned in accordance with the Popular Front line of connecting the peasant and the national question, but it added a gendered aspect. The analytical tool I find useful in describing the Youth Section’s activism is left feminism mainly because it allows me to emphasize the womencentered dimension of their left-wing activism.87 One of the stated aims of Žena danas was to “familiarize [the reader] with the life of women from all parts of the country,”88 which was done by reports on how women live in Vojvodina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.89 However, unlike Seljanka, which due to Darinka Lacković’s activism had peasant women among its readership, this was not the case for Žena danas. So, instead of directly writing for peasant women, Žena danas addressed potential activists in rural areas and aimed to educate them not only about peasant women and their work but also about the work that needed to be done in the countryside. How did the discussions about peasant women’s work differ from those in Seljanka?

Ibid., 111. In 1991, Ellen C. Dubois used the term “left feminism” to describe the understanding that “the attainment of genuine equality for women—all women—requires a radical challenge to American society, the mobilization of masses of people, and fundamental social change.” Ellen C. Dubois, “Eleanor Flexner and the History of American Feminism,” Gender and History 3, no. 1 (1991): 84. 88 “Svaka žena treba da nabavi komplet Žene danas” [Every woman should purchase a set of Žena danas], Žena danas, no. 24 (1939): 28. 89 On this issue, Žena danas significantly differed from Seljanka, which approached peasant women from the whole country uniformly. See the following articles: M. Dj., “Žena u Crnoj Gori” [Woman in Montenegro], Žena danas, no. 7 (1937): 8; “Život Bosanske seljanke” [Life of a Bosnian peasant woman], Žena danas, nos. 11–12 (1938): 20; Marija Strnac, “Žena Vojvodjanskog sela ponovo nosi odeću koja je sama izatkala i kuva u zemljanim loncima” [Woman from Vojvodina villages again wears clothes she wove herself and cooks in clay pots], Žena danas, no. 16 (1938): 27. 86 87

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 227

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

228

Isidora Grubački

CHALLENGING IDEALIZATIONS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE: PEASANT WOMEN’S DOUBLE SUBJECTION The Žena danas critique of Franjo Vučinović’s book Seljačka žena (Peasant woman) praised the author for being “critical of those who always write nicely about the countryside”;90 Žena danas did quite the opposite, offering detailed descriptions of peasant women’s difficult household and agricultural work with the intention of challenging idealizations of the countryside. Without exception, the poems and articles in Žena danas emphasized the incredible amount of work peasant women faced daily without a break, comparing women to slaves. Ivan Ćaće, for instance, in his poem “To the Peasant Woman,” addressed peasant women as: women, workers, beggars, and slaves.91 It is interesting that both Seljanka and Žena danas made the connection between peasant women and slaves. To this problem, Seljanka offered the solution of “elevating” the peasant woman by emphasizing the value of her labor for the household and the family. However, from the perspective of Žena danas and its descriptions of the extremely difficult position of peasant women, Seljanka’s solution appears as an idealization. One article, for instance, indicated that Bosnian peasant women were often “sold” and “bought” in order to perform cheap labor in the households they had been “married into” because it was cheaper to get a girl than to pay a wage earner.92 On top of that, in case “the household has more members, the young woman became the servant of the whole zadruga; she had to do all the hardest jobs nobody else wanted to do.”93 The elevation of peasant women by emphasizing the value of women’s work indeed seems insufficient in this context. Through discussions about peasant women’s work, Žena danas underscored peasant women’s double subjugation—in terms of gender, i.e., subjugation to their husbands, and in terms of class.94 The article that exemplifies both categories the most is “How a Peasant Woman Spends Her Summer,” in which the peasant woman’s summer was contrasted to that of women who have the privilege of thinking about where they would spend their summer—on the mountains or at the seaside? It contrasted peasant men and peasant women’s work by stressing how peasant women never had free time to rest; women always worked in the field with men, whereas men never helped women with the housework.95 “Seljačka žena—Franja Vučinović” [Peasant woman—Franja Vučinović], Žena danas, no. 7 (1937): 17. 91 Ivan Ćaće, “Seljakinji” [To the peasant woman], Žena danas, no. 14 (1938): 7. 92 “Život Bosanske seljanke.” 93 Ibid. 94 If we take into account the category of nation, which falls outside the scope of this chapter, we could even argue that Žena danas conceptualized the triple oppression of women. 95 O.V.—učiteljica, “Kako žena na selu provodi leto” [How women spend summers in the countryside], Žena danas, no. 16 (1938): 29. 90

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 228

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

229

Moreover, whereas men had more free time in autumn, women were busy working around the cattle, preserving food, and sewing clothes for the whole household, and in winter, men often stayed in the warm house whereas women went to rinse laundry in the coldest possible weather, breaking the ice in the streams.96 The problem of violence against women was also addressed several times in the context of difference and the uneven division between peasant men’s and women’s work in the countryside. Men often spent whole days in a local inn (kafana), and when they would come back from drinking, a woman “must serve him and take his dirty shoes off, and for the smallest mistake, his heavy, manly fist could burden her weak shoulders. Men who do not beat their wives in villages are rare.”97 A peasant woman was described as a worker without a break or defined working hours;98 she was compared with a servant or a slave (of her husband, of the family or zadruga); thus, Žena danas underscored peasant women’s subjection in terms of their labor and with regard to the domestic violence their husbands perpetrated against them.

NEW PROPOSALS OF ACTIVISM: OVERCOMING THE ASYMMETRICAL RELATIONSHIP The examples show that Žena danas approached the “peasant woman question” in a multi-dimensional way and described the subjection of peasant women through the perspective of gender and class. Conceptualizing peasant women’s work in this way led left-feminist women to search for new ways of activism and discuss how peasant women could be approached by privileged, educated women, and Žena danas represents a rare window into these discussions. A report on the lecture of countryside nurse Nikica Blagojević, in which she shared her experiences of working with peasant women, advised the readers that the best way to approach these women, who were “hungry for knowledge,” was to “go to the river or near the place they work, and they [the peasant women] will come on their own and ask questions.”99 Slovenian left-feminist activist and publicist Angela Vode similarly reported that Slovenian female students engaged in similar actions by organizing camps in Slovenian rural areas with the aim of overcoming the gap between themselves and peasant women. “Život Bosanske seljanke.” Ibid. See also Ivan Ćaće, “Seljakinji,” and Gimnaziskinje iz Makedonije, “Žena u Makedoniji” [Women in Macedonia], Žena danas, nos. 11–12 (1938): 21. 98 “Život Bosanske seljanke.” 99 Nikica Blagojević, “Naša seljačka žena” [Our peasant woman], Žena danas, nos. 5–6 (1937): 13. 96 97

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 229

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

230

Isidora Grubački

The students, who constructed tents near villages and then went to the village to talk to people, described that in the beginning, peasant women were distrustful, but the students managed to “break the ice,” became closer to the peasant women, and held lectures.100 Aware that this was only a minor attempt to foment change, they concluded that they had at least managed to “gain some knowledge . . . to find out how and what should be done.”101 Left-feminist activism was based on the idea that “every person that had an opportunity to gain higher education must be aware that their education cannot remain dead capital but that they are obliged to offer as much of their wealth as possible to the others.”102 For activists gathered around Žena danas, however, sharing knowledge had two directions because “learning about the circumstances rural women live in should serve as a kind of aid in the process of approaching them.”103 To understand the real needs of the peasants, one had first to talk with them and hear about their experiences. Anthropologist and sociologist Vera Erlich’s article “How Women live in Different Regions” further theorized this by asking about “how women live, how mothers live, how young girls live in villages and towns”104 Following this set of questions, Erlich explained that despite the assumption that peasant women in all parts of the country lived under the same circumstances, it was important to know the differences.105 The reasoning behind this emphasis is arguably in the way left-feminist activists understood education and its aims, which profoundly differed from the perspective discussed in Seljanka. Whereas Darinka Lacković’s type of education put emphasis on peasant women’s work, in Žena danas, the emphasis was on political education and the main aim was organizing. In other words, in order to empower peasant women to organize, privileged women had to approach them to share their knowledge but with the readiness to first learn what kind of knowledge or help the peasant women truly needed. As Nikica Blagojević described: “You have to know well their needs, their lives and language. Invite them to organize. They will all be with you.”106 In Seljanka, peasant women were mainly familiarized with their duties rather than their rights, and Žena danas discourse was much more radical. A case in point is Vukica Grbić’s suggestion that peasant women create a Society of Housewives (Društvo domaćica), addressing them by saying: “Dear sisters, . . . I invited you to meet and to talk because you too have the right to leave the house for a bit.”107 Angela Vode, “Kako slovenačka studentkinja pokušava da se približi seljačkoj ženi” [How Slovenian female students try to get closer to peasant women], Žena danas, no. 6 (1937): 9. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. 103 “Seljačka žena—Franja Vučinović.” 104 Vera Štajn Erlih, “Kako žene žive u raznim krajevima,” Žena danas, no. 8 (1937): 4. 105 This was the reasoning behind the questionnaire that led her to the vast research resulting in her seminal study mentioned in the beginning of this text. 106 Nikica Blagojević, “Naša seljačka žena.” 107 Vukica Grbić, “Kad mogu đeca možemo i mi” [If children can do it, so can we], Žena danas 24 (1939): 28. 100

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 230

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

231

Even more radical was the fact that in 1939, left-feminist activists performed the largest suffrage action up to that point, inviting peasant women to sign a petition for suffrage and sending the message that even illiterate women should have a right to vote.108 This was the biggest difference from the approach of Seljanka as women’s suffrage rights were not at all mentioned in this periodical. Although a different interpretation could be advanced, this should not necessarily lead to the conclusion that those connected with Seljanka were against peasant women’s suffrage but rather that they focused on different issues and chose not to address women’s suffrage for strategic reasons—otherwise, they might not have received funding. This was not the only time that Ženski pokret did (or did not do) something for strategic reasons as it is well-known that during the royal dictatorship when the king banned all political parties, Ženski pokret reduced the scope of its activities and erased the demand for women’s suffrage from their charter for strategic reasons. Only starting in 1935 did they resume organizing demonstrations for suffrage rights in cooperation with the newly founded Youth Section.109 However, with their state-wide action in 1939, left feminists took the whole campaign to another level, and even though their goal was not formally met, the women saw their triumph in the way this action brought together a large number of women including peasant women, and not only those who had already supported the cause.110 According to reports and even a handwritten letter signed by “peasant women from Lika,” many peasant women participated in this action. They discussed suffrage among themselves for the first time,111 and they even got into conflicts with their husbands because they signed the petition.112 According to Žena danas, “women’s destinies are in their own hands, and they will, in community with progressive men, build themselves a better and worthier future,”113 and this principle seemed to apply to all women equally, peasant women included. By searching for the ways to both teach and learn from peasant women, left-feminist activists took an important step toward overcoming the asymmetrical relationship between educated and uneducated women, feminist activists and working peasant women.

“Apel za pravo glasa” [Action for suffrage rights], Žena danas, no. 25 (1939): 3. Barač, Feministička kontrajavnost, 133; Svetlana Stefanović, “Apel za pravo glasa” [Action for suffrage rights], in Časopis Žena danas [The Magazine “Woman Today”], ed. Stanislava Barać, forthcoming. 110 Marija Velimirović, “Rezultati jedne borbe” [Results of a struggle], Žena danas, no. 26 (1940): 3–4. 111 “Pismo seljanki iz Like” [Letter to a peasant woman from Lika], Žena danas, no. 26 (1940): 6. 112 “Naša akcija kroz selo i grad” [Our action in villages and towns], Žena danas, no. 26 (1940): 10–12. 113 Ibid. 108 109

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 231

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

232

Isidora Grubački

Conclusions Taken together, the two 1930s Yugoslav women’s periodicals analyzed in this chapter offer a valuable window into the ways women activists of different ideological and institutional backgrounds conceptualized peasant women’s work in periods of economic and political crises; crises that were followed by shifting political alliances and foci, particularly in the case of the Communist Party’s increasing interest in the peasant question in the Popular Front era. Both approaches, I argue, were based on an effort to improve rural women’s lives in interwar Yugoslavia. Furthermore, in both cases, feminist activists discussed peasant women’s work as not only the key to understanding but also to improving and reshaping peasant women’s lives and their position in both the agricultural household and society. The solutions that the two groups of activists offered were nevertheless ideologically and conceptually opposed. Accordingly, looking at the ways these two cases were synchronically and diachronically entangled is fruitful for expanding our knowledge about nature of the differences between the two approaches and their implications. Synchronically, the two discourses proposed competing solutions to the peasant women question. I argue that both approaches were feminist in the sense that they aimed to educate and empower peasant women and developed a strategy that would enable peasant women to become more independent. Yet, although a consensus existed among feminist activists regarding the overwhelming character of peasant women’s work, the two approaches had utterly opposing views of the solution to the problem, which led to divergent and irreconcilable strategies for peasant women’s emancipation as well as divergent and irreconcilable feminisms. Seljanka conceptualized peasant women’s work by articulating peasant women as a profession, an equal and valuable coworker of the peasant man in an agricultural household and, more broadly, in the predominantly peasant state economic system that combined subsistence and commodity production. The route to peasant women’s individual personal development and autonomy was education about the labor a peasant woman is expected to perform, but this work was based on a strict division of labor between peasant women and peasant men. In contrast to this approach, Žena danas discussed peasant women’s work as extremely difficult and never-ending, and framed the discussion in terms of the double subjection of peasant women on the basis of both gender and class. Comparing peasant women’s position to that of a slave and challenging the idea that it was possible for peasant women to individually develop in such an environment, Žena danas offered education as the solution, but it was a different kind of education than mentioned above, namely, a political education that would make peasant women aware of their gender and class subjugation and lead them to organize among themselves. In effect, this was a call for social revolution.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 232

2022.07.30. 22:40:12

Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s

233

As the relationship between the feminist activists and peasant women was asymmetrical in terms of numbers, education, and work, the two cases allow us to enhance our understanding of how this asymmetry was either maintained or transgressed. By arguing that peasant women’s work had both economic and moral value, Darinka Lacković and her associates sought to strengthen peasant women’s position within peasant households without changing the structure of society. On the one hand, I suggest that while educating peasant women in novel and important ways, and in certain ways empowering and encouraging them to network and organize, Darinka Lacković and her associates preserved the hierarchical and class divisions between educated urban women and peasant women—between those who taught and those who were to be one-sidedly educated and protected. On the other hand, with the left-feminists in the mid-1930s, we can detect a shift away from this kind of asymmetrical activism. Because associates of Žena danas conceptualized peasant women’s work in a multi-dimensional way in terms of gender and class, through their activism they sought to invent new ways of educating peasant women that would not be as one-sided as before, but which would be based more on an exchange of knowledge and experience between the peasant women and educated activists. Reflecting on the diachronic entanglement of these two cases and looking at them from a more longue durée, twentieth-century perspective, the two cases indicate a shift in dominant views on women’s activism and in its relationship to peasant women that took place in the 1930s. The long-established approach to the peasant women’s question in Seljanka had its roots in the pre-World War One era and the feminist activism of the 1920s, when women from Ženski pokret made a significant effort to organize domestic schools for the largely uneducated and illiterate female peasant population in Yugoslavia and participated in the creation of an official state policy on peasant women’s education. Darinka Lacković was among those who worked to create a network of activists interested in educating peasant women as well as a network of peasant women to be included in the already established, broad-based—but still hierarchical—sisterhood. While actively advocating for women’s suffrage in urban circles, however, feminist activists in the 1920s did not include peasant women in any kind of openly political struggle. It was only in the late 1930s when left-feminist activists proposed a different and more radical approach to the idea that activists should study and contextualize the position of peasant women more carefully in order to know what kind of help they actually needed. This approach ultimately made it possible for educated activists to offer peasant women the knowledge that would empower them to organize and become directly involved in political activism concerning issues such as suffrage, but even more importantly, revolution in terms of class and gender relations.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 233

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 234

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies: The Camera del Lavoro (Chamber of Labor) in Milan (1945–1965)* Debora Migliucci

T

he evolution of the trade union movement in Italy, at least in terms of female representation and leadership, was very different from that in other countries, especially the Anglophone world. Starting in the nineteenth century, Italian trade unions tended to be confederal in nature, socialist in origin, and organized on the basis of representation that was both sectoral (category federations) and local (Camere del Lavoro, or Chambers of Labor). The Italian trade union model, therefore, brought together workers on the basis of their production sectors and not their representation of a profession or trade. It also dealt with general and political issues, going beyond the narrow sphere of economics in order to include such questions as the development of society and civil rights. At a local level, the Italian trade union movement was represented by Camere del Lavoro, which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. They grouped together (and continue to do so) workers from different sectors and professions in the same geographical area. The Camere del Lavoro were an expression of the Italian trade union movement’s emphasis on social class and solidarity. At the same time, they represented skilled and unskilled workers as well as the unemployed, thereby avoiding the division of labor typical in English-speaking countries.1 It was in this environment that the Milan Camera del Lavoro was founded in 1891. It was one of the first of its kind, and its aim was to manage the placement of workers but also to defend their interests in all walks of life. It became a point *

This chapter is the product of ongoing research by the author with Fiorella Imprenti. The biographies of the male and female trade union activists can be found at www.biografiesindacali.it, curated by Archivio del Lavoro (AdL), which is the historical archive of the CGIL of Milan. 1 For the origins of the organizational model, see Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s pioneering work, The History of Trade Unionism (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1894); a comparison between European trade unions can be found in Maurizio Antonioli, “Nascita e sviluppo dei sindacati europei: Modelli ed esperienze tra Otto e Novecento,” in Per una storia del sindacato in Europa, ed. Maurizio Antonioli (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2012), 5–29.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 235

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

236

Debora Migliucci

of reference for all categories of workers before the General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale del Lavoro, CGdL) was founded, and it became a liaison body between the different trade union federations. The organization was dissolved during the Fascist period but was reconstituted in April 1945 and became the local representative of the “Unitary CGIL,” which was established through an agreement between the Italian Communist Party, the Italian Socialist Party, and the Christian Democrats. When the Christian Democrats withdrew from the agreement in 1948, the Milan Camera del Lavoro remained the local representative of the CGIL. This chapter considers the career paths of women trade unionists at the Milan Chamber of Labor, paying particular attention to the immediate post-World War Two years. It covers their biographies, the ways in which they were integrated into the mixed union’s hierarchy, the nature of their demands, and the difficulties they encountered when attempting to acquire visibility and power. The local element in this story is unusual in that Milan and the surrounding metropolitan area has always been something of an anomaly with respect to the overall national economic picture. However difficult it might be to extrapolate from statistics that have not been segregated according to gender, recent case studies2 as well as documents in the Milan Camera del Lavoro archive (1945–1981) offer reliable information on the two postwar decades.3 Women had been part of the Milanese workforce since the late nineteenth century. Historically, they accounted for half of agriculture laborers, they were the majority of employees in famous companies like Pirelli (tires) and Borletti (sewing machines), and they were also dominant in domestic service. In the period under investigation, they also found plenty of job opportunities in the civil service and the educational sector. Some data is particularly useful in understanding the extent and nature of women’s work in the region of Milan with respect to the rest of Italy; first and foremost, 34 percent of women worked for wages, reaching a peak of 37 percent between 1951 and 1971, as opposed to the national average of 21 percent.4 At the end of World War Two, the female presence was particularly strong in metalworking and the radio and telephone manufacturing industries (at companies like Safar, Geloso, Magneti Marelli, Philips, Simens, and Face Standard), precision machinery (Borletti, Singer, Bianchi, Breda III), and in heavy machinery (Isotta Fraschini, Trafilerie, Osva, Motomeccanica and Vanzetti). Women workers employed in manufacturing tended to be single and under the age of thirty. See Eloisa Betti and Barbara Curli, “Il lavoro delle donne a Milano negli anni del ‘Boom’ (1951–1971),” in La signorina Kores e le altre: Donne e lavoro a Milano (1950–1970), ed. Rossana Di Fazio and Margherita Marcheselli (Milan: Enciclopedia delle donne, 2016), 29–51. 3 Memoriale delle donne al IV Congresso della Camera del Lavoro, 1952, in AdL, Archivio della Camera confederale del Lavoro di Milano (1945–1981). 4 Betti and Curli, “Il lavoro delle donne.” 2

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 236

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

237

This was due to the employment legislation, which until 1963, the year dismissal for marriage became illegal, discriminated against women who were married and had children. Women’s work was generally poorly paid. On average, they earned 30 percent less than their male counterparts on account of established salary tables and other forms of differentiated gender classification. Women’s work was also demanding as it was paid on a piecemeal basis and because the rhythm of production constantly sped up. The Italian trade union movement’s attempts to reach society’s “excluded” members led, even in its early years, to the presence of female union activists and the development of female leadership and institutions. The women’s leagues, which were established in the nineteenth century, were not formed as separatist organizations but were affiliated with the Milan Camera del Lavoro and were able to attract women workers, create class consciousness, and develop a sense of belonging in the broader trade union movement.5 Unlike their British counterparts, Italian working women did not experience the types of hostility chronicled by Sarah Boston,6 which led in Britain to the growth of women-only union confederations. These were the result of male rejection, the most notable examples of which were Emma Paterson’s Women’s Trade Union League and the Irish Women Workers’ Union.7 That being said, Sue Ledwith’s description of women’s place in British labor history, namely that “in traditional and official accounts of trade union history, women have been ignored or excluded,”8 also applies to the history of the Italian trade union movement. It could even be argued that the commitment of women trade unionists to the “mixed” union and not to a separatist organization resulted in their being overshadowed in labor history for many years. The role of female trade unionists was recovered by scholars only with the emergence of gender as an analytical category and has subsequently entered the trade union pantheon.9 The Italian case has been analyzed in depth by Fiorella Imprenti, Operaie e socialismo: Milano, le leghe femminili, la Camera del Lavoro (1891–1918) (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007). For a more international analysis, see Norbert C. Soldon, The World of Women’s Trade Unionism: Comparative Historical Essays (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985). 6 Sarah Boston, Women Workers and the Trade Unions (London: Lawrence & Wishard, 1987). 7 Mary Davis, Comrade or Brother? The History of the British Labour movement 1780–1951 (London: Pluto Press, 1993); for the Irish experience, see Mary Jones, These Obstreperous Lassies: A History of the Irish Women Workers’ Union (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988). There is a considerable amount of literature about organizations for women such as Cathy Brigden, “Organising and Representing Women: The Historical Case of the Female Confectioners Union,” Women’s History Review 23, no. 1 (2014): 43–59; Cathy Hunt, “Sex Versus Class in Two British Trade Unions in the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 1 (2012): 86–110. 8 Sue Ledwith, “Vive la différence? Women and Trade Unions in Britain,” Revue française de civilisation britannique 15, no. 2 (2009): 87–112. 9 Since the 1990s, a number of works of historical reconstruction have been published concerning the presence of women in the national union. Many of them were in fact commissioned by 5

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 237

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

238

Debora Migliucci

The pioneering book on the history of women in the CGIL published in 1999 had the ironic title, She’s Good, But. . . .10 It emphasized the gap between idealistic proclamations and union practice, between the awareness of not being able to avoid the “the woman question” so as to become a general trade union and an unwillingness to recognize diversity as a political project. In effect, the presence of women and their demands were tolerated rather than shared in the two post-1945 decades. In addition to this ambiguous attitude toward women was undoubtedly the original sin, namely, the conceptualization of the workingclass as gender-neutral when, in reality, it was conceived as masculine. Furthermore, Bianca Beccalli, in an essay written almost twenty years ago, defined trade union feminism as being initially involuntary and, ultimately, unfinished.11

Studying Women’s Trade Unionism in the Camera del Lavoro in Milan For many years, the history of the Milan Chamber of Labor (Camera del Lavoro) has been presented in its masculinist version. It features discussions of the fathers of the trade union movement: Osvaldo Gnocchi Viani (1837–1917), Costantino Lazzari (1857–1927) and Giuseppe Croce (1853–1915), as well as partisans, Giuseppe Alberganti (1898–1980), Gaetano Invernizzi (1899–1959), the Venegoni brothers,12 and so on. Some women’s names do appear when the institutional history of the Chamber of Labor intersects with broader political history and, in particular, with studies of feminism and the female experience in the Italian wartime resistance. Abigaille Zanetta (1875–1945), Linda Malnati (1855–1921), Carolina Annoni (1886–1855), and later Stella Vecchio (1921–2011), Onorina Brambilla Pesce (1923–2011), and Giuseppina Re (1913–2007) are cited but lack full biographies. Their presence in the Milanese Camera del Lavoro and, more generally, in the workers’ movement, does not add much to our understanding of the history and functioning of the institution. Indeed, we are often reminded that the work of women, even when it was political, was considered inferior to that of men “because it is done by women who bring the CGIL itself. Examples include Simona Lunadei, Lucia Motti, and Maria Luisa Righi, eds., È brava ma . . . donne nella Cgil 1944–1962 (Rome: Ediesse, 1999); Lucia Motti, Donne nella Cgil: Una storia lunga un secolo (Rome: Ediesse, 2006); Gloria Chianese, Mondi femminili in cento anni di sindacato (Rome: Ediesse, 2008). 10 Lunadei, Motti, and Righi, È brava, ma. 11 Bianca Beccalli and Guglielmo Meardi, “From Unintended to Undecided Feminism? Italian Labour’s Changing and Singular Ambiguities,” in Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions: International Perspectives, ed. Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith (New York: Routledge, 2002), 113–31. 12 Carlo Venegoni (1902–1983); Guido Venegoni (1919–1987).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 238

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

239

to the workplace their status as subordinate individuals, and that status defines the work that they do. And, as if that weren’t enough, the presumption of female inferiority tends to drown out quantitative data, thereby making the concept of majority meaningless. This is to the point of negating numerical evidence.”13 The research presented here is a “work in progress,” and its aim is to bring attention to the faces and voices, the social and organizational initiatives and models that emerge from a broader exploration of the Camera del Lavoro. This research is linked to the project established by the Archivio del Lavoro to conduct a census of male and female trade union members of the Milan Camera del Lavoro using the institution’s own historical archive.14 It is basically a collective biography of the Milan Camera del Lavoro, and it is part of an established international tradition, namely, that of biographical dictionaries of workers’ and socialist movements, which have seen renewed interest in contemporary Italy.15 From the outset, the Milan project has been regarded as a tool for foundational historical analysis, a means of giving back the Camera del Lavoro part of its history, including those who have been excluded, and telling the stories of union activists who represented Milan’s male and female workers from 1891 to 1981. Despite the difficulty of finding them in the sources, their words and deeds highlighted themes, initiated battles, and created new organizational and representative tools that are worth reflecting on today. These themes informed the methods used to select the criteria for the census. The decision was made to include a broader sample consisting of elected officials in the statutory bodies, office managers, and clerks after analyzing the work of activists in the technical bureaucracy, particularly early on in the Chamber’s history. Furthermore, excluding “clerical workers” would have created a gender imbalance in the numbers at the expense of women, who were often engaged in office work because of the prevailing gendered division of labor. It also would have led to a discriminatory definition of what constitutes a “political” role, a problem that has often consigned women to the ranks of the “undefined” and Andreina De Clementi, “Introduzione,” in Operaie e socialismo: Milano, le leghe femminili, la Camera del lavoro, ed. Fiorella Imprenti (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007). At the time of writing, this volume is the only extensive study of the presence of women in the Milan Camera del Lavoro from its origins until the Fascist interlude. As for the postwar period, see Debora Migliucci, “Sindacaliste a Milano (1945–1968),” in Di Fazio and Marchelli, La signorina Kores e le altre: Donne e lavoro a Milano (1950–1970), here 73–93. Broad and well-documented work can, however, be found on the national level. 14 Archivio del Lavoro, Censimento dei sindacalisti e delle sindacaliste della Camera del Lavoro di Milano (1891–1981), by Debora Migliucci, November 2018. 15 See Alceo Riosa, Biografia e storiografia (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1983); Felicia Giagnotti, Storie individuali e movimenti collettivi: I dizionari biografici del movimento operaio (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988); Archivio Biografico del Movimento Operaio (ABMO), curated by Istituto Sergio Motosi di Genova and the Istituto di Studi sul Capitalismo; Profili biografici di sindacaliste emiliano-romagnole 1880-1980, ed. by Fondazione Argentina Altobelli, available online http://www.fondazionealtobelli.it/category/progetto-biografie. 13

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 239

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

240

Debora Migliucci

“unaware” or rendered them invisible.16 We therefore opted to adopt a broader and more layered definition of “trade unionist” that ranges from women lecturers at the start of the twentieth century to union officials, including office clerks and typists, who are largely unrecognized in broader institutional hierarchies. The Camera was—and still is—organized along the lines of a well-defined hierarchy that began to take shape after the institution of its congress (Congresso della Camera del lavoro metropolitana di Milano) was established. The congress is a temporary organization consisting of delegates from local trade union categories and those from the Camera del Lavoro. It meets to discuss the union’s program and to elect the directive committee (or the executive committee until 1925). The directive committee (or simply the directive) is an assembly that meets several times a year, and its tasks include electing secretaries, reviewing activities both planned and executed, approving the annual budget, and affirming the work of the Camera del Lavoro. Between 1945 and 1965, the composition of the congress and the directive reflected the complexity of Italy’s trade union movement and took into consideration the political affiliation, gender, and job of members in such a way that no single “category” would be excluded. It included paid union officers, shop stewards, and regular workers. The secretariat maintains executive, decisionmaking (divided with the directive committee), and representative power, which it shares with civic institutions. During the period in question, the secretariat consisted of a secretary-general, one or more deputy secretaries, and “simple” secretaries. Members of the secretariat were chosen according to their political affiliation. Until the end of the 1990s, there were separate structures for women such as the Women’s Commission, the Women’s Office, the Female Workers’ Office, Women’s Coordination, and, since the 2000s, the forum. We will discuss these representative roles for women in due course. Those roles that were not mentioned in the Camera del Lavoro’s charter, such as clerical and service jobs, were performed by people who were not part of this political hierarchy and who were therefore defined as “technical” employees. As previously stated, these roles were largely performed by women. Out of a total of 1,803 “activists” included in the census so far,17 853 are women. The picture that emerges is very different from the traditional image of labor organizations; specially, it demonstrates that women peopled the Camera del Lavoro’s corridors, meeting rooms, the house organs, and demonstrations. In order to get a clearer picture of the employment of female trade union members, we combined archival materials with information gleaned from union magazines, party newspapers, pamphlets, congress reports, autobiographies, and See also Guglielmo Epifani and Vittorio Foa, Cent’anni dopo: il sindacato dopo il sindacato (Turin: Einaudi, 2006). 17 Archivio del Lavoro, Censimento dei sindacalisti e delle sindacaliste della Camera del Lavoro di Milano (1891–1981), by Debora Migliucci, November 2018. 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 240

2022.07.31. 16:46:28

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

241

interviews with surviving women from the era. From this preliminary and partial inquiry, it is possible to draw some general conclusions above all with respect to the organizational and informal presence of women in Milan’s Camera del Lavoro and their contribution to trade union policy in general. We are aware that studying Milan enables us to focus on the largest trade union structure in Europe, which also happens to be located in Italy’s most economically advanced city. This in itself offers a point of analysis that is significant on the national level of analysis.

Power: Women’s Roles and Leadership Women were found at every level of the organization. They included socialists, communists, anarchists, emancipationists, and feminists, women who had been exiled and deported, partisans, intellectuals, and unskilled laborers, members of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This female genealogy accounted for 47 percent of the “union staff ” at the Milan Camera del Lavoro during its first ninety years of existence. In order to outline women’s presence and understand the elements that led to dispute and innovation within the organization, we need to analyze the data in terms of its capacity to affect the trade union. In other words, we need a clear map of the power structure that produced and affirmed the subordination of women with respect to men.18 Was the role of women trade unionists more ceremonial than political, or did it have an effect on trade union activity and modify its organization?19 Women were included in key roles such as representatives of their own sex. As early as 1892, there was a woman, Ida Fontana, on the executive committee. This was during the heady days of the “female leagues,” a period when future leaders honed their skills. Later on, they would be an asset to the movement, showing an early and consistent anti-fascism. The practice of having at least one woman on the executive committee was maintained until the end of the liberal era (1914) with the exception of the revolutionary lists, which included such important figures as Abigaille Zanetta. In spite of this, women trade unionists were excluded from the top positions for a long time: after World War Two, access to the secretariat was, until the entrance of Stella Vecchio in 1958, “reserved” for men, and it would be another twenty years before another woman, Anna Catasta, was admitted. The percentages regarding the female presence in Sue Ledwith and Fiona Colgan, “Tackling Gender, Diversity and Trade Union Democracy: A Worldwide Project?,” in Ledwith and Colgan, Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, 6. 19 Crispen Chinguno, “Trade Union Leadership and Gender: Cases from Zimbabwe,” in Visibility and Voice for Union Women: Country case studies from Global Labor University researchers, ed. Akua O. Britwum and Sue Ledwith (Munich: Reiner Hampp Verlag, 2014). 18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 241

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

242

Debora Migliucci

senior positions paint a pretty clear picture: until 1981, women never made up more than 20 percent of members of the secretariat. Indeed, most of the secretariats consisted entirely of men. The percentages are the same when we analyze the entire body of elected positions (on the executive committee, the directive board, the secretariat): out of a total of 1,053 “executives” who worked at the Camera del Lavoro over approximately a century, there were just ninety-four women.20 Table 10.1. Women delegates to the Camera del Lavoro of Milan Congresses, 1947–1952 Year

1947

Delegates

621

Men

567

Women

Name

55

Zelinda Catalani (Filc Cgil-Chemical workers Union); Italia Linna (Filc); Adele Parassina (Filc); Marta Tabacchi (Filc); Giuliana Manzocchi (Filc); Pierina Brambilla (Filc); Pola Cardinali (Filc); Ada Tarantola (Filc); Ester Angiolini (Filc); Angela Gattoni (Filc); Angela Franzioni (Fidae Cgil-Union of workers electric companies); Antonietta Montagna (Fiom Cgil-Metal workers Union); Rosaria Mandelli (Fiom); Ilda Palazzi (Fiom); Albertina Ripamonti (Fiom); Franca Gentile (Fiom); Carla Tarabini (Fiom); Maria Mandelli (Fiom); Emma Fraschini (Filpc Cgil-Union of polygraphics workers); Maria Meregalli (Filpc); Luigia Defendi (Concierge Union); Luigia Ferrari (Concierge Union); Ida Brugai (Concierge Union); Giustina Sorià (CU); Erminia Andreoni (CU); Rosa Morelli (CU); Anna Braida (CU); Cora Jannace (Middle school teacher Union); Rosa Vercesi (Fidat Cgil-Telephone company workers Union); Savina Semprini (Fns Cgil-State workers Union); Gilda Colombo (Fns); Maria Baccanelli (Fiot Cgil-Textile workers Union); Pina Zanzottera (Fiot); Irma Cantoni (Fiot); Wanda Origo (Fiot); Marcellina Oriani (Fiot); Lina Morganti (Fiot); Augusta Rocchi (Fiot); Giuseppina Gusmeroli (Fiot); Giuseppina Valtorta (Fiot); Lucia Ursella (Fiot); Luigia Proserpio (Fiot); Angela Ronchi (Fiot); Maria Mangili (Fiot); Jolanda Donati (Fiot); Rosa Tresoldi (Fiot); Giovanna Paccagnini (Fiot); Angelica Calcaterra (Fiot); Olga Maggioni (Fiot); Maria Frattini (Fiot); Piera De Tomasi (Fiot); Maria Concesa (Fiot); Caterina Santoro (Fndel Cgil-Workers Union of local Authorities); Vittoria Festa (Filceva Cgil-Union of glass and ceramic workers).

For another local case, see Barbara M. Wertheimer and Anne H. Nelson, Trade Union Women: A Study of Their Participation in New York City Locals (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975).

20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 242

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

1949

195221

385

325

337

266

243

48

Enrica Ruggeri (Filc); Franca Gentile (Fiom); Lina Sangalli (Fiom); Teresa Capoloni (Federterra Cgil-Union of agriculture workers); Tarelli Paola (Federterra); Santina Gritti (Federterra); Armida Voleno (CU); Zelinda Catalani (Filc); Marta Tabacchi (Filc); Giovanna Veneziani (Filc); Bellini Luisa (Filc); Gina Moioli (Fiom); Maria Cesarani (Fiom); Piera Baracchi (Fiom); Olimpia Beretta (Fiom); Fernanda Fossati (Fiom); Orma Caprara (Fiom); Caterina Feroldi (Fiom); Dina Chiaiutta (Fiom); Piera Mora (Fiom); Ambrosina Gorla (Fiom); Rina Cominelli (Fiom); Licia Limaroli (Fiom); Teresa Tomasini (Fiom); Elsa Agradi (Fiom); Anna Bonocore (Fiom); Maria Brugnoli (Fiom); Ernestina De Lodi (Fiom); Ida Rovelli (Fiom); Francesca Furoni (Fiom); Angela Colombo (Fiom); Teresa Casiraghi (Fiom); Carla Acquistapace (Fiom); Jolanda Tognelli (Filia Cgil-Food Company workers Union); Claudia Rosmini (Fillea CgilWood and construction workers’ Union); Giovanna Tancini (Fila Cgil-Union of Clothing Workers) ; Ines Bottoni (Fila); Bianca Fumagalli (Filceva); Felicita Seregni (Fiot); Tecla Limonta (Fiot); Enrichetta Longoni (Fiot); Emilia Quaranta (Fiot); Bruna Vaghi (Fiot); Giuseppina Turconi (Fiot); Erminia Butti (Fiot); Augusta Rocchi (Fiot); Giuseppina Valtorta (Fiot); Teresa Ghezzi (Filpc).

59

Larini Augusta (Filam Cgil-Union of Hotel Workers and Canteens); Irma Brambilla (Filc); Maria Danova (Filc); Zelinda Catalani (Filc); Adriana Colli Riva (Filc); Alice Amadei (Filc); Luisa Bellini (Filc); Maria Rio (Filc); Teresa Azzali (Filc); Giorgina Russo (Filc); Stefania Piloni (Filc); Andreina Airaghi (Filc); Enrica Fumagalli (Filcea Cgil-Trade Workers Union); Maria Fagnani (Fillea); Maria Bassano (Filpc); Eugenia Radaelli (Fip Cgil-Italian pensioners Federation); Maria Montuoro (Fndel); Teresa Bertilotti (Federbraccianti-Union of agriculture workers); Ada Cipriani (Federbraccianti); Rosetta Elastici (Federbraccianti); Antonia Fusari (Federbraccianti); Maria Incasta (Federbraccianti); Agnese Grecchi (Federbraccianti); Carla Oneta (Federbraccianti); Artenice Schiatti (Federbraccianti); Paola Tarelli (Federbraccianti); Angela Voloi (Federbraccianti).

Information regarding the Camera del Lavoro’s congresses likewise shows that women were only marginally present. According to the available data (see Table 10.1), at the 2nd Congress (1947), which followed the split between the Catholic and socialist sections, there were fifty-five women delegates as opposed to 567 men (i.e., the equivalent of 8.8 percent of the total number of delegates); at the 3rd Congress (in 1949), there were forty-eight women and 337 men (12.5 percent); and at the 4th Congress (1952), there fifty-nine women and 266 men The numerical presence of the delegates by Metal workers and Textiles Union is based on estimates and not on lists. Therefore it is not possible to have the complete list of names.

21

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 243

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

244

Debora Migliucci

(i.e., 18 percent). The greater presence of women was found among chemical, textile, and agricultural workers, but there many categories in which there were no women among the delegates. In the 1950s, very few women occupied important positions. The activities of a female trade unionist were hard to reconcile with work and family commitments. Not only that, there were also organizational and cultural difficulties: meetings were often held in the evening, active union membership required total devotion to the cause, and that commitment was expected to continue during the weekend. Many women ceased working as trade unionists once they had children, and only the most tenacious and politically active would resume their activity after taking a break for a few years. They felt the effects of the general perception that women had little inclination to take positions of political responsibility, which often resulted in women’s automatic exclusion when it came to selecting candidates for the governing bodies. This also made it difficult for women to professionally develop in order to be considered as potential union leaders.23 Women in the trade union movement were seen as “others” with respect to men, and their activism always had a dual role as they originally worked in separate organizations that largely lacked genuine power. Prior to the Fascist interlude (1925–1945), the “female question” was confined to the female leagues and the Camera del Lavoro’s female federation and, after the war, the Women’s Advisory Committee (1945–1962), the Women’s Office (1962–1965), and the Female Workers’ Office (1965–1981). The structure of these women’s trade unions was certainly different from the self-organization of the Union of Public Sector Employees (UNISON) examined by Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith.24 Representatives were not elected but were nominated according to their political affiliation. These nominations were made in proportion to the membership in the political parties that composed the organization: Christian Democrats, Communists, and Socialists prior to the schism of 1948, and Communists and Socialists thereafter. They were supported by the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI), and their main purpose was to organize and represent an oppressed social group. As far as the usefulness and functioning of the women’s labor leagues is concerned, this was debated within the trade union movement itself and within the historiography, and the discussion extends beyond national borders. Some considered the separate structures as a type of ghetto, while others stressed their role in promoting women and the groups as a form of pressure on male-dominated trade 22

The data for 1952 are incomplete. The numerical presence of the delegates by some categories is based on estimates and not on lists. 23 Migliucci, “Sindacaliste a Milano (1945–1968).” 24 Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith, “Diversity, Identities and Strategies of Women Trade Union Activists,” Gender Work and Organisation 7, no. 4 (2000): 242–57. 22

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 244

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

245

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

unions to take into consideration the needs of women workers. From the historiographical standpoint, it could be argued that women’s organizations helped identify women as an excluded political category. This encouraged the development of an identity and consciousness among women workers and helped create a group of female trade unionists who guaranteed the presence of women in the labor movement. On the other hand, the women’s structures were less effective as a space reserved for women within an organization whose statutes effectively stated that the Italian trade union was a male trade union. This often provided men trade unionists with an excuse for not addressing the demands of women workers. The real strength of the female structures was their organizational flexibility, which enabled the involvement of a considerable number of male and female workers through a persistent process of information gathering and propaganda. Female trade unionists organized events tailored to women’s needs: meetings in rice fields for the “mondine” (female paddy workers), meetings held in apartment houses, consultations during canteen hours. All these strategies enabled women workers to take part without having to spend time away from their family commitments. An especially good example of this were the morning assemblies for women workers that generated one of the most important and symbolic battles of the 1950s and 1960s over the dismissal of women workers when they got married.26 25

Themes of Women’s Trade Unionism: Particular Demands or General Interest? The presence of female trade unionists was undoubtedly an important change, and it led to the introduction of new themes that were more in line with public opinion, thereby giving greater attention to diversity. This generated greater creative capacity and made the movement more popular, but it was also very critical of the traditional trade union liturgy. Within the Italian trade union movement, there was always a simmering tension around the representation of skilled and unskilled workers. This could also be translated as a conflict between those with more or less stable jobs, which also manifested in a power imbalance. And here, See also Ilaria Romeo, “Donne nella Cgil: dalle Commissioni femminili al Coordinamento donne,” in Luciano Lama: Il riformatore unitario, ed. Edmondo Montali (Rome: Ediesse, 2017); about the effectiveness of the “women’s structure,” see Jane Parker and Janice Foley, “Progress on Women’s Equality within UK and Canadian Trade Unions: Do Women’s Structures Make a Difference?” Relations industrielles 65, no. 2 (2010): 281–303. 26 The female ability to be effective in areas deemed difficult in terms of organization was also evident in Britain. See Ledwith, “Vive la différence?” 25

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 245

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

246

Debora Migliucci

the experimentation of new forms of organizing and advocacy by women in the union was to have an effect. The appointment of Santa Volonteri, the leader of the Milan League of Seamstresses (and a member of the Camera del Lavoro’s executive committee) as a work “inspector” at the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Trade (Ministero dell’Agricoltura, dell’Industria e del Commercio, MAIC)—the ministry responsible for economic policies during the liberal era, which came to an end in 1914—was a triumph for “worker feminism.” She was the first and only woman to occupy such a role, and there were only four such inspectors in Italy. Her appointment demonstrates the role the Milan Camera del Lavoro played, together with women socialists and Anna Kuliscioff, in the drafting of social legislation on the subject of safety in the workplace in the early twentieth century. Through a combination of mobilization and investigations, the Camera del Lavoro was able to stimulate and influence important developments such as the 1902 law on under-age labor and the safeguarding of working mothers through the Work Inspectorate, the Maternity Fund, and the law on rice fields (Argentina Altobelli, a Bolognese woman who was the secretary of Federterra, the Land Federation, also played an important role in crafting this legislation). These themes were to return to the fore after World War Two thanks to the perseverance of Teresa Noce, Pina Re, and Stella Vecchio, who argued that maternity was a social, not an individual, question, and that it was not an “illness.”27 At the 1952 congress, the female members of the Camera del Lavoro presented a progressive and detailed list of demands. They included purely trade union issues, such as equal pay for men and women, safeguards against dismissal, a reduction in working hours, an increase in rates for piecework, the regulation of labor performed at home, and the protection of working mothers. But the list also included demands that would continue to be relevant over the following decades, such as the demand for company nursery schools and intercompany nursery schools in every neighborhood, summer camps for children, the right to decent housing, and measures for improving health and hygiene in the workplace. Furthermore, female trade unionists demanded respect for women workers, who were often obliged to endure humiliation, abuse, and insults by management. The Women Commission’s requests also included references to international geopolitics and were similar to the pressure placed on the government to promote peace and “friendly relations with all people of the world.”28 The prohibition on “dismissal for marriage,” which was accomplished thanks to the tenacity of Giuseppina Re, was the first regulation against indiscriminate See Debora Migliucci and Fiorella Imprenti, eds., Sebben che siamo donne: Per una storia delle sindacaliste della Cgil di Milano 1891–1981 (Milan: Unicopli, 2018). 28 Memoriale delle donne al IV Congresso della Camera del Lavoro di Milano, 1952, Archivio del Lavoro, Archivio Camera confederale del Lavoro di Milano e provincia, Congresso, f. 3.3. 27

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 246

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

247

dismissal. The agreements and then the law on equal pay, which became a symbolic international battle in the 1960s, were also due to the commitment of Teresa Noce, Stella Vecchio, Nori Brambilla, and Ione Bagnoli.29 In Italy, the struggle for equal pay was interesting for two reasons: the way in which women managed to build alliances across organizations, and how they gradually achieved results.30 The demand for equal pay was jointly presented by a coalition of women from the three main trade unions, CGIL, the Italian Confederation of Labor Unions (Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori, CISL), and the Italian Labor Union (Unione Italiana del Lavoro, UIL). This is notable because there were deep divisions between these organizations at the time. But women were united by the fact that they were subjected to the same forms of injustice. Additionally, equal pay was initially obtained through union activism within companies and negotiation at the provincial level (1958). Equal pay was subsequently inserted in some national-level agreements (1960), and it finally became the law of the land in 1977. All of these measures above helped improve the lives of Italian families. In evaluating the “power” of the action undertaken by female trade unionists in the two decades following World War Two, we can argue that, thanks to the battles they fought, the rights of women workers were transformed from claims deemed distinctly “feminine” into requests by the entire trade union movement. This ability to change the union agenda together with a continuous quest for an across-the-board coalition with women in CISL and UIL meant that the picture of Italian trade unionism in the 1950s and 1960s is generally positive. The ability to promote the needs of women workers and to create a cultural consensus was, I would argue, the fundamental premise of the achievements of the 1970s. These include the law on the equal treatment of men and women at work, legislation on home-based labor, the Workers’ Statute (L. 300/1970) that defined the rights of trade unions, the right to 150 hours of study or a guaranteed paid training period, etc. It also laid the foundation for the more disruptive and generally different movement that characterized the so-called “Hot Autumn” (Autunno Caldo) of 1969.

On the role played by women in the battles for equality, first, and for the way they influenced the labor movement and second-wave feminism, see Dennis A. Deslippe, “Rights, Not Roses”: Unions and the Rise of Working Class Feminism, 1945–1980 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000). 30 See Eloisa Betti, “Unexpected Alliances: Italian Women’s Struggles for Equal Pay, 1940s–1960s,” in Women’s ILO: Trasnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to present, ed. Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 276–99. 29

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 247

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

248

Debora Migliucci

Brothers and Sisters! With the passage of time, political language also adapted to the presence of women, shifting away from “Brothers, workers, and friends,” the phrasing used by General Secretary Giuseppe Alberganti at the 1947 Congress, to “Brothers and sisters” used by Mario Montagnana in 1956, to the current “Sisters and brothers,” which was introduced by Aldo Bonaccini in 1965. But the gap between what union leaders wrote in their programs or announced publicly and their actions was evident in the immediate postwar years. The contradiction between calls for equality and the existing masculine structure was evident in the postwar Italian trade union movement, which declared itself in favor of equal pay in general terms from 1944 onward but negotiated separate contracts for men and women in practice. Moreover, a motion in defense of female employment was passed at the first CGIL Conference in February 1945, but it signed an agreement permitting the dismissal of women to create jobs for war veterans (the Agreement with Confindustria, the General Confederation of Italian Industry, on September 27, 1945). And when CGIL fought for the recognition of women as heads of household, it simultaneously endorsed a cost of living agreement that distinguished between men and women workers (the Agreement with Confindustria, July 10, 1945).31 In Milan, Lucio De Carlini, the General Secretary of the Camera del Lavoro from 1972 to 1980, a later era marked by the emergence of trade union feminism and the birth of the first women’s coordination group, explicitly declared that women were essential for the development and renewal of the trade union movement. He also criticized the movement for its lack of political and strategic vision as it did the bare minimum when it came to including women in the Camera del Lavoro’s activities at the 1977 Congress. No women joined the secretariat that year, and female delegates to the congress numbered only twentynine out of a total of 174 (less than 17 percent).32 In analyzing the career paths of the few women who reached the higher levels of the Milan Camera del Lavoro, it is reasonable to infer that their professional progress was similar to that of their male colleagues, if somewhat “feminized.” For both men and women, there were two types of careers in the trade union: an internal career whereby an individual could rise to the top of various structures (category secretariats, the confederal secretariat), and a political career, which entailed moving from roles in the political party to those in the trade union movement and vice-versa. Yet, the real element of discontinuity Maria Luisa Righi, “L’azione delle donne nella Cgil: 1944–1980,” in Motti, Donne nella Cgil, 225–45. 32 Camera confederale del Lavoro di Milano, Atti del decimo congresso provinciale (Milan: PUB, 1977), 27. 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 248

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

249

concerned the obligatory rise of women trade unionists in the female structure before reaching higher positions within the broader organization. And for the few women who reached important positions, it should be emphasized that they were part of an “élite” chosen from a vast number of women who were neither promoted nor recognized. In two decades after the end of World War Two, women trade unionists in the Milan Camera del Lavoro were united by their political and ideological adherence to communism and socialism. They were motivated primarily by the need to resolve injustices against female workers, injustices that men often ignored. They were more concerned with class awareness than by a sense of gender solidarity, and they demanded equality with men rather than a gender-specific aim or equal opportunity. And yet, through the female trade union structures, they acquired feminist political awareness. If we wanted to relate them to the categorization proposed by Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith, we could define the women trade unionists in Milan somewhere between “welfarists” and “socialistfeminists.”33 While in the early twentieth century, when female trade unionists had an active core among those in intellectual professions (teaching), women trade unionists in the postwar era were generally from a broader segment of society. Most of the female trade unionists active in the 1940s and 1950s had been persecuted, placed on the police registry, or arrested for subversive activity during the Fascist era. This is what had happened, for example, to Ida Rovelli (b. 1915), who went by the name of Laura. She was a militant communist, a partisan, and a trade union activist. She spent time in prison, was a member of the partisan Patriotic Action Groups (Gruppi di Azione Pattriotica, GAP), and relayed messages between partisans in Milan and Valtellina, a valley in the Alps. After the war, she was elected to the internal committee at Innocenti (a famous automobile and motorbike factory in Milan), and after being fired as part of an anti-union reprisal, she began working at the FIOM CGIL trade union. She remained a member of the “technical administration” until the day she retired without ever being admitted to the more prestigious “political administration.” Similarly, Pina Zanaboni (b. 1921) had been an anti-fascist activist at the Pirelli tire factory starting in 1937. After the war, she was a ceaseless campaigner for women’s rights in the countryside around Milan and was both secretary and Colgan and Ledwith, “Diversity, Identities and Strategies of Women Trade Union Activists,” 244. According to them: “Women who were active in order chiefly to pursue a limited ‘welfarist’ agenda to rectify an injustice against women at the workplace (welfarists); women working collectively within a traditional solidaristic union framework which denied difference between women and men (traditionalists); those who were active primarily as a result of their socialist ideology but also acknowledged a feminist consciousness (socialist-feminists), and women whose union activism although informed by socialism, was in a form driven mainly by their feminist beliefs (feminist-socialists).”

33

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 249

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

250

Debora Migliucci

the head of women’s issues at the local branch of the Union of Farm Laborers (Federbraccianti).34 Grespi Frine (b. 1915) was arrested in March 1938 and tried together with her father and her brother Ennio for subversive propaganda and actively supporting the “Red Help.” She was sentenced to five years in prison and sent to the islands of Ponza, then Ventotene, and then to the city of Potenza. The sentence was commuted due to her tuberculosis, and at the end of 1939, she was transferred to a sanatorium where she remained under surveillance. She became part of the clandestine provincial committee of the Union of Italian Women (Unione Donne Italiane, UDI), and after the war, she joined the hotel and canteen workers’ union in the technical section. Artenice Schiatti (b. 1921) was a partisan in Reggio Emilia and joined the 77th brigade of the Patriotic Action Squads (Squadre di Azione Patriottica, SAP) and the Manfredi Brothers (Fratelli Manfredi), well-known anti-fascist partisan leaders in Reggio Emilia. In 1948, she joined the Federbraccianti in Milan and became the head of the Women’s Commission in 1952. From 1953 to 1960, Schiatti was one of the first women members of the secretariat of the Federbraccianti. Women trade unionists often shared their political passion with their husbands. That was certainly the case with Onorina Brambilla, also known as La Nori. She was a former partisan who was head of the women’s committee of the metal workers’ union in the 1950s and the wife of former GAP activist Giovanni Pesce. She worked with the former partisan messenger Stella Vecchio—nicknamed Stellina so as to distinguish her from the more famous Estella (Teresa Noce)—who was the first woman to enter the Camera del Lavoro’s secretariat as a “deputy secretary” and was married to the former partisan commander Alessandro Vaia. In other cases, political activism was part of the family inheritance. Take, for example, Giuseppina Re (b. 1913), who went by the nickname Pinarè. She was one of the first female leaders of the Milan Camera del Lavoro. She came from an anti-fascist background and was the daughter of a cobbler who had been persecuted during the Fascist era. Then there was Maria Pia Lucini (b. 1930). In 1966, she became the first women to be elected to the Alfa Romeo Internal Committee. In the 1930s, she was already an active partisan at the tender age of six, riding her bicycle and distributing propaganda materials in the stables near Milan’s Hippodrome.35 But for many women, activism was not an easy choice. Franca Maniacco (b. 1928) was part of the union of glassmakers and ceramists from April 1945 onward and a member of the Camera del Lavoro’s women’s committee. Yet, she paid a heavy price and was no longer on speaking terms with members of her Righi, “L’azione delle donne.” Maria Pia Lucini interview with Giuseppe Granelli, January 13, 1989, in Fondo Granelli, project 5, Archivio del Lavoro, Sesto San Giovanni.

34 35

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 250

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

251

birth family. For Adele Del Ponte (b. 1924), a partisan from a socialist family, her activism in the FIOM-CGIL union led her to resign from a steady and wellpaid job because it was clearly one that did not match her idealism and desire to change the world. Ione Bagnoli (b. 1927) came from a middle-class family. Like Del Ponte, she also left a “steady job” to follow her particular faith, becoming an activist first in the PCI and later in the CGIL, where she occupied an important position in the food industry workers’ union in the 1950s and the metal workers’ union in the 1960s. Alongside these women who had prominent political profiles—even if this has not always been recognized in the scholarship—there were also women who were recruited for administrative roles. The selection of persons to fill these roles was made through a local section of the PCI or through relatives and acquaintances who had been active in the anti-fascist movement. This is what happened in the case of Maria Luisa Magni (b. 1928), who was a clerical worker at the FIOM union in 1948 and, with the help of a “comrade,” obtained a job in the PCI section in Via Padova. Luigia Vertemara (b. 1931) started working at the union offices at Sesto San Giovanni thanks to her mother-in-law, a member of the internal committee at the Breda factory. Vittorina Rebosio (b. 1931) was given a job at the metal workers’ union on the recommendation of the internal committee at the Isotta Fraschini car factory. The professional paths of many of these women was certainly less linear and incremental than those of most male trade unionists. Sometimes their careers were interrupted for personal reasons, while on other occasions, they lost their jobs due to union leaders’ lack of interest in their contributions. Other women left the union in order to devote their energy to political and institutional activity: Pina Re was a member of parliament for three legislatures prior to the founding of the National Unitary Union of Tenants and Assignees (Sindacato Unitario Nazionale Inquilini e Assegnatari, SUNIA), the tenants’ union affiliated to CGIL. Stella Vecchio was an active member of the PCI her whole life and belonged to many associations connected to the communist world; Nori Pesce never abandoned her political commitment and her activity in partisan and anti-fascist associations. After the first phase of recruitment of women into the trade union, there was a drop in female representation toward the end of the 1950s, when financial problems led to a reduction of staff and consequently, women trade unionists were the first to suffer.36

Vittorio Rieser, “Introduzione,” in La Fiom di Milano: I funzionari 1945–1985 (Milan: Cooperativa editoriale nuova Brianza, 1985), 7–25.

36

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 251

2022.07.30. 22:40:13

252

Debora Migliucci

Conclusion The historical reconstruction of women’s work and presence in the Milan Camera del Lavoro tells us much about the complicated question of “women and the trade union movement.” At issue was not simply the numbers—in other words, the percentage of women versus men involved in the Camera del Lavoro. There was also the question of organization, both formal and informal, and the determination to carry forward a political agenda that implied sacrifice and political exposure.37 The story also tells us about “inconvenient” but “essential” resistance and the recognized need to challenge the power of male or masculine leadership and, more generally, the patriarchal system.38 In conclusion, we can therefore assert that the complicated relationship between the Italian trade unions and women’s militancy was influenced by various factors. The barriers to women’s leadership were numerous and varied: in the widespread patriarchal mentality, in the placement of women in collateral and support roles, in the lack of recognition of women’s roles in politics, in women’s intermittent involvement in the labor market, and more generally, in the organization of society and the family in a patriarchal sense. In the two decades after World War Two, the CGIL tried to remedy the lack of female leaders by creating structures dedicated to women. But were these structures useful, sufficient, or counterproductive? This is a question that involves the entire Italian Trade Union movement, and it is not easy to answer. The women-only structures have certainly helped expand participation, cultivate female union leaders, propose new issues that had not been on the broader trade-union agenda, as well as made unions more attractive to women, and instituted flexibility that was better reconciled with women’s family commitments. From my point of view, these structures also represented a “comfort zone” in which women did not allow themselves to be intimidated by competition with men who perceived women as unequal because the masculinist attitude was seen as culturally triumphant and dominant. Yet, in certain ways, these organs questioned equality between men and women and, in some cases, undermined female authority and/or exempted men from dealing with the problems, demands, and conditions of women workers. In my opinion, there was no way to transition from management by women—which made sense if provisional—to powersharing with men. As other research has demonstrated, the creation of separate structures has not always had a negative effect on female authority and autonomy. Studies See Parker and Foley, “Progress on Women’s Equality.” On the subject of the patriarchal culture in the union, see Claire Williams, “Masculinities and Emotion Work in Trade Unions,” in Gender, Diversity and Trade Unions, ed. Fiona Colgan and Sue Ledwith, 292–311 (London: Routledge, 2002).

37 38

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 252

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies

253

by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Briskin, and others highlight how in other contexts the separatist choice can nourish female leadership while guaranteeing autonomy and flexibility. However, in the context of the Italian trade union movement, which was dominated by general (and non-professional) trade unions and industrial relations codified on the basis of representation, women-only unions or female trade unions past or present have not been able to find a place. The issue of female under-representation in decision-making processes and spaces (not only in the trade union context) is a larger problem that has much to do with the culture and structure of Italian society; women still take on most of the unpaid care work, and in most cases, this does not leave enough time—certainly when compared to men—to devote oneself to militancy and trade union activism. The women trade unionists active in the 1950s and 1960s had not yet addressed issues such as reconciling work with family obligations or recognized the need to change the structure and practices of the union. They had joined an organization created by males. They inserted themselves into a context of organizational rules fixed by men and did not question them but rather adopted them as their own. They had an emancipationist and not a feminist approach. The trade unionists believed that the obstacle to union militancy, even before the job, was the family workload. Stella Vecchio summed it up well when she asked women workers to “take a few hours away from housework” to be more active in the union. But the female union activists did not specifically address the “double burden” of women; they left that for the next generation active in the seventies, who inaugurated the age of “union feminism.” This story reminds us that belonging to a gender is not enough in itself to create cohesion, but this data, when taken into consideration, does not undermine the achievement of these objectives.40 Divergences and differences affect both men and women in the trade union movement, depending on one’s political sensitivity, the tension between positions that highlight equality and those that emphasize difference, and on a different vision of female work and the incumbent challenges associated with it (night shifts, part-time or temporary work, discrimination in hiring). The construction of a collective biography can be a first step in creating a shared cultural background and in avoiding seeing the relationship between the trade union movement and gender as a lost opportunity (for men) and an unfinished revolution (for women). 39

Dorothy Sue Cobble, “Rethinking Troubled Relations between Women and Unions: Craft Unionism and Female Activism,” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 519–48; Linda Briskin, “Autonomy, Diversity and Integration: Union Women’s Separate Organising in North America and Western Europe in the Context of Restructuring and Globalization,” Women’s Studies International Forum 22, no. 5 (1999): 543–49; Kaye Broadbent, Michele Ford, “Women and Labour Organizing in Asia: Diversity, Autonomy and Activism,” accessed April 20, 2021, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/212691599.pdf. 40 “Women are also both the same and different. As gender always intersects with other diversities, women too are divided by class, sexuality, ethnicity and race, disability, age, and so on.” Ledwith, “Vive la différence?” 39

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 253

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

254

Debora Migliucci

Considering women’s support for the growth of the union in the immediate postwar years makes it possible, in the final analysis, to deconstruct the mainstream union movement based as it is on an entirely male organization that represents and safeguards (men) workers. The innovation brought to the fore by female trade unionists, which was only completed recently, makes it possible to overturn this male-centric paradigm: women have always represented the universal precisely because they have taken on issues which, in their absence, would have never been added to the union agenda. Without female trade unionists in positions of power, some of the achievements of workers would have been considered “other” with respect to negotiation and industrial relations. The increase in female union membership in recent years stems from this story, namely the capacity for including—albeit with difficulty—and not segregating men from women. Many studies that have been conducted in other countries in recent years confirm the ability of women trade unionists to “develop different agendas from the traditional male workers’ one.”41 This does not mean arguing that women have different needs with reference to the theory that biological difference produces stereotypes. Instead, it means recognizing that women develop a different view of problems regarding work, negotiation, and union practices, which derives from the historical subordination of women.42

Akua O. Britwum and Sue Ledwith, “Introduction,” in Visibility and Voice for Union Women, ed. Akua O. Britwum and Sue Ledwith, 9. 42 On the persistent difficulty of women in establishing themselves as union leaders, see Sue Ledwith and Lise Lotte Hansen, Gendering and Diversifying Trade Union Leadership (London: Routledge, 2013). 41

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 254

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International: The Circulation of Ideas on the Education and Training of Women Workers in the 1950s and 1960s Françoise F. Laot

L

ike labor history, the emergence and development of workers’ education should be studied on a global scale. 1 This task has barely started when it comes to the connections between workers’ training and trade unionism.2 Yet, the making of the working class was an international historical phenomenon, and education played a major role in it since class consciousness can be analyzed in the longue durée as the “result of an educational process.”3 An analysis of the education and training of women workers, understood here as both workers’ education and education for workers,4 demonstrates the need to de-nationalize5 history to understand the broader stakes in national policies on workers’ education after World War Two. My focus is the role of international organizations, which I, with Sandrine Kott, consider as geographic and social spaces where exchanges occur and ideas circulate.6 I engage in the renewal of this history through the use of a gendered perspective. In doing so, this analysis sheds light on forgotten, or much less studied, facets of the past, including debates, connections, and issues that have not been addressed in the historiography. 1



2



3

4



5



6

Marcel van der Linden, Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Françoise F. Laot, “La formation des travailleuses (1950–1968) une revendication du syndicalisme mondial? Contribution à une histoire dénationalisée de la formation des adultes,” Le Mouvement social 253, no. 4 (2015): 65–87; Michael Merrill and Susan J. Schurman, eds., “Workers’ Education and the Global Labour Movement,” special issue, International Labour and Working-Class History 90 (Fall 2016): 1–279. Michael Merrill and Susan J. Schurman, “Toward a General Theory and Global History of Workers’ Education,” International Labour and Working-Class History 90 (Fall 2016): 8. The first being education by and for workers themselves, and the second, all sorts of initiatives addressing workers. Sandrine Kott, “Les organisations internationales, terrain d’étude de la globalisation: Jalons pour une approche socio-historique,” Critique internationale 52, no. 3 (2011): 9–16. Sandrine Kott, “Une ‘communauté épistémique’ du social? Experts de l’OIT et internationalisation des politiques sociales dans l’entre-deux-guerres,” Genèses 71, no. 2 (2008): 26–46.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 255

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

256

Françoise F. Laot

This historical approach to vocational and adult education and training policies that target women pays particular attention to the international labor movement.7 According to Pernot, international trade unions were “listened to but rarely heard.”8 Their realm of action was probably limited, but following the work of Reiner Tosstorff,9 they likely served as a sounding board. Given their participation in UNESCO and International Labour Organization (ILO) conferences and their presence on some of these organizations’ committees, international trade unions mediated the diverse concerns of their affiliated members and favored communication between national trade unions, state delegates, and employers’ representatives. This was obviously the case regarding the question of the education of women workers, which benefited from the competition international trade unions were involved in as a result of the Cold War and decolonization. Through its examination of three international trade unions—the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (IFCTU), and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)—this contribution focuses on those women who contributed to the elaboration and dissemination of new discourses linking educational opportunities with women’s right to work through various networks: among these were the Swedish unionist Sigrid Ekendahl, who represented the largest trade union confederation in Sweden, the Landsorganisationen i Sverige (Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO); Marcelle Dehareng, a Belgian unionist employed by the ICFTU, and three French union activists, Madeleine Colin from the Confédération générale du travail (General Confederation of Labor, CGT),10 Simone Troisgros from the Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens (French Confederation of Christian Workers, CFTC) and then the Confédération française démocratique du travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labor, CFDT),11 and Rose Étienne from the Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvrière (General Confederation of Labor-Workers’ Power, Jean-Marie Pernot, “Une nouvelle internationale syndicale, la CSI, replâtrage ou renouvellement?” Recherches internationales 78, no. 4 (2006): 8; Jean-Marie Pernot, “Dedans, dehors, la dimension internationale dans le syndicalisme français” (PhD diss., Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 2001); Tania Regin, “Les relations intersyndicales françaises à la lumière des engagements internationaux 1948–1978” (PhD diss., Université de Bourgogne, 2003); Marcel van der Linden, ed., The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000). 8 Pernot, “Dedans, dehors,” 40. 9 Reiner Tosstorff, “The International Trade-Union Movement and the Founding of the International Labour Organization,” International Review of Social History 50, no. 3 (2005): 399–433. 10 The CGT is the oldest French trade union; it was created in 1895. 11 Within the CFTC, the schism between the Christian and a de-confessional wing occurred in 1964, giving birth to a new trade-union, the CFDT. The CFTC remained as a trade union, but was weakened. 7

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 256

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

257

CGT-FO). These activists promoted women’s issues in their respective national unions and to the boards of international trade unions. They did this even though women were still under-represented as individual and cadre members of both national and international trade unions in the postwar period. For a long time, gendered analyses of the ILO’s actions, particularly those focusing on the controversy between the “protectionists” who called for womenspecific measures and “equal-righters” or “egalitarians” who supported the same international labor code for women and men,13 have focused on the activities of feminist associations or women’s labor rights. Recent publications have broken new ground.14 However, the question of the education and training of women workers from an international perspective has received relatively little attention thus far.15 Nonetheless, this issue emerged in the 1950s and became imperative during the 1960s, when UNESCO and the ILO identified it as a priority in 1965. International trade unions played a key role in these developments, but its trajectory was not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, because of fears that women workers would replace male workers or that their recruitment contributed to lower wages, the trade union tradition, which was essentially male, discouraged women’s involvement in the labor market, notably in what were then considered “male occupations.” Consequently, trade unions had little desire to prioritize women’s vocational education. Only women trade unionists could lead this struggle despite their lack of power in labor organizations. In this chapter, then, I explain how this happened. Although by the 1950s international organizations acknowledged the need for educational opportunities for women workers as well as the principle of equal pay for women and men, both problems remained abstract, and there was no attempt to formulate concrete strategies to address them. On the other hand, the idea of workers’ education (trade unionist, vocational, and social education) was in full bloom globally in the aftermath of World War Two. Activity in the field of adult education multiplied with the support of countries in Eastern and Western Europe as well as in countries of the so-called “Third World,” who 12

The CGT-FO was created after the 1949 schism within the CGT at the beginning of the Cold War by members who rejected the so-called influence of the Communist Party. 13 Carol Riegelman Lubin and Anne Winslow, Social Justice for Women: The International Labor Organization and Women (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990); Sandra Whitworth, “Gender, International Relations and the Case of the ILO,” Review of International Studies 20, no. 4 (1994): 389–405. 14 Françoise Thébaud, Une traversée du siècle: Marguerite Thibert, femme engagée et fonctionnaire internationale (Paris: Belin, 2017); Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, eds., Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labor standards, and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018); Eileen Boris, Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards 1919–2019 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 15 This, too, is changing. See Yevette Richards, “Transnational Links and Constraints: Women’s Work, the ILO and the ICFTU in Africa,” in Boris, Hoehtker, and Zimmermann, Women’s ILO, 149–75. 12

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 257

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

258

Françoise F. Laot

received subsidies from international organizations. Observing that educational provisions rarely addressed women, some activists called for substantive equal access to education for male and female workers. They did so because they believed that equivalent vocational education for women was necessary for them to access equal vocational opportunities and, by extension, receive equal pay. Women’s vocational education was the sine qua non for gender equality. To achieve this goal, women needed to be heard and assisted by male trade union representatives, but a total change of mentality on the part of male trade union leaders was necessary. To accelerate this change, women took on roles on trade union boards that required them to be educated as trade unionists. In this manner, women’s vocational and trade union education were inextricably linked. Women’s struggle for leadership in trade unions was not easy because their “brothers” or “comrades” continued to assert that they represented all workers, both women and men. It took nearly twenty years for women to gain equal rights and reach the upper echelons of power on certain international trade unions’ steering committees. In their struggles within trade unions, women trade unionists benefited from two interrelated phenomena related to the Cold War, decolonial context. First, as Silke Neunsinger already noted regarding the issue of equal pay, competition between international trade union organizations spurred action.16 The same dynamic can be seen regarding women’s education and training. Which international trade union would be the more progressive? More influential? Which was more likely to become the leader on the issue? In the 1950s, the WFTU was sympathetic to women workers’ rights, but the issue of education and training for women was not taken into account (or not much) in its statements. On this issue, the ICFTU seems to have taken the lead. Second, worker’s education, and specifically trade union education, became a concern for international trade unions and the ILO in the context of decolonization. Because of the weak tradition of national trade unions in newly emerging states in Africa and Asia, trade unionists from those countries were often considered incapable of organizing workers’ education by themselves.17 In the 1960s, international trade unions and the ILO set up programs dedicated to workers in the “Third World” to encourage the creation or the fortification of national trade unions. Trade union education in emerging countries was a new source of competition between the two main international trade unions: which side of Silke Neunsinger, “Mind the Gap: an Entangled History of the Demand for Equal Pay in International Labor Organizations During the Cold War,” accessed on September 15, 2015, https://esshc.socialhistory.org/esshc-user/program/?day=13&time=23&paper=874. 17 According to Marcel van der Linden, the need to educate these peoples and to export Western trade union models was rooted in colonial ideology. Marcel van der Linden, “Conclusion: The Past and Future of International Trade Unionism,” in The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, ed. Anthony Carew, Michel Dreyfus, and Geert van Goethem (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000), 521–40. 16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 258

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

259

the Cold War would the new national trade unions join? Because more women than men lacked literacy skills, a number of international programs included sessions specifically for women.18 Further, Western observers saw women’s low status as a problem, and so their education became a priority for international organizations.19 At the same time, due to the attention placed on women’s education, people began to question women’s status in Western countries as well, thus opening the way for an education for women that was intended to address the shortfall in training opportunities for women as well as the specific needs of working women.20 This chapter is based on sources found in the archives of several international organizations and international trade unions as well as other primary sources.21 It examines how a discourse around the education of women workers developed and was adopted within diverse committees involving a small group of women who met regularly.

Connections between French, Swedish, and Belgian Women Trade Unionists in International Organizations My research on adult education and vocational training began in the French trade union archives and was pursued further in the archives of international organizations. For this reason, French women may be overrepresented when compared to the role they actually played at the international level. Furthermore, the archival holdings used for this study are unbalanced because one of the three French trade union confederations, CGT-FO, did not do a good job of maintaining its archives. Consequently, it is difficult to accurately reconstitute the role of all the relevant historical actors. The French situation is of particular interest because representatives from the three largest French trade unions were distributed over the three international trade unions, and this allows for a broad view on the international labor movement. Indeed, France and Italy were the only two Western countries that remained in the World Federation of Trade Yevette Richards, “Labor’s Gendered Misstep: The Women’s Committee and African Women Workers, 1957–1968,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 44, no. 3 (2011): 415–42. 19 This new concern can be seen in the Albert Guigui report: The Contribution of the ILO to Workers Education, 1919–1970 (Geneva: ILO, 1972). Starting in 1964, many activities mention a female audience, while the word “women” was not used (except for once) before. 20 Marcelle Dehareng, interview with author, May 10, 2013. 21 Archives of the ILO office in Geneva, of UNESCO and the WFTU in Paris, and ICFTU in IISH in Amsterdam. Some archives of the IFCTU were found in those of the CFDT. 18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 259

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

260

Françoise F. Laot

Unions (WFTU) after the schism in 1949 through the participation of their countries’ two main national trade unions: the French CGT and the Italian General Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, CGIL). The French CGT was one of the more influential trade unions in the World Federation due to the role played by one of its leaders, Louis Saillant,22 who had been the general secretary of the WFTU from 1945 to 1968. The French national trade unions adopted different perspectives on the “problems” of women workers. Beyond the struggle for equal pay, the CGT had chosen to fight for the reduction of working hours for women, positioning itself on the side of “protectionists,” whereas the CFDT—even more than the CFTC—was resolutely on the side of “equal-righters” and was concerned that advocating for different labor conditions for women and men would further weaken the status of women workers. As we will see, on the international level, these two positions were not necessarily incompatible when it came to the topic of education for women workers. However, in France, these positions provoked passionate debate between feminists closer to the CFDT’s position, who argued that social advancement—like shorter hours—would benefit women as well as men as it would enable the latter to share in more of the family labor, and the CGT’s more traditional position, which called for modifications for women only because of their family obligations.23 Unluckily, I was unable to discern the CGT-FO’s position due to the lack of sources on the topic in the archives. The three French women unionists in my study were members of the three different national trade unions, and each was involved in international labor politics as a member of an international trade union. Madeleine Colin (1905– 2001), born in Paris in a petit bourgeois milieu, joined the Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone (PTT) state company as a telephonist. She married and gave birth to a daughter. In the 1940s, she discovered activism through her relationship to a communist militant. In 1945, she joined the CGT and the French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français, PCF) as a member of the Central Committee. However, she disapproved of the PCF’s views on women’s status, for example the ideology of the housewife and the refusal to address contraception, and resigned from the Communist Party two years later. In 1953, her leadership skills were revealed through her participation in a major PTT strike, and she became the third woman elected as confederal secretary of the CGT in 1955. She was responsible for the Feminine Collective created in 1948, founded the trade Louis Saillant (1910–74) was a leading figure of French trade unionism. A wood carver, he was a member of the Resistance during France’s wartime occupation, and then with the liberation, he became the representative of the CGT at the Conseil national de la Résistance. He entered the Federal Board of the CGT in 1946 and devoted himself to international trade unionism at the WFTU. 23 Sylvie Chaperon, “La radicalisation des mouvements féminins français de 1960 à 1970,” Vingtième siècle, revue d’histoire 48, no. 4 (1995): 61–74. 22

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 260

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

261

union women’s magazine Antoinette, and organized three national conferences on equal pay within the CGT in 1958, 1965, and 1967. For her, women were the most exploited of all salaried workers in France, and they needed training in trade unionism. She participated in several meetings of the World Federation of Trade Unions as a CGT representative.24 Rose Etienne (1897–1974) was a civil servant at the Ministry of Defense. She became a trade unionist as a member of the CGT, where she became the permanent secretary of the General Federation of Civil Servants in 1939. After the schism with the CGT in 1947—she was fifty years old when this occurred— she joined the CGT-FO25 and entered the Confederal Bureau in 1948. Until 1963, she was the only woman in this leadership position in the CGT-FO. She was responsible for questions related to workers’ education and women workers’ issues. She was also responsible for the Film Section at the CGT-FO Center for Workers’ Education. She was one of, or perhaps the only CGT-FO representative at the ICFTU. Regrettably, there is not much in the archives about her life and her involvement in the union. Simone Troisgros (1904–1993) began work at fourteen as an apprentice seamstress; at sixteen she became a worker in the metallurgical sector. An activist in women’s Christian trade unions until their dissolution in 1944,26 she participated in the campaign for women’s suffrage and was also a member of a scout movement, through which she met her husband; they later had a son. She became a regional representative of the CFTC and the secretary of the Confederal Women’s Committee. In 1949, she was appointed the CFTC’s deputy-general secretary in charge of the section on Women and Leisure. She remained in this position at the CFDT after the schism until her retirement in 1969. She was also active in politics; she was in the Resistance during World War Two, and she was an elected member of the city council of Saint-Denis (as a member of the Popular Republican Movement [Mouvement républicain populaire, MRP], a center-left party) from 1945 to 1948. Later, in 1975, she joined the Socialist Party. She participated in numerous international meetings within the IFCTU. She was a delegate at the Training Commission of this trade union starting in 1949, and then served as a member of its executive board from 1956 to 1961. Written on the basis of Janine Olmi, “Les femmes dans la CGT, stratégie confédérale et implications départementales, 1945–1985” (PhD diss., Université de Nancy 2, 2005), 216; and Jocelyne George, “Une dirigeante syndicale féministe, Madeleine Colin, 1905–2001” (Paris: CGT, 2008). 25 The CGT-FO was created in 1947 by trade unionists who refused connections between trade unions and political parties, notably with the French Communist Party. 26 Founded at the end of the nineteenth century, feminine trade unions affiliated to the CFTC were established in 1919, but remained largely autonomous. In 1944, with the introduction of gender diversity in CFTC structures, women’s unions were dissolved. Cf. Joceline Chabot, Les début du syndicalisme féminin en France (1899–1944) (Limoges: Presses universitaires de Limoges, 2003). 24

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 261

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

262

Françoise F. Laot

In 1951, she participated in the drafting of the Equal Remuneration Convention in Geneva.27 She was a regular representative of the IFCTU in all meetings concerning women’s issues. All three of these women cultivated a militant international career within the international trade union to which their national organization was affiliated. Because of their interest in women workers’ education and vocational training, they also participated in several UNESCO and ILO meetings on this topic. That is how they crossed paths with Sigrid Ekendahl (1904–1996), a Swedish trade unionist and social democrat. Ekendahl was a waitress until 1937 and became a representative of the Swedish trade union for hotel and restaurant staff, which was a member of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO). There, she became the first woman to hold the position of ombudsman. She created the Women’s Committee of LO. She was also a city councilor and then a member of the second chamber of parliament elected for the district of Stockholm, winning reelection until 1976. At the international level, she worked with her friend Esther Peterson in the women workers’ group within the ICFTU that sought to change the confederation’s view on women’s issues. She was a co-founder of the ICFTU Women’s Committee, becoming its president from 1963 until her retirement in 1965.28 It is thanks to Ekendahl that Marcelle Dehareng (1926–2014), who was part of the younger generation of women trade unionists, was hired. Dehareng worked in Belgium as a secretary in different organizations and as intercommunal social worker. As a member of the Belgian Confederation of Trade Unions (Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique, FGTB), she was recruited by the ICFTU in 1957 to deal with women workers’ issues. She was the secretary of the Women’s Committee from 1957 until her retirement in 1985. She participated in numerous international meetings, regularly attending International Labor Conferences throughout this entire period as a representative of the ICFTU Women’s Committee. In 1966, she supported the women’s strike at the Belgian National Weapons Factory. During my interview with her,29 she explained that she had not been welcomed with open arms by male trade unionists when she arrived as a permanent representative because they were convinced that they could represent women as well as men. For them, there was no need for female C100, Geneva, 34th ILC session, June 29, 1951, according to Jocelyne Chabot in her biographical notice on Simone Troigrois in Le Maitron, Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, accessed November 2, 2016, https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article133177. 28 Short biography written by Vem är det, Svensk biografisk handbok (Stockholm: Norstedts Förlag, 1993), 27 (with the help of Kirsi Ahonen for translation); and Dorothy Sue Cobble, “Friendship beyond the Atlantic: Labor Feminist International Contacts after the Second World War,” Worlds of Women, ARAB Working paper 7, 2012, accessed September 15, 2015, http://www.arbark.se/pdf_wrd/cobble-friendship-beyond-the-atlantic.pdf. 29 Marcelle Dehareng interview. Thanks to Annie Massay, a trade unionist of the Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique, who put us in touch. 27

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 262

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

263

representatives. However, she always had the support of the general secretary of the ICFTU. These five women shared no personal links prior to their involvement in international labor unions, and except for Rose Étienne, Sigrid Ekendahl, and Marcelle Dehareng, who were members of the ICFTU, they were not supposed to collaborate because of their affiliations to different trade unions with conflicting ideologies. However, they met regularly and each of them, separately and collectively, worked to address the problem of women workers’ education and training at a moment when this topic had not been seriously considered either in international organizations or international trade unions.30

Staking a Claim to Women Workers’ Education within International Organizations and Three International Trade Unions In the postwar period, educational provision for adults, which included workers’ and trade union education, adult vocational education, training/retraining programs for employed persons, greatly expanded in most Western countries and at the international level, in part thanks to the UNESCO world conferences on adult education at Elsinore in 1949 and Montreal in 1960. Slowly but surely, there was growing awareness that in many ways, women had been forgotten in these developments. This in turn required dedicated measures for women, at least to fill the gap. All this occurred in an environment of constant interaction between specific meetings organized to address women’s questions within international organizations, some of them directly inspired or spurred on by the initiative of women trade unionists. However, considering the speed things went, one can question whether women worker’s vocational education was an important question, a priority, or an urgent need for international organizations, and specifically the ILO. In the run-up to the adoption of the Equal Remuneration Convention 100 (1951), the principle of equality in educational issue, which was not mentioned in C100, appears to have been considered self-evident. Nevertheless, at the 1950 International Labor Conference (ILC), it was mentioned that, although vocational and adult education provisions do not distinguish between men and women, “in practice, women’s adult vocational education has often been neglected.”31 Laot, “La formation des travailleuses.” CIT, 33e session. Rapport IX (1), 1950, “La formation professionnelle des adultes, y compris les invalides,” chap. II, 29–32.

30 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 263

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

264

Françoise F. Laot

Along with this acknowledgement, the ILC had mentioned, without prompting, in paragraph 8 of the Vocational Training (Adult) Recommendation (R08, 1950) that, “Women as well as men should have access to training facilities for adults.”32 Twelve years later, the new recommendation on Vocational Training (R117, 1962) no longer mentioned women, but it stipulated in a minimalist way that, “training should be free from any form of discrimination based on race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin.”33 This was perceived as a step backward and was sharply criticized by women trade unionists. This lack of interest in the education and training of women workers must be properly contextualized. In France, as no doubt in other countries, “nothing prevented women from participating in educational or training programmes,”34 but also nothing had been done to encourage them to enroll. In France, moreover, the question of women workers remained taboo. According to a 1963 ILO survey,35 France appears as the only Western country, along with Finland, where the number of working women decreased starting in the 1920s. Working married women or women who had “family responsibilities” were quite invisible in the data, and their numbers were greatly underestimated.36 It took several years before the 1962 French census would be properly analyzed to reveal the high number of women in all sectors of the labor market.37 ILO R088—Vocational Training (Adults) Recommendation, 1950 (No. 88), Recommendation concerning the Vocational Training of Adults including Disabled Persons, Adoption: Geneva, 33rd ILC session ( June 30, 1950). 33 ILO R117—Vocational Training Recommendation, 1962 (I-General principles), General Conference of the International Labor Organization, Forty-sixth Session on June 6, 1962. 34 ILO-International Labour Office, ILC-48 416-A-F/1 Response of the French Government to an ILO questionnaire, November 13, 1963. 35 Rapport VI, ILC 48th session preparatory report, 1963. 36 Eloisa Betti noticed the same underestimation of women’s work in Italian statistics in the 1950s–1970s, highlighting that existing women’s precarious jobs were not perceived as such because of the widespread representation of women as mainly housewives. Eloisa Betti, “Women’s Working Conditions and Job Precariousness in Historical Perspective: The Case of Italian Industry during the Economic Boom (1858–1963), in Making Sense, Crafting History: Practices of Producing Historical Meaning, ed. Izabella Agárdi, Berteke Waaldijk, and Carla Salvaterra (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2010), 175–205. The way censuses were shaped at different periods in various countries and their consequences for the acknowledgement of women’s work are also analyzed in Raffaela Sarti, Anna Bellavitis, and Manuela Martini, eds., What is Work? Gender at the Crossroads of Home, Family, and Business from the Early Modern Era to the Present (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018). 37 Census results were published in 1962 showing that the total number of women at work was less significant than in previous years. This was a consequence of three phenomena: the increase in the age of compulsory education, and the decrease in agricultural activity and the age of retirement. In fact, when figures were carefully scrutinized, they showed the significant growth of salaried women, notably married women and mothers. However, it took four years before politicians and decision makers became aware of this new trend, which they had expected. Françoise F. Laot, “La promotion sociale des femmes: le retournement d’une politique de formation d’adultes 32

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 264

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

265

Because of the culture of denial around women’s labor, the education of women workers could not be a priority. As I have shown, women’s adult education was not even conceptualized, and consequently was completely neglected. However, women did train themselves, but due to the lack of gendered statistics concerning evening courses and other programs, this phenomenon remained hidden from view. Only one figure was known and debated by women trade unionists: the number of women enrolled in the Formation professionnelle des adultes (FPA) (vocational centers for adult training), and it was extremely low: between 3 or 5 percent of those enrolled depending on source and year. This figure was denounced by Simone Troisgros in an article on feminine vocational training and influence on economic structures that controlled job openings38 as well as at the third women workers’ national CGT conference organized by Madeleine Colin in 1966.39 However, this major imbalance and the development of surveys on women workers in the 1960s—mostly published by women researchers or feminist activists—in addition to an increasing number of publications on equal access to secondary and university education for girls, helped stimulate interest in adult education and vocational training for women. This very topic was approached differently in the three international trade unions. The WFTU took on the struggle against both female and male illiteracy. According to its declaration of principles concerning the remuneration of women workers (1948): As we have seen, women are perfectly capable of acquiring first-rate professional training, but they must be given the opportunity. In France, for example, people are too prone to advise girls to take up dressmaking, embroidery, invisible mending, etc., whatever their tastes. If women are entitled to equal wages with men for equal work, they must be given the opportunity to carry out that work, and hence to train themselves for it.40

Schooling and, above all, mainstream vocational education and guidance were at stake, according to the report submitted by the World Federation to the 6th UN Commission on the Status of Women in 1952. It stated: Fundamentally, what is required is that the budgets of the capitalist states should allocate less enormous sums to re-armament and less modest sums to the establishment and development of schools of all kinds, first to combat illiteracy, and au milieu des années 1960,” Le Mouvement social 232, no. 3 (2010): 29–45. Archives CFDT, 7H366, Formation professionnelle et influence des structures économiques sur les débouchés professionnels féminins, 1961. 39 Institut d’histoire sociale de la CGT (IHS) Archives, Troisième conférence nationale des travailleuses de la CGT, 11 et 12 mars 1966 à Issy-les-Moulineaux. 40 IISH-ICFTU archives, United Nation Economic and Social Council, Commission on the status of women, 6th session, March 31, 1952 (original French translated into English in the archive). 38

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 265

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

266

Françoise F. Laot

secondly to ensure that all women and, I would add, all men, have an opportunity to develop their abilities and thus become more useful members of society.41

However, if educational issues for both men and women were strongly present in the documents of WFTU, notably the fight for literacy, the education of women workers does not seem to have been a topic at the core of declarations and statements of the federation until the mid-1960s. At the first Women Workers of the World Conference in Budapest in 1956, priority was placed on equal pay and acceptable labor conditions.42 This may be because the representatives of communist countries may have believed that gender equality had already been achieved. As Kristen Ghodsee shows, if in some of those countries, like Bulgaria, the communist state had already invested heavily in literacy campaigns and women’s education and training, this was far from the case in every Eastern Bloc country. As she observed, “some communist countries prematurely declared that they had solved the woman question and turned their attention to other problems.”43 During the second WFTU Conference on women workers’ issues in Bucharest in 1964, however, the decision was made to establish an International Trade Union Committee on the problems of women workers. In preparing the 48th ILC on Women Workers in a Changing World, the WFTU sought to secure the adoption of principles concerning working women such as equal access to vocational education, the free choice of a skilled occupation, the creation of conditions for women’s vocational advancement or on-the-job training, etc. The plans laid out in Bucharest led WFTU leader Louis Saillant to declare this conference “a landmark, the start of a large campaign for the wider participation of women in the labor struggle, activism, and trade union leadership.”44 While committed to the struggle against illiteracy and in favor of adult education together with UNESCO, the WFTU adopted a resolution in 1965 that made adult education and literacy one of its priorities but lacked any specific mention of women as the target of such measures. It was only in Turin in 1968 that the WFTU adopted a charter that officially stated that “women and girls have, without discrimination, the right to a vocational education and [professional ]development that provides them with an effective skill upgrade that responds to the requirements of technical progress and the social and Ibid. IHS-Fédération syndicale mondiale (FSM) Archives. 2C8–27, Première conférence mondiale des travailleuses, Vienne, 14–17 juin 1956. 43 Kristen Ghodsee, “Research Note: The Historiographical Challenges of Exploring Second World–Third World Alliances in the International Women’s Movement,” Global Social Policy 14, no. 2 (2014): 252. 44 IHS-FSM Archives. Rapport sur le 1er point à l’ordre du jour, “Une rencontre qui portera ses fruits,” IIe Conférence syndicale internationale relative aux problèmes des travailleuses, Bucarest, 11–16 mai 1964, FSM, p. 10. 41 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 266

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

267

economic development of the world.” Contrary to the two other international trade unions, which regularly sent the same representative to participate in international meetings on the topic of women workers’ education, this position was voiced by several WFTU women members. For that reason, Madeleine Colin seems to have been less present than the other four women at the international level. However, she helped fundamentally change the views of her national trade union on women-related questions. One can assume that the knowledge she gained at international meetings was re-invested and exploited within her trade union. The International Federation of Christian Trade Unions, the smallest of the three international trade unions, chose women’s vocational education as the topic of its second world conference on the problems of women workers held in Mariakerke, Belgium in 1963. Delegates prepared a world manifesto and two resolutions, one on the right to work and women’s opportunities for promotion, and the other on women’s vocational education. They “took note that women workers’ vocational education did not follow the constant growth of their population numbers or their increasing participation in economic life.”46 It was repeatedly asserted that the aim of women workers’ education was “to eliminate deep-rooted prejudices” about girls’ vocational education, including those held by girls themselves and those held by their parents,” by urging them to see education as “a means for cultural development and personal growth for girls as well as for boys.” Small women’s Christian trade unions, as Jocelyne Chabot notes,47 had been involved in vocational and activist education since their creation at the end of the nineteenth century. Therefore, when they were merged into the national trade unions, the CFTC in 1944, and by extension the IFCTU, some of their women members who came from this long tradition already were concerned about these issues and had experience and knowledge of effective measures in this domain. Simone Troisgros played a key role here, energetically representing the IFCTU at numerous assemblies several times over the years. On multiple occasions, she argued against the trend of making women feel guilty about their own lack of qualifications, which she thought was a profound injustice. For her, the lack of education and training offered to women were responsible for women’s deficiencies, not women’s unwillingness to push themselves, as some argued. Of the three international trade unions, the ICFTU appears to have been the best organized, and the most combative—or maybe the most prominent— 45

Archives nationales-860111-2, Comité du travail féminin, “Charte de la formation professionnelle,” Turin, 2–4 février 1968, 10. 46 Archives CFDT 7H372, Mariakerke, 10, 11, 12 décembre 1963, Manifeste, 8 p. note. 47 Jocelyne Chabot, “La formation professionnelle et militante: l’exemple des organisations féminines chrétiennes en France durant la première moitié du XXe siècle,” in Mouvement ouvrier et formation: Genèses: de la fin du XIXe siècle à l’après Seconde Guerre mondiale, ed. Guy Brucy, Françoise F. Laot, and Emmanuel de Lescure (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 81–94. 45

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 267

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

268

Françoise F. Laot

when it came to the question of women workers’ education. In 1952, at the 6th UN Commission on the Status of Women, the union was represented by Rose Etienne. Her intervention had been prepared with input from the ICFTU executive committee. Lamenting the weak role played by NGOs in the commission, she intervened in the discussion on the seventh point of the agenda, stressing that: “The ICFTU is particularly interested in—and organizes constant activities related to—adult education. It is greatly concerned with women’s vocational guidance and technical training. . . . [Free trade unions] want all measures to be taken in all countries in the world so women can receive instruction and vocational training at the same level as men, without any discrimination based on sex.”48 Initiated by Swedish trade unions, a summer school for women trade unionists was established at the Château de la Brévière49 in France in 1953. According to Dorothy Sue Cobble, this summer school was the result of the friendship between members of an informal transnational network of trade unionists,50 especially the relationship between Esther Peterson51 from the US Women’s Bureau, who was in Brussels in 1952, and Sigrid Ekendahl. Fifty-two women trade unionists from all over the world participated in this summer school, and they debated the changes they wanted to incorporate into the trade union movement’s organization and approach. They stressed that it should recognize women’s roles and labor at home as well as in the workplace and the trade union. They argued that “education and individual development must be part of any movement for societal transformation”52 and decided to create the ICFTU/ ITS53 Women’s Committee. Rose Etienne participated in the Women’s Committee from the start and was regularly present at all of its meetings until her retirement in 1963. Sigrid Ekendahl took over the responsibility to recruit a permanent secretary for the Women’s Committee from Hans Gottfurcht, the ICFTU deputy-general secretary in charge of workers’ education. She wrote to him that the journal Soviet IISH—ICFTU Archives, Rapport sur la sixième session de la Commission de la condition de la femme (ECOSOC), 6 page note by Rose Etienne, April 7, 1952. 49 Which then belonged to the LO before becoming the headquarters of the CGT-FO Centre d’éducation ouvrière (Workers’ Education Office). 50 Some of them “participated in the Women’s Committee of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), set up by the International Federation of Working Women in 1924 to carry on its work inside the male-led international trade union movement.” Dorothy Sue Cobble, “International Women’s Trade Unionism and Education,” International Labour and Working-Class History 90 (Fall 2016): 158. 51 She had been a teacher at the famous Bryn Mawr Summer School in the 1930s. See the history of this U.S. experience of educating women workers in Joyce L. Kornbluh and Mary Frederickson, eds., Sisterhood and Solidarity: Workers’ Education for Women, 1914–1984 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1984). 52 Cobble, “International Women’s Trade Unionism,” 160. 53 International Trade Secretariat. 48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 268

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

French Trade Unionists Go International

269

Women, which she received from Moscow, had published an article that claimed the WFTU had organized the first women workers’ world conference. For her, it was important and urgent to counter this false narrative.54 This is why Marcelle Dehareng was hired on March 1, 1957, a direct result of the competition between the two main international trade unions. It is noticeable that, from the start, the Women’s Committee put the education and training of women workers at the center of their work. First, their goal was trade union education that would enable women to take up roles in trade unions. However, they also quickly raised the question of vocational training and more generally adult women’s education that would help broaden their participation in society. In 1960, the 4th Women’s Committee meeting was dedicated to this topic: “The Committee thinks that equality should be promoted to provide women and girls with access to vocational education and study programs that will prepare them for the same positions held by men, including technical and scientific professions; that vocational guidance should be intensified; and that vocational guidance and training should be related to economic need.”55 The same theme was discussed in all subsequent meetings, up to the 8th ICFTU World Congress in 1965, where Sigrid Ekendahl gave a keynote speech, and the Charter of Rights of Working Women was adopted. The focus was the necessity of the development of vocational training and adult education as well as the need for specific measures for women: “Girls and boys must have the same access to education. Adult education must be based on the same principles of equality. . . . Special dispensations must be taken for vocational training or retraining for women who want to get an occupation or return to employment after an interval of several years. Access to the highest positions should be opened to men and women in every domain and with the same conditions.”56 From the moment it was founded, the ICFTU had openly declared its concern for educational issues. This helps explain why the Women’s Committee took on this question and highlighted it. But this visibility was also due to its membership’s conviction that equal pay would never be possible so long as equality in education was not a reality. The Women’s Committee’s claims were regularly submitted to international organizations’ meetings: to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, UNESCO, and the ILO. Nevertheless, it still took a long time for the results of the work of the Women’s Committee, especially concerning trade union education, to reach the ICTFU. Indeed, it was not until 1969 that the first woman was elected to its executive committee.

IISH, ICFTU archives, Letter from Sigrid Ekendahl to Hans Gottfurcht, October 22, 1956. Bulletin d’information de la CISL, 1er juin 1960. 56 “Charte des droits de la femme au travail,” Bulletin d’information de la CISL, no. 16 (1965): 20. 54 55

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 269

2022.07.30. 22:40:14

270

Françoise F. Laot

Table 11.1. The growth of interest in women workers’ education in international organizations

Date

WFTU

IFCTU (Christian)

ICFTU

ILO (R088) on Vocational Training (Adults) (for men and women) M

1950

1952

Intern. organizations

Declaration at the 6th UN Conference M

Declaration at the 6th UN Conference IC

UN 6th Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women in Geneva UNESCO Recommendation no. 34 on women's access to education IC

Summer school at Brévières for women's trade union education C+

1953

Plan for a Women’s committee

1956

Conference for working women in Budapest M

1957

Creation of the IFCTU/ITS joint Consultation Committee dealing with women workers' issues Marcelle Dehareng is appointed at the secretariat of the Women’s Committee 1st meeting of the ILO Panel of Consultants on the problems of women workers IC

1959

1960

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 270

Women's Committee 4th meeting, Brussels, dedicated to Women's vocational education and training C+

UNESCO conference on adult education M

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

271

French Trade Unionists Go International

1963

Mariakerke (Belgium) conference on women workers' problems C+

1964

2nd World Conf. World Manifesto on Women for the StrugWorkers' Probgle against lems, Bucharest discrimination (Charter: Womin vocational en Workers’ matters Economic and C+ Social Rights) IC

ILO Conference: 8th World ConWomen's Vocational gress: Charter of Education and rights of working Training (panel of women IC consultants) C+

1965

1968

ILO Conference: Women Workers in a Changing World IC

World Trade Union Conference on adult vocational education, Turin, Charter IC

1975

ILO R150 Promotion of Equality of Opportunity of Women and Men in Training and Employment C+

Women Workers’ education: mentioned M ; important concern IC ; at the core C+

Toward New International Instruments Devoted to the Education and Training of Women Workers? Starting in the early 1950s, there were numerous opportunities to meet and discuss ideas about the education of women workers on the international level. In 1951, UNESCO, together with the International Bureau of Education, decided to contribute to the work of the UN Commission on the Status of Women by studying women’s access to education, which became the focus of its Recommendation Number 34 (1952). At the first meeting, the committee drew up a program on women’s access to all levels of education, including “the access to basic education and adult education in towns as well as in rural areas.” International

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 271

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

272

Françoise F. Laot

women’s associations were represented, but not international trade unions. However, the unions were present at a new meeting of the committee in 1957, which approved a number of programs that targeted women. Marcelle Dehareng (ICFTU) was rapporteur of the meeting, Simone Troisgros represented the IFCTU, and Madeleine Colin and Jacqueline Levy57 represented the WFTU. The committee issued the following statement regarding their recommendations: “Concerning adult education . . . the group insists on the fact that, as far as possible, setting up the same programs for women and men should be favored; however, some organizations estimated that some groups of women needed a special preliminary education.”58 A new group was formed at the end of this meeting. Marcelle Dehareng remained rapporteur, and the three international trade unions were represented. The work of this group was published by UNESCO in a series of reports including comparative surveys of girls’ and women’s access to education in different countries between 1962 to 1968. At the UNESCO world conference on adult education in 1960, representatives explicitly addressed the question of adult women’s education, but it was not a central issue at the time. At the ILO, too, ideas about women’s education circulated. In 1957, the ILC asked the International Labor Office to constitute a panel of consultants on the problems of women workers. Twenty-six consultants, not exclusively but mainly women, were nominated as representatives of states, employers, and trade unions. Simone Troisgros and Sigrid Ekendahl were among them, and they participated in the first meeting in 1959 as representatives of their national trade unions. Elisabeth Johnstone, who was in charge of questions concerning women and young workers at the IL office, chaired the meeting. The education of women workers was not on the agenda, but it was said that: “The questions of vocational guidance and vocational education and training for girls and women is a priority and should be a topic on the agenda of a forthcoming ILC.”59 However, next meeting of this panel took place only six years later. At the same time, questions concerning women in the workplace gained visibility. The sixth item on the agenda of the 48th ILC in 1964 was “Women workers in a changing world.” The preliminary report (1963) devoted twenty pages to “Vocational preparation of girls and women.” Concerning adult education it noted: “The organization of training or retraining for adult women, particularly those whose work careers have been interrupted for some years, poses a number of difficult problems which have not yet been tackled with much She was the permanent representative of the WFTU at UNESCO. Réunion d’organisations internationales non gouvernementales, relative à l’élaboration d’un programme à long terme concernant diverses activités de l’UNESCO intéressant les femmes, Maison de l’UNESCO, 8 juillet 1957, 2, Unesdoc database. 59 According to Simone Troisgros, Archives CFDT 7H372, Note de 4 pages de S. Troisgros sur le document D—1964 de l’OIT, “L’orientation et la formation professionnelle des femmes et des jeunes filles,” du 14 septembre 1965 57 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 272

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

French Trade Unionists Go International

273

force or imagination in most countries of the world.” The annex to this report included a joint questionnaire to be filled-in by member states and NGOs in preparation for the Recommendation on Employment of Women with Family Responsibilities (R123, 1965). As the women trade unionists who worked on this report noted, family responsibilities seemed to be solely the responsibility of women. The women simultaneously worked on preparations for the second meeting of the panel of consultants on women workers’ problems, which was to focus entirely on vocational guidance and training of girls and women. The report declared, “Many women have insufficient vocational preparation owing to their own fault, because they have chosen the easiest and shortest way, because they have limited their ambition to achieving only a mediocre-level of skill, refusing to make the effort needed for thorough preparation, and because they do not take a realistic view of their future.”61 This formulation of the problem provoked strong reactions from some women trade unionists including Simone Troigros from France, who thought the report was “inadmissible.”62 She wrote: “Since 1952, my organization, the CFDT, has called for a discussion on a specific international convention on vocational guidance and training for girls and women. I consider that nothing can validly be done without this pre-requisite.”63 The second meeting of the panel of consultants was planned for Geneva between September 20–28, 1965, but because of a reduced budget, fewer committee members could attend. This gives some indication of the ILO’s sense of the urgency of the question. Nonetheless, this time the meeting was entirely dedicated to women’s vocational education and training. Neither Sigrid Ekendahl nor Simone Troisgros was selected to participate in this event, but the three international trade unions sent observers. Among them were Marcelle Dehareng (for ICFTU), Renée Peuvrier64 (for WFTU), and Simone Troisgros (for the IFCTU). The report of this second meeting shows a blossoming of ideas, the recognition of the necessity to undertake various initiatives, and the launch of a series of surveys to gain better knowledge of the real situation facing women workers. Consultants called for a new ILO international instrument that would complement the 1962 Recommendation65 promoting specific measures directed toward women such as accelerated training, special allocations, continuing education, and retraining. 60

“Women Workers in a Changing World,” ILO, Report VI, 1963, 39. Vocational guidance and training of girls and women, ILO report D 28, 1964, 109. 62 In the archives of the CFDT: on the cover of the report, this handwritten annotation: “p. 118/119 !!! Inadmissible! !!!C’EST LEUR FAUTE !!!” [It is their fault!] (pages are not the same in the French report as in the English one). 63 Archives CFDT 7H372, Note de 4 pages de S. Troisgros, 1964. 64 French member of the CGT. 65 ILO-203950-WN 2-1003-2, “Report of the Meeting of Consultants on Women Worker’s Problems,” Geneva, September 20–28, 1965. 60 61

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 273

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

274

Françoise F. Laot

The decision to prepare a new recommendation was the domain of the ILO governing body. This idea and the report of the consultants’ meeting were put on the agenda and debated in the ILO’s February 1966 session with only one woman, Miss Barret—the temporary substitute of the Australian state representative—among forty-six male members debating the issue. Several members including Miss Barret argued that it was not advisable to create specific norms for women because this would potentially lead to gender discrimination; thus, it would be better to apply existing norms. But after the intervention of the Soviet representative in the debate, and then comments by Swiss and Mexican workers’ representatives, who argued that a new instrument was legitimate because of obvious discrimination against women,66 the discourse shifted. In the end, there was no decision concerning the creation of a new instrument, but the participants in the meeting asked the ILO director-general to “propose concrete measures” and asked that the consultants’ report be sent as is to every member state and to all employers and workers’ organizations, along with the minutes of the governing body.67 It is quite clear from the historical record that “priority” was not a synonym for “urgency.” It took ten more years before an official ILO policy instrument on the topic, Recommendation 153 in 1975,68 was finally adopted. It specified that “measures should be taken to promote equality of opportunity of women and men in employment and in society as a whole [notably through] special vocational training arrangements and programmes” for women. What measures to realize these goals did the ILO permit is another question altogether.

Conclusion This study of the emergence of the issue of the education and training of women workers gives rise to questions concerning the role played by some individuals, who, due to their trade union involvement, developed an international activist career and contributed to the elaboration of a discourse that helped disseminate ideas about a “new” social issue. When considering topics that have been only marginally addressed in the existing historiography such as the education of women workers, it may be relevant to pay attention to those individuals who The Swiss Möri underlined that the composition of ILO bodies was evidence of this discrimination. 67 ILO-203950-WN-2-1003-2, Procès-verbal de la première séance (projet) du lundi 28 février 1966, 164e session du Conseil d’administration du BIT. 68 Chapter VIII—Promotion of Equality of Opportunity of Women and Men in Training and Employment, Human Resources Development Recommendation, Geneva, 60th ILC session, June 23, 1975. 66

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 274

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

French Trade Unionists Go International

275

defended intervention, and the regularity, variety, and the duration of their involvement in various committees, people like Simone Troisgros, Sigrid Ekendahl, and Marcelle Dehareng. Rose Etienne played a key role at the start in the ICFTU, but she retired in 1964, in the middle of this period of engagement on the issue. Madeleine Colin participated in committee work on the subject less regularly than the others, but her international experience helped her engagement and had repercussions at the national level. These five trade unionists had opportunities to see each other in different circumstances, each had a solid activist background, and each contributed to promoting change in their own countries and in their national trade unions. Another significant finding is that the idea that specific educational and training measures for women were needed was widely shared at the time, even by those who demanded equal rights for men and women. Filling the immediate gap as a preliminary measure appeared obvious to them. One of the tangible results of this awareness-raising campaign was to force national politicians and senior officials in several countries to open their eyes and begin collecting data on their respective societies. For example, in France, the lack of gendered statistics concerning the audience of educational programs suddenly became an obstacle to policymakers. Paying attention to a phenomenon if only to quantify it inevitably leads to its recognition as a social problem. No doubt, national debates benefited from this international circulation of ideas on the education and training of women workers. Some questions remain. What were these women’s links with international civil servants, and what role did these relationships play in the dissemination of ideas? Were the specific measures taken to promote the education of women workers relevant? Were they effective? In some countries, for example France, very few of these programs were implemented in practice because equal rights for all was the rule, regardless of the reality on the ground. The genesis of a discourse on the education of women workers at the international level raises questions about the history of adult education by reintroducing some oft-unnoticed dimensions. Most remarkable is the role played by a small group of women, none of whom had significant power, and the entanglement of their individual lives, ideological convictions, and institutional agendas. The five women in my research were not, of course, the only people who participated in the struggle for women’s education and training. But their individual commitment to women workers’ education captured the attention of unions and international organizations that had been hitherto slow in taking up the issue. In the end, this study questions the importance of numbers (of group and organization members) in the circulation of ideas, demonstrating that in the right context, smaller groups may play just as an important part as larger collectivities.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 275

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 276

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon: Commissions-femmes as Sites of Resistance and Well-being in the 1970s Anna Frisone

T

his chapter addresses the experience of women-only structures established within the major trade union confederations in France in the 1970s. It elucidates how women unionists permeated workers’ organizations with feminist themes and methods, and how trade union feminists organized within the trade unions. While second-wave feminism is internationally well known for its refusal to engage with mixed-gender political organizations, its practices and elaborations actually developed in a variety of contexts. Here, in particular, I explore what happened when some union activists stubbornly decided to introduce a new feminist perspective into the workers’ male-dominated organizations, questioning their allegedly neutral but, in fact, deeply gendered structure. Indeed, 1970s trade union feminism stood at the crossroads of major international phenomena such as the workers’ movement and the second-wave feminist movement, but so far it has been largely overlooked in the historiographies related to both these movements. In France, this subject has been addressed mainly by feminist scholars in the field of labor sociology: their works are certainly foundational, but their approach includes neither a long-term perspective nor the micro-historical approach proposed here.1 Historians have only recently shown interest in the intersection between gender and class inherent to trade unions.2 My contribution to this volume will offer new insights on the connection between these two historical categories by bringing gender analysis together with a historical perspective on trade union politics and mechanisms. This chapter represents some of the conclusions of my broader research, which addressed trade union feminist politics in Italy and in France through a combination of archival and oral history. Through in-depth interviews, I have

See, for example, the pathbreaking works by Margaret Maruani, Les syndicats à l’épreuve du Féminisme (Paris: Éditions Syros, 1979); and Danièle Kergoat, Les ouvrières (Paris: Le Sycomore, 1982). Furthermore, the more recent contribution by Cécile Guillaume and Sophie Pochic, eds., Actes de la journée “Genre et syndicalisme: Regards croisés franco-anglais” (Paris: EHESS, 2010). 2 Fanny Gallot, En découdre: comment les ouvrières ont révolutionné le travail et la société (Paris: La Découverte, 2015). 1

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 277

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

278

Anna Frisone

been able to uncover a counter-narrative of women activists’ commitment within the trade unions in a decade of vibrant social struggle and female agency. I will first delineate some of the general features of trade union feminism in France. Second, I will provide an overview of the case study of Lyon. Finally, I will home in on the commissions-femmes, women-only structures within the major French trade unions that were being renovated at the time, to shed light on their significance for working women. I will linger over the story of Lyonnais feminist activist Georgette Vacher, whose story helps reveal the dynamics of trade union feminism in 1970s France.

Trade Union Feminism Of course, women’s activism in the context of trade unions was not new in the 1970s.3 As historians have shown, women globally have engaged in labor struggles since the birth of the first workers’ organizations and, over time, sought to establish themselves in that uneasy position that Susan Zimmermann has defined as “betwixt and between.”4 In fact, women unionists simultaneously faced criticism on two fronts: on the one hand, by feminists who adopted a separatist approach and stigmatized the failure of women’s struggles in mixed political organizations; and on the other hand, by male unionists who reproached them for potentially undermining the unity of the class struggle. Despite these difficulties, in France there was a strong tradition of the working class’s commitment to women’s rights and empowerment, which was carried out by the major workers’ organizations in the country, namely the communist/socialist General Confederation of Labor (Confédération Générale du Travail, CGT) and the progressive Catholic French Democratic Confederation of Labor (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT).5 However, the international emergence of the second-wave women’s movement questioned the value of their traditional approach and encouraged new critical reflection on the “toolbox” usually For an “internal” perspective, see Madeleine Colin, Ce n’est pas d’aujourd’hui . . . : femmes, syndicats, luttes des classes (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1975). With regard to academic references, see Alice H. Cook, Val R. Lorwin, and Arlene Kaplan Daniels, The Most Difficult Revolution: Women and Trade Unions (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992). For the French case, see Olivier Fillieule and Patricia Roux, eds., Le sexe du militantisme (Paris: Presses de Science Po, 2009); see also Laura L. Frader, “Femmes, genre et mouvement ouvrier en France aux XIXe et XXe siècles: bilan et perspectives de recherche,” Clio: Histoire, femmes et sociétés 3, no. 1 (1996): 14. 4 See, for example, Susan Zimmermann, “Equality of Women’s Economic Status? A Major Bone of Contention in the International Gender Politics Emerging During the Interwar Period,” International History Review 41, no. 1 (2019): 200–227, published online November 15, 2017. 5 Marie-Hélène Zylberberg-Hocquard, Féminisme et syndicalisme en France (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1978); Madeleine Guilbert, Les femmes et l’organisation syndicale avant 1914 (Paris: CNRS, 1966). 3

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 278

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

279

used to address women’s work. There was a shift in emphasis to issues such as gender roles and power relationships between the sexes, the relevance of the body and sexuality, and the connection between the personal and the political. An essential feature of 1970s trade union feminism in France and elsewhere in Western countries has to do with the socio-political background of the activists who gave shape to this experience. Despite their lack of visibility in both the media as well as the historiography, many young women got involved in union activism in the context of the struggles that took place in France in 1968.6 A new generation of women workers, marked by their involvement in workers’ struggles as well as student demonstrations, constituted the hard core of feminist structures within unions. However, it is worth mentioning that in France, the radical engagement of this new generation of female rank-and-file members was also encouraged and supported by some prominent figures among the older generation of French women unionists: for example, Jeannette Laot7 from the progressive Catholic CFDT, and Christiane Gilles from the communist-socialist CGT. Elsewhere in Europe, the innovative and radical approach developed by this new generation of feminist union activists found more resistance from the “old guard” of women unionists. This latter group included women who had long conducted their labor struggles in terms of “emancipation,” e.g., the demand for equal rights in general and gender-specific protections (such as for working mothers) in particular. In other countries,8 women in the old guard largely failed to show interest in their younger colleagues’ strategies, which were rooted in the context of 1970s feminism and raised new, more advanced issues; the older generation often maintained a more conservative and traditional approach. Therefore, it is vital to understand that the case of France was rather exceptional; national leaders of the major labor confederations, born in the 1920s and 1930s and able to prove their strong commitment to trade unionism (the aforementioned Gilles and Chantal Rogerat for the CGT, and Jeanette Laot for the CFDT), were able to grasp the potential for renewal inherent in the reflections on trade unionism feminists developed in the 1970s. They not only welcomed and encouraged the grassroots activism of younger activists; they were eager to fuel and promote it. They did so thanks to national initiatives that allowed local union activists to gather and meet each other. It is no coincidence that a person as radical and enthusiastic as trade union feminist Georgette Vacher, the woman at the center of this chapter, saved so much material from the sixth CGT Pierre Rosanvallon, L’Âge de l’autogestion (Paris: Edition de Seuil, 1976). Jeannette Laot, Stratégie pour les femmes (Paris: Stock, 1977). 8 See the case of Italy that I illustrated in my book: Anna Frisone, Femminismo al lavoro: Come le donne hanno cambiato il sindacato in Italia e in Francia (1968–1983) (Rome: Viella, 2020), 199–208, especially chapter 4, “Al di là dei confini: differenze, similitudini e legami transnazionali.” The fourth section, “Pattern generazionale e morfologia delle strutture femminili sindacali”, draws the comparison between Italy and France on this specific issue. 6 7

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 279

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

280

Anna Frisone

National Conference of Working Women organized in 1977, a fact that emerged when an archival fund was set up at the Bibliothèque Durand to collect her papers.9 Moreover, Vacher was older than most of the female union colleagues with whom she collaborated in Lyon. Indeed, French trade unionists of the “old guard” were aware and supportive of the most recent developments in the feminist movement. In some respects, the commitment of these older women unionists alongside the younger unionists of the commissions-femmes mirrors/creates a parallel with the participation of the philosopher and writer Simone De Beauvoir in the demonstrations promoted by the Mouvement de Liberation des Femmes, as France has a long history of prominent figures engaged to support large collective struggles.10 This distinct culture of activism may be attributed to the country’s widespread acceptance of the figure of the intellectuel(le) engagé(e): even popular and grassroots movements, horizontal and critical of delegation mechanisms, often welcomed the support of maîtres à penser who were personally committed but did not attempt to hijack the cause. Therefore, in this context, it is possible to see why a joint endeavor between different generations was possible. In the 1970s, women unionists found it important to have a safe space to discuss issues of interest for working women that were usually overlooked by their male colleagues. Despite the fact that different official committees devoted to women’s issues had existed for a long time inside workers’ organizations, during this period they were substantially revamped, in particular to allow for greater independence. In France, the women-only structures created within the union structure were called commissions-femmes: they were sometimes interprofessional, not always formally single-sex (the situation was different, in fact, between the CGT and the CFDT, since the latter insisted on “mixed policies”), and although they cooperated with each other on an issue-based level, there were no joint commissions-femmes that brought together women from the CFDT and CGT confederations. Women unionists involved in the commissions-femmes increasingly changed the way they looked at their role within workers’ organizations and questioned many assumptions of trade union practice that had so far been taken for granted. Compared to the approach adopted by women unionists in the past, particular attention was now devoted to the link between the private sphere and the public sphere, including women’s participation in the job market, women’s role in society as a whole, and in labor activism in particular. They criticized the existing gap between the demand for an inclusive class struggle and the reality of a See the material on the national CGT conference “VI conference des femmes salariées” collected in her fond at the Archive of the Bibliothèque Durand, b. 1 f. 5. 10 See Françoise Picq, “Simone de Beauvoir et le féminisme,” Cahiers Sens public 27, no.1 (2020): 119–43. 9

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 280

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

281

context where even women’s right to work was still endangered as demonstrated by the habit of identifying women as the first group to be targeted for layoffs when a company downsized. The leading woman unionist Georgette Vacher wrote, “We abandoned our individual struggles, which addressed our daily life problems, and collectively realized that, basically . . . there is this situation of inferiority that implies that, as a chain reaction, women are paid less, their qualifications are devalued, and they’re employed in less interesting places, in the worst working conditions, and they represent the majority of the unemployed. All of this rests on what societies think of women.”11 Women’s efforts to introduce a point of view different from the hegemonic masculine one into the structures and the politics of the trade unions was marked by enthusiasm as well as frustration. Indeed, the very functioning of trade unions did not represent any exception to the assumptions Vacher assigned to society as a whole: “All the paternalistic, sexist, authoritarian attitudes were present. . . . As a woman, I have really witnessed the worst things, not only for me but also for my female comrades. These men’s perspectives on the activists, on women in general, were the same as the society in which we live.”12 Raising objections was far from easy. Vacher described her strained relations with her male colleagues, declaring that because of her critical stance toward the union’s “aristocracy,” she represented “the worm in the fruit, the thorn in the foot, as you say.”13 As I will illustrate in the following pages, working women started an intense discussion about the relationship between women and work, taking into account the unequal allocation of rights and duties in society as a whole. Women thought that not only did the structural relationship between the classes need to change but also the social and cultural superstructures that always put women in a subordinate position. They highlighted the need to be granted equal opportunities in terms of vocational courses and career development, and they openly discussed how trade unions’ attention to the crucial theme of workplace health and safety was, for the most part, focused on men’s needs and failed to take into account the issues of reproductive health and contraception. They deconstructed the artificial boundary between the public and private sphere, demonstrating how important changes in the personal sphere were for women’s access to the public sphere and especially to the labor market. They strongly emphasized the connection between the workplace and other domains, stressing the importance of efficient public social services. They engaged with the issues of factory night work for women, and they greatly debated the introduction of part-time jobs.14 Georgette Vacher, Chacun compte pour un (cassette a une amie, Juin 1981) (Lyon: M. B. Composition/Édition, 1989). 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Frisone, Femminismo al lavoro. 11

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 281

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

282

Anna Frisone

For these women, the “re-invention of the political”15 was not just a matter of formally obtaining equal rights; rather, it was a matter of guaranteeing their concrete application and the further transformation of gender roles, thus fully acknowledging women as political actors in the realm of social conflict. Beyond the shared interest of creating an updated set of feminist struggles, what kind of relationship did women unionists establish with the feminist movement at large, which in France as elsewhere was fiercely averse to any kind of hierarchy and national coordination? In my interviews, I learned how difficult it was for French women unionists to self-identify as “feminists” at the time. Although nowadays, most of them clearly situate their experience within the boundaries of second-wave feminism (choosing a kind of “family album” approach that allows them, in retrospect, to acknowledge a shared path), this proved to be much more challenging at the time. This difficulty can be explained by the antagonistic dynamics among different feminist groups in France. In fact, women of the Mouvement de Liberation des Femmes16 formed autonomous groups called groupes-femmes d’entreprise in workplaces all over the country; these groups were supposed to explicitly challenge, through the activism of women workers, the prerogatives of representation historically held by the trade unions. As a result, women unionists distanced themselves from these groups because of the accusations they would have otherwise received from their male union colleagues.17 Many factors affected the contacts and exchanges that existed between trade union feminism and the (so-called) radical feminism of the groupes-femmes. To avoid simplification, it is worth taking into consideration the distinction between communist and Catholic unions.18 In the 1970s, following the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), the degree of experimentation and openness demonstrated by the latter proved to be crucial for the development of trade union feminism, as confirmed by Noëlle, one of my interviewees: The CFDT was much more open on different issues and the CGT much more . . . focused on the world of work. . . . Feminist ideas began to make their way into every union, [but] it seems to me that the activists who were at the CFDT found themselves [more at ease] in the feminist struggle. It was harder at the CGT. But it is true that in the seventies, there was another mentality and, in general, trade unionism was still very patriarchal; women had difficulty in claiming their place.19 Maud Ann Bracke, Women and the Re-Invention of the Political: Feminism in Italy (1968– 1983) (New York: Routledge, 2014). 16 Conventional label referring to the hodgepodge of autonomous women-only political groups widespread in the 1970s. 17 See various reports about this behavior in Magazine Antoinette, Les questions qui font bouger: 6ème conference c.g.t. femmes salariées d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Valenton, 1978). 18 Anthony Favier, “Égalité, mixité, sexualité: le genre et l’intime chez de jeunes catholiques du mouvement de la Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne ( JOC-F), dans les années 1968 et au-delà (1954–1987)” (PhD diss., Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2015). 19 Noëlle, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. 15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 282

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

283

Lyon’s General Framework Shifting away from the national context, I will focus on the city of Lyon, which is a remarkable case study of trade union feminism for two main reasons: first, the spread of trade union feminism in the city was particularly vigorous, and second, the city gained national attention because of a tragic episode that took place there. The story of 1970s Lyon represents a particularly heightened example of the hostility women unionists faced in the context of their male-dominated organizations at the time. However, this hostility did not flourish in a vacuum; it was a symptom of long-running tensions that characterized the history of women’s presence in workers’ organizations in France (as elsewhere).20 In the 1970s, Lyon was the third largest city in the country by population, and the second (after Paris, of course) in terms of the development of public services and tertiary sectors. These were highly feminized sectors of the job market at the time, and because of the significance of this sector, the experience of trade union feminism was particularly relevant, as sociologist Margaret Maruani has shown in her seminal book.21 The tragic suicide of leading woman unionist Georgette Vacher shaped the local activism of working women and also represented a turning point in national narratives connected to the overall experience of trade union feminism. With regard to the birth of trade union feminism in Lyon, it is worth mentioning that the majority of female workers among my interviewees was employed in the healthcare sector. I think it is important to underline this because this helps to explain the central role of the body in these women’s critiques of the unions and their practices. Starting from their reflections on the harmfulness of the workplace as it intersected with their involvement in the struggle for the legalization of abortion,22 the body is constituted as an element of radical criticism of male politics tout-court. Noëlle, a former nurse, explained: For me, [the turning point] was the fact that I worked in a hospital and was in contact with women who suffered the consequences of illegal abortions, and the union section was where I could talk about this: we had meetings every week, and we were always talking about this. It was not immediately a trade union claim, but it allowed us to open a window on the difficulties of women, and it seemed important that we women took care of it.23 Remarkable examples of such tensions in the course of French history appear in the writings of one of French unionism’s fathers, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. See his La Pornocratie ou Les Femmes dans les temps modernes (Paris: Librairire Internationale, A. Lacroix et c. Éditeurs, 1875). See also the bitter personal battle within the CGT between Léon Jouhaux and Jeanne Bouvier. See Bouvier's memoirs in Jeanne Bouvier, Mes Mémoires: Ou 59 années d’activité industrielle, sociale et intellectuelle d’une ouvrière 1876–1935, edited by Daniel Armogathe with Maïté Albistur (Paris: La Découverte/Maspero, 1983). 21 Maruani, Les syndicats à l’épreuve, 219. 22 Legalization was achieved with the law n° 75-17 of January 17, 1975, known as “loi Veil.” 23 Noëlle, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016.

20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 283

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

284

Anna Frisone

In addition to individual interviews, I also organized a large focus group of trade union feminists in Lyon. The conversation took place in the living room of Françoise, with cups of tea and slices of cake. The conversation started quickly: all the participants explained the origins of their feminist activism. Renée, formerly employed in the PTT (Post, telegraph, and telephone) sector, recalled: [At the time, t]here were many meetings outside [the trade unions]. Collaborating together was hard because we did not have the same claims. . . . They were people of the Women’s Liberation Movement (Mouvement de Libération des Femmes, MLF). We went [to the Lyon Women’s Bookshop] to work together, participate in debates . . . but we did not find ourselves completely at ease.24 We spoke a little. . . . We didn’t want to be isolated, we wanted to do things collectively: the whole feminist movement was there.25

The crucial moment Christine identified in her path to militancy was her participation in a unified demonstration of women on the issue of abortion: The CGT wanted to head this demonstration, while the feminist collectives thought that they should be the leaders. . . . Thus, all the CGT activists who participated in the demonstration chose to abandon it. I remember that it was Françoise, Monique (because she was still at CGT at the time), and me. . . . I remember the three of us and the fact that we decided to remain. I remember that I had the flag of the CGT and, because of my provocative spirit, I kept it. There was only one flag of CGT throughout the demonstration, and it was mine! [smiles proudly].26

Ultimately, women’s choice in favor of unity was not accepted by the male-dominated local union, and Christine recalled how “following this episode, we could no longer work together [with women from other organizations].”27 This episode serves as an example for my wider analysis of the unitary and “transversal” tendencies (a term used at the time in the confederations derogatorily, which is certainly telling) of women, but I will return to this point later on in relation to the story of Georgette Vacher. As evidence of the CGT’s attitude toward women’s activism more generally, it is worth quoting the words of a worker from the Calor company in Lyon who participated in the 1977 CGT national conference. Her words were published in the event’s booklet: Here we glimpse the difficulties in establishing a collaboration with other feminists engaged in the MLF. The uneasy relationship between feminist labor activism and bourgeois feminism is analyzed, for example, by Marilyn J. Boxer, “Rethinking the Socialist Construction and International Career of the Concept ‘Bourgeois Feminism’,” American Historical Review 112, no. 1 (2007): 131–58. 25 Renée, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. 26 Christine, CGT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. 27 Ibid. 24

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 284

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

285

Working women recognize the usefulness of the trade union. However, they feel that not only their male colleagues should participate in union initiatives. . . . Today, for example, one of the most committed female activists wanted to attend the conference, but her husband does not allow his wife to leave home for two days. And yet, he is a CGT activist, a union secretary, and a member of a political party. Facing more or less the same difficulties, we discussed this problem at the trade union, and we do not understand that in theory, one fights against the bourgeois ideology, while in practice, he reaffirms it in his personal life. In the case of other comrades, the husbands do not protest, but when women go back home, they find dishes to wash and the meal to prepare for the next day. When both husband and wife are activists, when the meetings fall simultaneously and somebody has to take care of the son, it is the mother who stays home.28

Women-only Committees Participation in the local commissions-femmes represented for most women unionists a major turning point in their lives.29 To shed light on its significance both in political and personal terms, it is interesting to bring back the constellation of memories and emotions that women unionists in Lyon attached to the experience of setting up these structures. Sometimes, they were established as formally mixed gender organs but soon turned into women-only spaces where women were finally granted unprecedented freedom of speech. Renée explained: “In the unions, there has always been the problem of ‘mixité or non-mixité.’ In the end, there were no men in the committee: it was not recognized as officially ‘non-mixed,’ but it was! It’s worth considering that there were mainly workers from the healthcare, postal, and social security sectors [all highly feminized sectors, AF], and not many people from industry.”30 The idea that women met separately created confusion in the confederations, and a halo of suspicion surrounded these meetings. The CFDT called for mixed meetings even if, as just mentioned, the male presence in these committees’ meetings was short-lived. At the CGT, the “women’s sector” was separate (organized in officially non-mixed committees), but the more autonomous turn undertaken by these committees in the seventies still constituted a shock for both the CGT male-dominated union hierarchies and for working men in general, as Monique recalled: “The commission-femmes was non-mixed. . . . It was a very contested choice, but it freed the voice of many women; this was what worked best. It allowed them Institut d’Histoire Sociale, 43 CFD 35 [all on the VI Conference des Femmes Salariées], f. 2. Women’s separatism within male-dominated contexts has, of course, already been examined, and prominent scholarship has investigated the issues it raised in different settings, such as Dorothy Sue Cobble, “Rethinking Troubled Relations Between Women and Unions: Craft Unionism and Female Activism,” Feminist Studies 16, no. 3 (1990): 519–48. 30 Renée, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. 28 29

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 285

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

286

Anna Frisone

to ‘grow,’ to support each other, and to regain the freedom of speech. These autonomous committees called into question an extremely controlled trade union mechanism. This was very important for women.”31 The committees, in fact women-only, constituted a space of freedom and for sharing outside ordinary trade union dynamics: an experiment in genuine self-management. Noëlle was visibly excited when she stated: “From a feminist perspective, we created these commissions-femmes, which really represented a place for reflection and . . . I want to say, of ‘well-being’! It was good; it was a relief for many activists to have a framework in which there was much more spontaneity and where women could come to express themselves.”32 Denise, however, specified the hopefully provisional nature of the committees: “At the time, we struggled together with our male comrades, so our claims were not advanced by women only . . . I remember that my greatest desire was that in the future, there would be no need for the commissions-femmes because that would mean that our demands had been met.”33 For women unionists, the choice for single-sex structures clearly represented a means rather than an end in their union militancy. In practical terms, constantly nurturing this grassroots activism on women’s issues was not easy: it required commitment beyond the already full agenda on mixedsex issues (meetings, flyers, pickets). Monique recalled that the organization at the departmental level owed much of its energy to the specific presence of Vacher: “At the CGT, the women’s committees were marginalized at all levels. . . . We struggled to carry on regular meetings, but this became more and more difficult when Georgette Vacher became increasingly marginalized by the maledominated union hierarchies, and finally we had no political visibility at all.”34 The existence of women-only committees and meetings was considered as somehow problematic even by the most progressive unionist men. This clearly emerges from a telling exchange within a small gender-mixed focus-group I conducted with former CFDT activists: two women, Noëlle and Denise, and a man, Bernard. This dialogue is revealing of the difficulty men had at the time—and still have—to truly understand the rationale behind the choice to establish women-only structures within trade unions. In the interview, Bernard ventured into a series of reflections linked not to the content of the feminist claims but rather to the practices they adopted. These reflections, I believe, show the complex relationship between female subjectivity and trade union dynamics. He said, “I was more sympathetic to the idea that we should always be together. . . . Then, well: today I understand that those [women-only meetings] allowed women to talk about certain issues that were otherwise overlooked (why not?), but 33 34 31 32

Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. Noëlle, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. Denise, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 286

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

287

. . . I always thought that it is necessary to put all those who might be useful to a struggle or a cause around the same table; to really engage on equality. . . . Since I felt committed to these issues, I never understood [the need for women-only committees].”35 The idea that the establishment of women-only structures within the trade unions coincided in some way with an exclusion of the male membership and represented a wound to the unity of workers’ action is advanced even by a progressive activist like Bernard. Completely absent from this perspective, however, is the alternative interpretation that the trade unions, while including women on a formal basis, had long ignored their gender-specific needs, thereby excluding their voices on concrete matters. Additionally, this attitude ignores the fact that women-only meetings served as an antidote to the exclusion of a group largely marginalized by the traditional strategic process of trade union politics. On Bernard’s part, the desire to reflect and question himself was undoubtedly present, but it is significant to note that the male perspective with regard to women-only meetings remains problematic despite how important this practice was for women trade unionists, and for the feminist movement more generally, as has been revealed time and again in the past fifty years. Later in the conversation, Bernard said: “I appreciate the fact that women organized among themselves, but [I didn’t appreciate] anything that implied a rejection of collaboration. . . . Since I am a man, anything that prevents me from contributing is a pity.”36 For Bernard, simply being present was considered a synonym for sharing and contribution to the cause; the idea of accepting a critique of some of the collective dynamics of the trade union in the name of a more substantial acceptance of the requests promoted by women unionists remained difficult for many male trade unionists. In my opinion, what is lacking in Bernard’s—and many male trade unionists’—perspective is a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the participation of individuals in collective action. Indeed, these mechanisms are at the center of a thorough critique of collective institutions and social movements both by second-wave feminism and Black studies. Here, we can still perceive, even among the most progressive men within trade unions, a lack of trust in the fact that marginalized minority groups are able to independently choose the best ways to promote their claims. After decades, this misunderstanding about the separatist choice made by women remains a significant challenge. Before Bernard joined us, Noëlle and Denise, commenting on the general attitude of their comrades, said, respectively: “I believe that separatism proved to be, at the same time, very good for women unionists and very difficult for men unionists to understand”; “They [the men] complained it was a ‘barrier’ because they did not understand. . . . They did not accept it at all.”37 Bernard, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. Ibid. 37 Noëlle and Denise, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. 35 36

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 287

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

288

Anna Frisone

All the women I interviewed emphasized the importance of the women’s committees, however brief and limited this experience was both for their activism and for their lives as working women. The “existential relevance” of the commission-femmes was, at the very least, vastly underestimated by the trade unions. In many cases, male unionists expressed hostility toward the autonomy claimed by these structures, and attacks were often very personal in nature, as Monique explained: “There were never direct attacks on the organizations. Rather, women’s access to places of responsibility was blocked. Hostility was not explicit: there was no real debate. If there had been a real debate, in democratic terms, I think it would have allowed things to evolve. . . . On the contrary, there were very personal attacks: women were not criticized on their ideas, but on things that could hurt them on a personal level. We were not considered activists with whom to discuss matters.”38 Charlotte recalled, unnerved and amused at the same time: “My participation in the neighborhood committee clearly represented a problem for my CGT comrades: since I was often collaborating with CFDT female comrades, we were immediately stigmatized as ‘transversal.’ I remember that they said this! They couldn’t really understand why women from CGT and CFDT wanted to collaborate!”39 In an arena marked by strong ideological competition, calls to collaborate among different trade unions advanced by women activists were not valued but rather perceived as annoying or suspicious. Instead of paying attention to the well-being and the integration of grassroot activists, trade union hierarchies often privileged a (rather short-sighted) strategic calculation linked to the balance of power between the different confederations and the ideological influence over workers exercised by extra-parliamentary left groups and feminist collectives.

Women’s Struggles—Achievements for All What claims did the women trade unionists in Lyon make? To be sure, a great deal of analysis was dedicated to the so-called “double burden” of women who had to balance their paid work on the job site with the care work they performed at home. This led, on the one hand, to demands related to childcare services, and on the other hand, to a wide debate on the introduction of part-time jobs. Noëlle, a former nurse, stated: “I remember that in the healthcare sector, many of our claims concerned kindergartens and parental leaves to assist sick children.”40 Indeed, the protection of working mothers had always been part of the union’s traditional toolbox.41 40 41 38 39

Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. Charlotte, CGT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. Noëlle, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. For a thorough analysis of the social reproduction support strategies developed by trade unions

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 288

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

289

On other issues, especially those concerning women’s reproductive health (such as sexuality, contraception, and abortion), which were particularly important to second-wave feminism, there were more difficulties, as reported by Monique: “[We could focus] on contraception to a certain extent, on sexuality absolutely not. For the women’s movement, this was extremely important, but within the unions, it was not. It was necessary to frame everything in connection to the issue of work. We could address the ‘double burden’ because it was connected to work.”42 Part-time work was the subject of discussions that started in the 1970s and continue today.43 Women unionists have long underlined the risk that parttime work would further marginalize women’s work, limiting their presence on the job market and preventing their professional growth and access to career opportunities. During the focus group at Françoise’s house, the exchange was intense: Charlotte: The men, even within the unions, said: “It will not be bad for women to have part-time jobs!” While women have long worked on the idea that parttime work should be an opportunity for both women and men. In fact, [this was connected to the idea of a general worktime reduction]: with the Left in power, trade unions claimed the “35 hours.” Christine: On the other hand, we were against part-time jobs, but when one had children . . . she was often open to adopting a part-time schedule! Françoise: But Christine, in fact we were not against it tout-court! We pressed for a generalized reduction of worktime. Renée: I chose part time at the time because it is hard to work to have children and also to be active in the unions. Françoise: Indeed, the lack of this opportunity meant that—in the past—many women had to leave work when they had children, and that was much worse! Christine: The claim for a general reduction in work hours was important, and it was always carried out by the women’s committees.44

In the above exchange, we catch a glimpse of the many facets of a very complex debate. Was part-time work beneficial for companies or for workers? Was it a tool for all workers or an impediment for working women? Could it be considered an opportunity to have a better balance between life and labor or was it a and of the debate over state policy toward motherhood they stimulated, see Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 42 Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. 43 The first law regulating part-time contracts in France (n°81-64) was promulgated on January 28, 1981. However, part-time forms of employment had already developed in the previous years, especially in feminized sectors of the economy. The terms of the long-lasting debate spread around this topic are addressed by Margaret Maruani in part IV (Travail à temps partiel et sous-emploi) of her book, Travail et emploi des femmes (Paris: La Découverte, 2011), 75–102. 44 Charlotte, Christine, Françoise, Renée, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 289

2022.07.30. 22:40:15

290

Anna Frisone

stopgap on the road to “housewifery”? Was it an effective antidote to the “double burden” or a dangerous return to the idea of the family wage? Beyond the issue of part-time work, many of my interviewees insist that working women generally appeared sensitive to issues such as the quality of the workplace and the reduction of worktime. Denise, employed at the Institut Pasteur, explained: We managed to sign an extraordinary collective contract. We were the vanguard, even at the CFDT: for example, we did not want risk premiums (because our work—in the chemical sector—was in fact considered risky); rather we preferred more time off. The danger in our work was due to fatigue, and so we did not care about monetary compensation, but we wanted time off. . . . Our requests focused heavily on health in the workplace: I believe it was because we were women.45

Working women, thanks to the commission-femmes, were able to reshape the trade unions’ agenda by articulating proposals that partly differed from those traditionally supported by the male-led delegations. Until then, male unionists had avoided problematizing a number of issues. Yet, later on, men also benefited from the achievements of the women’s struggles. This was the case, for example, concerning the contract renewal in the postal sector, as recalled by Renée: I joined the trade unions in 1974, and as women unionists we worked a lot on the contract for postmen and postwomen. . . . For a long time, there had been only men [mail carriers, AF], but at that time, the service was becoming increasingly feminized. They had to go around with huge sacks, and the men had never questioned it: probably because of their pride, they had never complained that the sacks were excessively heavy. When women began to discuss their working conditions. . . . I think the first trolley [to carry mail, AF] was introduced thanks to the women. . . . We said that whatever allowed women to progress allowed everyone to progress.46

Women unionists asserted themselves and started to shape union bargaining strategies, especially at the company level. Getting to this point, however, was not easy. It was only possible because of their significant effort and thanks to the support they received from other working women gathered in the commission-femmes: women unionists managed to climb union hierarchies while maintaining a strong link with their grassroot origins, thus valuing the collective dynamics that led to their success. Moreover, many of them emphasized the importance of training. Monique reflected: “Ultimately, the commission-femmes allowed several women to be involved in training paths that I don’t think they would have undertaken on their own.”47 Denise, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. Renée, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. 47 Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. 45 46

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 290

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

291

For working women, the trade union represented an opportunity: a place to invest their energies and to develop projects, a space of potential personal growth and the acquisition of new skills. Yet, all too often, their expectations were bitterly betrayed: men, who still occupied key roles in the organizations, appeared unable and unwilling to accept women’s new activism. In a few cases, this was due to their political myopia, which prevented them from understanding the historical advancement represented by this new women’s activism. Often, however, it was due to their explicit unwillingness to share power by granting women equal representation and equal opportunity to access union structures.

Georgette Vacher: A Personal but Fully Political Tragedy The figure of Georgette Vacher is of fundamental importance in the events described here, and it also became key to the narratives and disputed memories of French trade union feminism more globally.48 Indeed, her story was never locally confined to Lyon; it immediately acquired national resonance, and it came to represent a crucial turning point in the history of French trade union feminism as a whole.49 A blue-collar worker at the Lyonnaise household appliance company Calor, she was responsible for the CGT women’s sector at the regional-level union (Union Départementale de Rhône [Rhône Departmental Union]). She was able to create a vibrant atmosphere and inspired an exceptional level of activism among women workers, which was crucial in the Lyonnaise context. After a prolonged period of conflict with the union hierarchy, Vacher committed suicide on October 20, 1981, on the eve of the CGT Regional Congress, leaving a letter denouncing local union leaders, who she accused of marginalizing both her personally and the claims raised by the women’s committee more broadly. Fanny Gallot, “Les vies posthumes de Georgette Vacher dans les années 1980: entre histoire, mémoire et fiction,” in Histoire et mémoire des mouvements syndicaux au XXe siècle: enjeux et héritages, ed. Vincent Flauraud and Nathalie Ponsard (Nancy: Arbre bleu, 2013), 317–36. 49 This tragedy affected the whole movement and came to symbolically mark its end (though this translated, at the same time, into a more institutional dimension acquired by French trade union feminism under the presidency of socialist François Mitterrand, elected in 1981. He appointed CFDT leader Jeannette Laot among his advisors in relation to the activities of both the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Women’s Rights). The relevance of Vacher’s fate is witnessed also at the transnational level: the tense dynamics following her death are in fact identified—together with the 1982 firing of the editorial board of the journal Antoinette—as the main reasons preventing CGT women activists from participating in the international conference “Produrre e Riprodurre” organized in Turin in 1983. See the letters received by one of the organizers, Alessandra Mecozzi, collected in her personal fond at the archive Piera Zumaglino, preserved in the Turin Women’s House and catalogued in Paola De Ferrari, Salva con nome: L’archivio di Alessandra Mecozzi, 1974–1999 (Turin: Associazione Piera Zumaglino Archivio storico del movimento femminista, 2007).

48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 291

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

292

Anna Frisone

While her story is recorded in the limited existing literature, elements of her biography (and particularly her choice to end her life) have often been used to limit the heuristic value of her experience, underlining its exceptionalism. On the contrary, I believe her case is emblematic of the tension that existed in the women/trade union relationship at the time (synthetically, we could refer to a new female commitment to activism that was often accompanied by the manifest hostility of the apparatus). For this reason, I use Vacher’s story to illuminate the overarching situation of trade union feminism in Lyon. Once appointed as a delegate for the CGT “women’s sector” at the regional level, Vacher realized that meetings beyond the factory level frustrated her because they appeared to be “completely sclerotic and empty, lifeless, completely contrary to what I thought I would find as my political responsibilities increased.”50 Like most women unionists in France and elsewhere, she was inclined to reflect on the intersections between the personal and the political and to criticize the way men handled activism through a “split” (inconsistent) approach: “One gets the impression that men have different lives: that there is time they spend as activists and other time they spend at home; while for women this [works differently]. . . . I do not want to be categorical, but there are usually few exceptions. I believe that, above all, this is a way of being, a way of fighting in the factory and then fighting as women to live from morning to night.”51 Her reflection was certainly influenced by feminist analysis, which, at the time, circulated widely in the country through political collectives, newspapers, shared readings, etc. But it was also anchored in the specific work carried out by women within the CGT. She focused particularly on the collective dimension of “awareness” developed in the struggle: “All that was previously considered the domain of the private sphere (personal, individual), everything that women shared in terms of feelings of inferiority, dependence. . . . Each of us lived it in her own corner, trying to get by with her partner and her children. Of course, all this emerged and was tackled in our union activism, which increasingly provided an opportunity to fight together.”52 These words effectively express the extraordinary importance of this “nameless” experience at the intersection between feminism and trade unionism for the biographies of many working women. Maryse, a chief delegate at the CGT, highlights this concept when, at the end of our two-hour interview, I added that she could feel free to comment further on issues that might have been overlooked: An important thing that is often left out is that trade unionism allows people to “become something else.” And for women this is even more true! . . . I want to say it because it is something that is often underestimated: we get things in Vacher, Chacun compte pour un. Ibid. 52 Vacher archival fond at the Bibliothèque Durand, b. 1 f. 5. 50 51

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 292

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

293

terms of wages, working conditions . . . of course . . . but above all, we understand that women become something else. And when women establish themselves at work, they do the same at home, in the family and in society . . . and this is something very motivating. . . . All the women who have participated in a strike, who have occupied their factory, explain the change that has taken place in the relationship with their partner, in the relationship with their family, with their children, in the image they have of themselves. . . . It’s true for men, and it’s even more true for women.53

It seems significant to situate the experience of Georgette Vacher in the framework of what emerged on the subject during the interviews conducted in Lyon. Some of the women I spoke to had met her personally and had the opportunity to collaborate with her in the women’s committee; others just knew of her. Noëlle, who was in the latter group, stated: “I’ve never met her, but I’ve often heard about her from several friends who had worked with her. I preserve the idea of someone who was really dedicated, who had to face truly violent opposition from the men of the CGT, but who never gave up. . . . In fact, she achieved something: the CGT commission-femmes existed thanks to her!”54 While holding a role at the level of the Departmental Union (as a full-time union official), which exposed her to continuous pressure from the union hierarchy, Vacher did not cease her truly grassroots activism. Monique, in fact, highlighted Vacher’s ability to keep constant attention on collective dynamics while managing to avoid alienating people because of her leading role: “I imagine that Georgette Vacher, as a top delegate, had enough power to counterbalance that of men; but at the same time . . . she always nurtured a collective dynamic.”55 The collective approach she chose and developed through the commission-femmes was drastically opposed by Vacher’s male colleagues: the fact that she managed to get non-unionized women involved in her women-only meetings or the fact that she established links with women from other confederations (in particular, the CFDT) represented an intolerable challenge to the CGT apparatus. Denise, who collaborated with Vacher as a member of the CFDT, told me: “When I contacted her, she told me ‘It will not be easy. . . . They [the men] will accuse me of compromising with the enemy!’”56 The openness and the desire to build “transversal” relationships were hallmarks of Vacher’s work; they also corresponded to the needs expressed by many women who engaged in the women’s committees. A cornerstone of feminist theory evident in Georgette Vacher’s practice was her commitment to acknowledge and develop the link between personal life and political activism, even within 55 56 53 54

Maryse, CGT-Paris, March 11, 2015. Noëlle, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. Denise, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 293

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

294

Anna Frisone

the structure of the trade unions. It is also and perhaps above all from this point of view that she became a crucial reference point for her comrades. Françoise, in fact, emphasized: As activists, Georgette meant much to us. She was someone who was fifteen years older than me, but . . . there were plenty of issues that she could discuss to support us in our personal issues as well as giving us advice on other issues. . . . For me she was someone important. But she was the same for all the activists: there were fifty people participating in her women’s committee at the departmental level, and she knew all of us personally, she helped us, she kept in touch with all of us.57

Beyond her strictly organizational activities, it was this sort of maieutic ability that seems to have been one of Vacher’s strengths as an activist. Monique recalled her role in trade union feminism in Lyon, the difficulties she faced, and the link between her death and the end of the movement: She was a very important woman in that context, but it was very difficult for her. I don’t think that only the dynamics at the CGT played a role in her suicide; I guess that every suicide is due to many factors. . . . However, surely, the things in which she believed and for which she was deeply committed . . . combined with the fact that she was marginalized and suffered violent attacks . . . really violent and aggressive: the fact that she suffered these attacks is outrageous, and it certainly weighed on her and played a role in the destruction of the ideals she believed in.58

The “Vacher affair,” then, appears to embody all the most significant features of the women-only committees within the unions and, moreover, must be regarded as one of the most decisive events for the evolution (or better, regression) of the major trade union confederation in France. The 41st CGT Congress held in June 1982 in Lille marked the peak of several years of backlash that had been growing within the Confederation against social movements and feminism in particular.59 While the previous congress (November 1978, Grenoble) is unanimously recognized as one of openness,60 the Lille congress took on the opposite meaning. Multiple crises coincided, among which the most relevant were the CGT fracture concerning support for the Polish independent union Solidarność versus loyalty to the French Communist Party (Parti Communiste Français, PCF) that supported the Soviet Françoise, CGT-focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. Monique, CGT then CFDT-Lyon, January 14, 2016. 59 The CGT leadership went from the former general secretary Seguy to the new one Krasucki, who was fiercely close to the official line of the French Communist Party. 60 The VI Conference des Femmes Salariées had just taken place in 1977. 57 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 294

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

295

Union and the attacks against the editorial staff of the CGT women's magazine Antoinette.61 Indeed, starting in 1980, Vacher had faced mounting criticism; she had been isolated in the CGT local hierarchies, and in the end, it was decided at the department-level that her responsibilities as a delegate for the female sector would be revoked because her activism was no longer in line with the CGT’s new positions on various issues. As widely highlighted in various testimonies, the existential engagement she expressed toward workers through her activism was all-encompassing: however, she did not represent a “deviant” exception despite the CGT trade union’s attempts to discredit her. In fact, a similar dedication to the cause was a widespread trait of political activism at the time: many biographies of men and women active in the workers’ movement prove this.62 I asked all the interviewees to comment on the tragic event of Vacher's suicide and to assess its relevance in connection to the overall experience of the women’s committees. The memory of her death was significant for both former CGT and former CFDT unionists. Two delegates from the latter reported: “[The story of Georgette] was soon forgotten . . . that is, not forgotten, but well . . . the CGT was silent. It never acknowledged its responsibility and remained silent. It was not considered an ‘event.’”63 Former CGT activists confirmed: Christine: At the CGT it was tough, but soon repressed. It was said . . . that the dead can’t speak, that we were not allowed to give an interpretation of what happened, that we could not know . . . But when we try to evaluate that fatal year, we find much that went wrong at the CGT. What a struggle for this woman who was extremely dedicated! . . . We were not at ease with the CGT: I left, I returned my card. I then got it back a few years later. I clashed [with the leadership] in a very violent way. It is really true that we were uncomfortable. It was very painful. Painful but never explored . . . it was painful, but for each one individually. There has never been a collective discussion. Charlotte: There was no reflection, no questioning.64

The oral testimonies thus paint the picture of a sort of collective failure to “elaborate grief ”: the CGT was reproached, above all, for not having analyzed what happened, for not being able to accept the loss and sorrow of its own activists.

The entire editorial board of the magazine, which was led at the time by Chantal Rogerat and was close to the progressive positions expressed by the 1978 congress, was fired and replaced in 1982. 62 See, for example, the passionate portraits of workers’ leaders such as the CFDT unionist Charles Piaget and the worker-priest Jean Raguénès realized by Donald Reid in his Opening the Gates: The LIP Affair, 1968–1981 (London: Verso, 2018). 63 Noëlle and Denise, CFDT-focus group, Lyon, January 13, 2016. 64 Christine and Charlotte, CGT–focus group, Lyon, January 16, 2016. 61

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 295

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

296

Anna Frisone

In the archives, however, I have not found the “inability to process” so much as a deliberate, strategic choice to violently attack those who tried to openly discuss Vacher’s story and promote critical reflection within the union.65 As a result, several trade unionists chose to leave the CGT and founded an association dedicated to her memory and devoted to the collection of her writings and the preservation of her archive. Local groups from the non-parliamentary Left were also party to these confrontational dynamics: the climate was tense. Without dwelling on the details of these conflicts, it is worth underlining the discrepancy between the contingent political considerations of the moment and the later reflection carried out in the framework of my oral history analysis. Like my observations elsewhere about other circumstances,66 after many years, the attention of women turned to the long-term impact of events (what would the CGT and its activists have had benefited from in that situation?) and, in particular, on the more “human” and personal dimensions of labor conflict.

Conclusion The experience of Lyon is central to our understanding of French trade union feminism: both because of the significance of the city in terms of the diffusion of this “stream” of feminism (particularly widespread in the feminized public employment and tertiary sectors) and because of the nation-wide impact of Georgette Vacher’s story. Although it is necessary (and right) to acknowledge the significance of her memory and her role in promoting women’s activism within unions, the oral history approach used for this analysis has also allowed me to place her individual story in its wider collective context. Together with Vacher, all women trade unionists involved in the commissions-femmes in Lyon at the time dedicated their intelligence and energy to changing the city’s workers’ organizations, and they did so in a “transversal” and innovative way, adding new issues to their political agenda and collaborating across ideological divides both with women unionists active in different labor confederations and with women involved in the feminist movement at large. See, in particular, the box no. 7 of the Vacher Fond at the Bibliothèque Durand. I think of an episode related to a women-only workshop organized in Genoa (Italy) by trade union feminists and their clash with the Academic Council of the University that was supposed to host it. While, at the time, this clash was widely mediatized by left-wing journals such as Il Manifesto, it almost disappeared in the memory preserved by participants who were more interested in the later concrete development of the workshop. See the account in Anna Frisone, “‘Vogliamo il pane ma anche le rose’: Le 150 ore delle donne,” in Non è un gioco da ragazze: Femminismo e sindacato; i Coordinamenti Donne FLM, ed. Giovanna Cereseto, Anna Frisone, and Laura Varlese (Rome: Ediesse, 2009), 179–326.

65 66

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 296

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Trade Union Feminism in Lyon

297

However, the general political climate greatly influenced mobilization on the local level: the radicalism of the autonomous groupes-femmes, the institutionalization of the CFDT,67 and the orthodox closure of the CGT led to the rapid decline of the women’s committee movement in Lyon. And yet, in a short period of time, the trade unions were somehow shaken by women’s new activism, and the commissions-femmes represented a crucial turn in the lives of many women who were touched and transformed by the idea that they might consider work and class more inclusively—a gendered perspective that most of them preserved throughout their lives.

This took place with the support given by the CFDT to the new socialist government formed as a result of the victory of François Mitterrand in 1981 (see footnote 49 for more details).

67

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 297

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 298

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move: Genealogies of Gendered Migrant Labor* Maria Tamboukou

I

thus started working in the textile workshop of a family, but in the beginning, they didn’t pay me. I was working twelve hours there, from morning until evening, for seven, eight, and sometimes nine to twelve hours, doing overtime, because some of the work they had was urgent. I was working with the other workers of the textile, but in return, I didn’t get anything. I think it was for five or six months that they didn’t pay me because I was living with them for free. I didn’t have any money, and they were helping me with food and accommodation. And after five or six months, I think it was six, they talked to me and said, “we will give you 500 Turkish lira per month.” I was so happy because I was alive, and I needed to survive, so I was happy for that; otherwise, I was not happy in my life because I was living with strangers. I had very hard days there, and life was very difficult for me; nobody understood my feelings, and I didn’t know where my family was.1

At the end of summer of 2018, I met Nadia, a nineteen-year-old Afghan woman who generously shared her story about travelling to Greece with me. Nadia’s story of displacement and travelling emerged from her three years working as a child textile worker in the Istanbul garment industry: between 2014, when she was violently separated from her mother and sister, until the spring of 2017, when she managed to cross the border into Greece. In this chapter, which emerges from a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust,2 I explore the work experiences of migrant and refugee women on the move by tracing a long genealogy of gendered memories of work in the garment industry. As a Nietzschean insight reconfigured in Michel Foucault’s analytics, 3 genealogy is concerned with the processes, procedures, and apparatuses whereby truth and knowledge are produced. Genealogy writes the history of the present: it problematizes the multiple, complex, and non-linear configurations of the sociopolitical and cultural formations of modernity. In the context of this chapter: *

The author would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this research and the women who participated by offering the gift of their stories. 1 Nadia’s story, interview with author in Athens, summer 2018. All names are pseudonyms. 2 See www.tamboukou.org. 3 Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1986), 76–100.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 299

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

300

Maria Tamboukou

what is the present of migrant and refugee women in the garment industry, and what were the conditions that enabled the garment industry to emerge as an urban milieu of uprooted women’s harsh exploitation par excellence?4 In addressing the historicity of present questions and problems, genealogy conceives of subjectivities and social relations as an effect of the interweaving of discourses and practices it sets out to trace and explore. But instead of seeing history as a continuous development of an ideal schema, genealogy is oriented to discontinuities, disruptions, and unexpected events. Women’s work in the garment industry is a paradigmatic case of uneven historical developments, discontinuities, as well as surprising continuities, as I will discuss further in this chapter, which unfolds in three sections. First, I look at current phenomena of labor exploitation in the garment industry under the conditions of forced displacement. Then I revisit feminist genealogies of labor migration in the United States garment industry by focusing on Jewish, Italian, Chicana, and Chinese garment workers. By way of conclusion, I reflect on the insights that genealogical explorations in feminist labor histories have brought to the fore.

Labor Histories in the Garment Industry under Conditions of Forced Displacement “Child refugees in Turkey making clothes for UK shops”5 was in the BBC news in October 2016, followed by many journalistic, institutional, trade union, and NGOs reports across the globe around issues of labor exploitation. There has been global outcry over the harsh exploitation of refugees, many of them women and children, in the burgeoning garment industry in Turkey, a country that has become the main route into the European Union regime. Nadia’s story above reverberates with many reports of refugees working under very harsh and unfair conditions in the extensive network of garment workshops in Istanbul.6 And yet, Nadia was appreciative of the fact that the family who ran the textile workshop was nice to her, and in her story, she tenderly remembers how the patron’s wife became her confidante: “she was very kind . . . and she was always talking to me like her younger sister; sometimes I cried with her, mostly I cried alone.”7 For an extended discussion of a genealogical approach to the urban garment industries of modernity, see Maria Tamboukou, Sewing, Fighting and Writing: Radical Practices in Work, Politics and Culture (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 5 “Child Refugees in Turkey Making Clothes for UK Shops,” BBC News, October 24, 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37716463. 6 See Emre Eren Korkmaz, “Syrian Refugee Garment Workers in the Turkish Supply Chain of Global Corporations,” in Integration through Exploitation: Syrians in Turkey, ed. Gaye Yılmaz, İsmail Doğa Karatepe, and Tolga Tören (Munich: Rainer Hampp Verlag, 2019), 42–54. 7 Nadia’s story. 4

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 300

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move

301

According to Saniye Dedeoglu’s important study of the Istanbul garment industry, garment workshops in Istanbul are usually based in “gecekondu neighbourhoods where abundant cheap migrant labor is available.”8 Migration is indeed a genealogical line in the histories of the garment industry that goes back to the nineteenth century, as I will further discuss in this chapter. Apart from making the link between the garment industry and migration, Dedeoglu has also noted that “the family ownership is a noticeable feature of these ateliers, supported by family labor and initial capital pooled through familial solidarity networks.”9 Within these networks, the mothers or wives of the workshops’ owners are “the invisible heart”10 of the ateliers’ workforce, with diverse roles ranging “from direct contribution to production, to cooking for garment workers and cleaning the workplace.”11 Dedeoglu further observes that apart from “trimming and cleaning garments at home [these women also] organize their neighbours and relatives when extra labor is needed.”12 As a network of workshops usually run by extended family networks, the Istanbul garment industry is very diverse, however. Speaking to the Amnesty International about her experiences, Abigail, a young woman from Cameroon who had fled her country to escape gender-based violence, talked about how she was sexually abused by her employer in an Istanbul sweatshop where she had found temporary work.13 Labor relations are thus entangled with gendered experiences, including sexual abuse, a genealogical line that goes back to the Industrial Revolution. Nadia told me how helpless and desperate she felt when she understood that the family who ran the textile workshop wanted to marry her to their son, who was much older than her and had a mental disability. According to Nadia’s story, this idea came about when the family saw how much she cared for him while working with him side by side: “they were so cruel to their brother . . . so during working hours, I was helping him a lot because I had seen him, how the other brothers tortured him, because he didn’t understand.”14 Interestingly enough, it was her patron’s wife who first alerted Nadia to the family’s secret plan and advised her against it. Saniye Dedeoglu, “Knitting Women’s Home-Based Work into Istanbul’s Garment Industry” (paper presented at the International Conference on Long Time Perspectives on Home-based Industrial Work, Stockholm, Swedish Labor Movement Archives and Library, May 22–24, 2018), published as “Women’s Home-based Work in Istanbul’s Garment Industry,” in Homebased Work and Home-based Workers 1800–2018, ed. Jane Barret, Indrani Mazumdar, Silke Neunsinger, and Malin Nilsson (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 96–114. 9 Ibid. 10 Nancy Folbre, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New York: New Press, 2002). 11 Dedeoglu, “Knitting Women’s Home-Based Work,” 3. 12 Ibid. 13 “Greece: I Want to Decide about My Future—Uprooted Women in Greece Speak Out” (Amnesty International, October 5, 2018, Index number: EUR 25/9071/2018), 19. 14 Nadia’s story. 8

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 301

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

302

Maria Tamboukou

Gender, disability, family cruelty, care work, women’s solidarity, and labor exploitation are entangled in Nadia’s story, leaving their own traces in the long genealogies of gendered migrant labor under conditions of forced displacement, wherein industrial homework and “the home work continuum” is a surprising continuity from the past to the present, as I will discuss in the next sections of this chapter.15 What such genealogies bring to the fore is the understanding that “crises” do not erupt from nowhere, nor can they be considered as random geopolitical contingencies. On the contrary, such “crises” are structural and systemic, very much a part of what Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez has configured as “the coloniality of migration,” which examines the socio-economic and political connections between asylum and migration in the process of their mutual constitution.16 In this context, a historical understanding of current issues and “crises” can throw light on their complex nuances. As already discussed above, the Istanbul garment industry is a complex field with different types of industrial production and different categories of female labor that need to be understood and analyzed in their historical and contemporary complexity. It is, thus, genealogies of gendered labor under conditions of forced displacement that I want to consider next. As histories of the present, genealogies keep challenging existing concepts, discourses, practices, and figurations and open up new ways of conceptualizing and understanding “the real.”17

Feminist Genealogies of Labor Migration in the Garment Industry The current flows of labor mobility from the East to the West and from the South to the North are an important component of what Michel Agier has identified as “the second great wave of migration in the world in the modern era, following that of the late 19th and early 20th century, which was essentially marked by major movements from Europe to America.”18 In a genealogical line that goes back to “the first wave of migration,” then, there is today a rich body of literature revolving around the New York garment industry.19 Gender and migration are For an overview of “the home work continuum” in the garment industry, see Maria Tamboukou, “Genealogies and Assemblages of Resistance: Jeanne Bouvier’s Struggles in ‘Le Travail à Domicile’” in Home-based Work and Home-based Workers 1800–2018, ed. Jane Barret, Indrani Mazumdar, Silke Neunsinger, and Malin Nilsson (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 203–26. 16 Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, “The Coloniality of Migration and the ‘Refugee Crisis’: On the Asylum-Migration Nexus, the Transatlantic White European Settler ColonialismMigration and Racial Capitalism,” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 34, no. 1 (2018): 16–28. 17 Tamboukou, Sewing, Fighting and Writing. 18 Michel Agier, Borderlands: Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016), 46. 19 See Nancy Green, Ready to Wear, Ready to Work: A Century of Industry Immigrants in Paris 15

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 302

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move

303

central analytical categories in this strand of labor history, whose protagonists were Jewish and Italian migrant women workers. They were flocking to New York in the beginning of the twentieth century, escaping either the Russian pogroms or the repressive campaign against all socialist and anarchist groups in Italy. It goes without saying that beyond political persecution, poverty and a lack of job opportunities in Southern Europe and particularly Italy was one of the main triggers of mass migration at the turn of the twentieth century and beyond. But garment workers, the majority of whom were women, were brutally exploited. In her autobiography Days of Our Lives, Rose Pesotta includes vivid scenes of early twentieth-century labor conditions in the New York garment industry: I learned the trade the hard way, changing jobs often, for in those days there were no training classes, and we were hired and fired at will by the bosses. Invariably after a week’s toil in some dingy shop, I would find a padlock on the factory door, my boss having skipped with the payroll. A short while later we would trace him as the owner of another fly-by-night sweatshop. We never could collect the lost pay, for he himself was operating on a shoestring, eking out a miserable living.20

Pesotta’s experiences of an informal economy based on a sweatshop system in the early twentieth century is not very different from the lived reality of the contemporary Istanbul garment industry, which is characterized by a high degree of labor intensity, a history of informality, flexible labor conditions, as well as very low expectations in terms of language competency and technical skills.21 It is precisely because of these traits that migrants and refugees have been mostly employed in this industry both then and now. Pesotta was an important figure in the US labor movement in the first half of the twentieth century. She became the third woman ever elected as the vice-president of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and served in this position as the only woman member of the Executive Board between 1934 and 1942. Elsewhere, I have written extensively about Pesotta’s politics, particularly highlighting her agonistic involvement in the US anarchist movement, her struggles within the sexist structures of the US labor movement, and her contribution to cultural histories of modernity.22 What I want to do in this section of the chapter, however, is to consider hierarchies and internal and external exclusions and inclusions within mobile labor histories. and New York (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997). Rose Pesotta, Days of Our Lives (Boston: Excelsior Publishers, 1958), 248. 21 See Korkmaz, “Syrian Refugee Garment Workers.” 22 Maria Tamboukou, Gendering the Memory of Work: Women Workers’ Narratives (London: Routledge, 2016). 20

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 303

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

304

Maria Tamboukou

In doing so, I want to highlight how “the coloniality of migration” has created the conditions of possibility for racist and gendered taxonomies and hierarchies to be formed even within the ranks of the labor movement in the US garment industry, which was, ironically, dominated by migrant workers. In looking at trade unions’ interventions in the Turkish garment industry, Emre Eren Korkmaz has underlined the fact that there are no refugee union members in the sector. This is because “unionized companies do not employ refugees [and] unions cannot recruit informal workers.”23 Although unions defend and support refugees’ rights, they also operate in the discourse of “our workers and them,”24 and they have expressed concerns about the effects of cheap refugee labor in the industrial relations of the sector. It seems that unions’ positions on some issues have hardly moved across different periods and geographies, as I will show below by focusing on migrant workers from three ethnic groups present in the labor movement in the United States: Italians, Mexicans, and the Chinese.

LA SARTINA: ITALIAN WOMEN GARMENT WORKERS IN NEW YORK Labor activism in the New York garment industry, which was dominated by migrant workers, was a site of antagonistic power relations among different national, ethnic, racial, and political groups, as well as between women and men across the board.25 Italians were the second largest group of immigrants to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, while women composed close to half the Italian migrant workforce in New York.26 The majority of these Italian women labor migrants were working for the New York garment industry, which in 1909, produced 69 percent of all women’s clothing across the United states.27 Tailoresses, dressmakers, and seamstresses were the three top occupations among them in the 1900 census since they had brought their sewing skills with them when migrating.28 In this context, la sartina, the seamstress, became a transnational migrant worker, shattering gendered stereotypes that categorized Italian women as family migrants, as Jennifer Guglielmo has persuasively argued.29 Korkmaz, “Syrian Refugee Garment Workers,” 50. Ibid. 25 See Green, Ready to Wear. 26 See, among others, Donna R. Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta, eds., Women, Gender and Transnational Lives: Italian Workers of the World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); and Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 27 See Colomba Furio, “Immigrant Women and Industry: A Case Study: The Italian Immigrant Women and the Garment Industry, 1880–1950” (PhD diss., New York University, 1979), 68. 28 Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 67. 29 Ibid., 44. 23 24

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 304

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move

305

Feminist labor historians have radically overturned dominant perceptions of Italian migrant women as “apolitical” and submissive to the patriarchal regime of their ethnic group.30 Studies have shattered perceptions that have asserted that Italian women such as Pesotta, in comparison to Jewish women, were “less ambitious, more ready with their fingers, quieter and steadier and more exploited by their own men.”31 What is particularly striking in Italian women’s marginalization and invisibility in transnational labor histories is that it often emerged from the ranks of the labor movement itself. As radical labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn wrote in her autobiography, “there were practically no women in the Italian movement—anarchist or socialist . . . women were always in the background, cooking in the kitchen, and seldom even sitting down to eat with men.”32 Despite being the daughter of Irish immigrants herself, Flynn failed to see the passion and determination of Italian migrant women in twentieth-century labor struggles. As Donna Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta have aptly noted, “perhaps the least understood aspect of Italian women’s diasporic lives is their role as resisters, protesters and activists.”33 Italian women’s absence from the historiography, but not from the actual historical scene of labor struggles, is a symptom and an effect of how much feminist history has been lost in translation: “this history becomes visible only when we expand our understanding of early 20th century feminism to include diasporic, working-class activisms that were not produced in English,” Guglielmo has suggested.34 But apart from the problem of language, it was also more difficult for Italian women to enter the ranks of the main labor unions such as the ILGWU, which were more accessible to migrant women workers of Jewish origin despite the difficulties, disillusions, and disappointments the latter also faced. In looking back at the history of labor struggles in the New York garment industry, Gabaccia and Iacovetta admit that early in the period of labor mobilization, Italian women were indeed not as prominent as their Jewish and Irish counterparts, pointing out that Italian female militancy mostly developed in the twentieth century.35 It was actually through their involvement in a series of strikes in the garment industry between 1909 and 1919 that Italian women became aware of the importance of unions in fighting for better conditions in their working life.36 This is Clara Massilotti’s, an activist in the Women’s Trade See Gabbacia and Iacovetta, Women, Gender and Transnational Lives. Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 92. 32 Elizabeth G. Flynn, The Rebel Girl: An Autobiography, My First Life (1906–1926) (1955New York: New York Independent Publishers, 1973), 333. 33 Donna Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta, “Women, Work, and Protest in the Italian Diaspora: An International Research Agenda,” Labor/Le Travail 42 (Fall 1998): 161–81, here 176. 34 Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 4. 35 Gabaccia and Iacovetta, “Women, Work, and Protest,” 178. 36 See Furio “Immigrant Women and Industry.” 30 31

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 305

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

306

Maria Tamboukou

Union League (WTUL), account of her decision to join the 1910–11 Chicago strike37 and get involved in union politics: The foreman said, if you cannot make it, here is the door. If they don’t want to go from the window, they can go from the door. . . . I said “Ain’t you ashamed? Ain’t you sorry to make those people work an hour and a half for twelve cents?”. . . He said “You don’t understand America. . . . Here the foolish people pay the smart.” That made me angry and I said, “Well now the smart people will teach the foolish.”38

Inspired and mobilized by the strained politics of the strike movements in the first decades of the twentieth century, Italian women formed the Italian branch of Local 25 and in November 1919, the Local 89, which ultimately became the largest single ILGWU local union branch in the United States. In 1913, Italian garment workers also founded their own newspaper L’Operaia, which had women workers’ education at its heart.39 So, around the time Pesotta became the third woman vice-president of the ILGWU, Italian women activists were already heavily involved in its ranks. This is how Tina Catania narrates her involvement in the Local 89: I’ll tell you the truth. I was not ever fourteen years old when I came to this country. My brother and my father were in Omaha, Nebraska. That was where I went to live. I was married when I was sixteen years old. Then, things went wrong, and we came to New York. I went to work. At that time, I was not very experienced, but I was given a chance. Right away, the union saw I was active, and I was put on the Executive Board.40

In her story, Catania recounted the many difficulties that labor activists faced in organizing women: “we began working to organize shops. Sometimes, we called the girls down from the shops early in the morning or at lunch time to unionize them.”41 Another woman worker and union activist Grace de Luise Natarelli painted a rather grim picture of workers’ reaction to the women union leaders’ efforts: “Many times we went into shops, and instead of having the workers join us, they fought us . . . in those days it was very dangerous going in those buildings; This strike involved 45,000 garment workers of different nationalities. See Mari Jo Buhle, “Socialist Women and the ‘Girl Strikers,’ Chicago, 1910, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 1, no. 4 (1976): 1039–51. 38 “The Girls’ Own Stories,” Life and Labor 1, no. 2 (1911): 51–52. 39 See Marcella Bencivenni, Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States, 1890–1940 (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 27. 40 Tina Catania interview with Colomba Furio, March 30, 1978. Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA (hereafter cited as SSC), Italian Immigrant Women in New York City’s Garment Industry, Oral Histories, 1976–1978, [SSC-MS-00556]. 41 Ibid. 37

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 306

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move

307

they would throw things at you, and you had to be ready to go down the stairs. Sometimes I went down 24 flights of stairs!”42 De Luise illuminates another side of the difficulties faced by women who became active in unions, describing how in her first union meeting at Staten Island, “some of the husbands and some of the parents actually came and dragged out their wives and daughters.”43 De Luise herself was eventually disowned by her father because of her union involvement and despite of her initial efforts to be a dutiful daughter: My parents still didn’t approve of my activities. As a matter of fact, at the ILGWU convention, I think it was in 1924, I was chosen as the delegate to represent the Staten Island shops, but this meant that I had to sleep away from home. When X told my father, he forbade me to go; so rather than disobey him, a neighborhood girl who also worked in the shop went in my place, but my name still appeared as the delegate on all the proceedings. I finally decided that I wanted to be active in the union and by staying home, I couldn’t, so I decided to leave home. I left my family and went to live in the city. My father disowned me; he even put my name in the papers.44

Despite the challenges they faced, the women union activists’ collective efforts culminated in the successful strike of the New York dressmakers in the aftermath of the passage of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA): “then, in 1933, we had to pull all the shops down during the general strike, and believe me, that was not funny. It was something terrible. But we did it, and we won,” Catania remembered.45 Pesotta also wrote about the dressmakers’ strike in her political autobiography: “the dressmakers staged a general strike of unprecedented magnitude in New York City and adjacent territory.”46 But unlike Pesotta, who left her work as a machine operator in a Manhattan dress factory to serve as a secretary and general assistant to labor leader Giacomo di Nola in Brooklyn, Catania was not a paid union officer at the beginning of her union involvement. In her story, she recounted how she had to negotiate with her husband, not her parents like de Luise, about her union activism: To tell you the truth, when I was on the Executive Board, my husband didn’t want me to go. You know, just like everyone else, he wanted me to come home early. But I used to go to the meetings and finally I said to my husband, “Look,

Grace de Luise and Pasquale Natarelli with Columba Furio, September 22, 1978, SSC, Suffern, New York, [SSC-MS-00556]. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Tina Catania interview, SSC, [SSC-MS-00556]. 46 Rose Pesotta, Bread Upon the Waters (1944; Ithaca, NY: Industrial and Labor Relations Press, 1987), 2. 42

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 307

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

308

Maria Tamboukou

either I go or I don’t!” Then he realized how much it meant to me and he didn’t say anything, anymore. We were both young then. He had to sacrifice a lot for me too, yes. I had to devote a lot of time to this. I used to come home at 10 o’clock, 12 o’clock, 12:30 at night.47

It was not only reluctant husbands and disciplinarian parents that Italian women had to face; there was also continuous harassment from police, anti-union thugs, and employers. The picket line was dangerous, according to de Luise: “sometimes, the cops would ride their horses right on top of us on the sidewalk while we were picketing. We had to catch scabs who went to work at three or four in the morning. In those days, it was not easy on the picket line; it was like being in battle.”48 And again, it was not just the police and thugs that Italian women had to face but also insults from society and the public: “in those days when we picketed, they thought it was a horrible thing for a young girl. They called us all sorts of terrible things and said that we were terrible people just because we were picketing to earn a better living. Naturally, we had a rough time on the picket line because even the public was against us. When we picketed, we had to take a lot of insults and abuses.”49 Some of these Italian women activists remained in their neighborhoods and communities, but there were others, like Angela Bambace, who crossed ethnic boundaries and were involved in organizing African American, Hispanic, and other minority women. Bambace’s political identity became stronger than her ethnic one, and she was also very much involved in the anti-fascist movement.50 She eventually became the first Italian-American woman to climb the ILGWU hierarchy and served on the General Executive Board (GEB) between 1956 and 1972, when she retired. Despite their multifaceted activism, however, Italian-American women’s position in the labor historiography remains marginalized or ghettoized in scholarship on the history of Italians in the United States.51 This embeddedness within national, ethnic, and racial boundaries is a wider problem in feminist labor historiography as I will show later on in the chapter. Moreover, beyond New York and the East Coast, differences and hierarchies within the labor movement were even harsher. As an ILGWU labor organizer, Pesotta travelled extensively in the United States trying “to organize the unorganizable.”52 As a migrant worker herself, she was sent to address problems facing Grace de Luise-Natarelli interview, SSC, [SSC-MS-00556]. Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 See Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 223. 51 See Jean Scarpaci, “Angela Bambace and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union: The Search for an Elusive Activist,” in Pane e Lavoro: The Italian American Working Class, ed. George Pozzetta (Toronto: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1980), 99–118. 52 Alice Kessler-Harris, “Organizing the Unorganizable: Three Jewish Women and their Union,” Labor History 17, no. 1 (1976): 5–23. 47 48

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 308

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

Working Women on the Move

309

Mexican migrant workers in Los Angeles as well as Chinese migrant workers in San Francisco. These were two particularly “vulnerable” groups within the overall population of migrant workers in the garment industry.

LA COSTURERA: MEXICAN GARMENT WORKERS INHABITING THE BORDERLANDS The condition of the Mexican garment workers in the first decades of the twentieth century was an effect of wider geopolitical turmoil. More specifically, in the century between 1830 and 1930, Mexico was hit by a series of political, social, and economic crises that forcibly displaced 1.5 million Mexicans who migrated to the US Southwest in search of a better future.53 A cosmopolitan city in close proximity to the Mexican border, Los Angeles became a popular destination for migrant workers. This genealogical line of labor migration reaches into our own era. According to the Garment Worker Center, “Los Angeles is the nation’s garment production capital and the city’s largest manufacturing sector. Over 45,000 workers cut, sew and finish garments locally, a workforce comprised primarily of Latino/a and Asian immigrants.”54 It goes without saying that Mexican migrant workers arrived in the United States with their patriarchal luggage, and women’s role in their new country was very much restricted within the family. While Mexican women needed to work, the majority of them joined the garment industry as homeworkers, accepting meager wages that allowed them to look after their husbands and young children.55 As one scholar put it, “the extent to which the image of the ‘good’ Mexican woman may have clashed with the duties of the good union woman is clearly significant in understanding the ILGWU’s recruiting problems.”56 A careful review of the scholarship, however, shows that there have been different views around the role of the ILGWU in the LA garment industry depending on the situated perspective of researchers, authors, and activists, who have all contributed to this literature.57 See George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican-American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), esp. chapter 1. 54 See https://garmentworkercenter.org/, accessed, February 12, 2020. 55 See Alfredo Mirandé and Evangelina Enríquez, La Chicana: the Mexican-American Woman (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1979); Vicki L. Ruíz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 56 Isais James McCaffery, “Organizing Las Costureras: Life, Labor and Unionization among Mexicana Garment Workers in Two Borderland Cities-Los Angeles and San Antonio, 1933– 1941” (PhD diss., University of Kansas, 1999), 61. 57 See McCaffey, “Organizing Las Costureras” for a critical discussion of such different views in the literature. 53

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 309

2022.07.30. 22:40:16

310

Maria Tamboukou

Although ethnic, gender, and cultural differences are important for understanding women workers’ working lives and attitudes, it is hugely problematic not to recognize differences among them. Chandra Talpade Mohanty has long ago criticized the universal and monolithic images of “the third world woman,” and the figure of the Chicana as powerless and submissive is part of such discursive constructions.58 George Sánchez wrote that Mexican immigrant families were far from homogeneous. There were differences in terms of provenance, migration patterns, and destination. Some came from rural villages, others from cities. Some chose to join Mexican communities in the borderlands, while others opted for areas mostly inhabited by Anglo-Americans.59 Many came as families, either at the same time or in waves, while others arrived as single migrants, although for women these were exceptional cases, usually after some rupture in their personal or family life.60 There were also generational differences, particularly within families whose children were born on both sides of the border. In this context, the image of “the good Mexican woman” was the antithesis of “the barrio girls”: the latter were young women born and bred in the United States, and they seemed to relate more to the American media’s images of womanhood than to their Mexican cultural heritage and traditions. Dress and appearance were very important for these young women who “adopted fashionable short dresses and hair styles, smoked publicly and used cosmetics.”61 When Angelita V. got married at the age of nineteen to shake off the shackles of her father’s control, she declared her independence by getting her hair cut. “The first thing I did was to bob my hair. My father would not permit it and I have wanted to do [it] for a long time. I will show my husband that he will not boss me the way my father has done all of us.”62 But these young assertive women also needed to work both to support themselves and their families as well as to satisfy their fashion and lifestyle needs. Working in one of the many garment workshops in LA was clearly an employment path, but the working conditions were terrible. In her political autobiography entitled Bread Upon the Waters, Pesotta painted a vivid picture of the state of the garment industry in California in the spring of 1933, the year that NIRA was passed: Conditions in the Los Angeles dress industry had grown steadily worse in five months. Manufacturers generally were violating the state minimum wage of $16

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” boundary 2 12, no. 3 (1984): 333–58. 59 Sánchez, Becoming Mexican-American, 130. 60 Ibid., 136. 61 McCaffery, “Organizing Las Costureras,” 62. 62 Cited in Mary Cecilia Lanigan, “Second Generation Mexicans in Belvedere” (Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1932), 20. 58

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 310

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

311

a week for women, and the President’s Re-employment Agreement, more often called the Blanket Code. . . . The City of Angels then had about 150 dress factories, employing some 2,000 workers. About 75 percent were Mexican women and girls, the rest Italians, Russians, Jews, and American-born. . . . Comparatively few of the dressmakers knew anything about unionism. Employers took advantage of language difficulties and racial differences to encourage separatism and suspicion. One group was played against another. . . . From the standpoint of wages and hours, there were sweat-shops in some of the most modern buildings in Los Angeles.63

Pesotta’s report reverberates with Mexican women workers’ experiences, showing that apart from the minimum wage violations, dressmakers were only paid for the hours in which a dress or any other piece of clothing was cut, sewn, and finished. This is how Maria Flores, a Mexican garment worker described the process: “I come in the morning, punch my card, work for an hour, punch the card again. I wait for two hours, get another bundle, punch card, finish bundle, punch card again. Then I wait some more—the whole day that way.”64 In addition to the problems associated with this peculiar non-home-based piece-rate system, exacerbated by the extra obligation of having to fill in an almost impossibly complicated time sheet before any payment was received, there were other forms of exploitation such as “kickbacks.” This system meant that workers were nominally paid the minimum wage, but they had to “kick back” part of it to their employers if they wanted to be given more work. There was also “the opendoor system” at work, where multiple shops were housed in the same building. As Clementina Duron explained in her essay on the LA dressmakers’ strike: “women were given ‘the freedom of the building’ when seeking employment. That is, dressmakers took the elevator to the top floor of a building housing a number of garment businesses. If no work was available at this shop, they would use the staircase to walk down to the next floor and repeat the activity . . . until, if lucky, they found a few days’ employment for the price offered.”65 Pesotta entered the field enthusiastically, bringing with her memories of recent labor victories on the East Coast. But she immediately bumped into problems revealed in pessimistic reports to the ILGWU GEB: “Latinas were difficult to approach and still more difficult to retain in the organization.”66 In the same way Pesotta, Bread Upon the Waters, 27. Cited in ibid., 23 65 Clementina Duron, “Mexican Women and Labor Conflict in Los Angeles: The ILGWU Dressmakers’ Strike of 1933,” Aztlan: International Journal of Chicano Studies Research 15, no. 1 (1984): 145–61, here 150. 66 Report and Proceedings of the ILGWU 19th Convention, Boston, May 7–17, 1928, 222–23, ILGWU Convention publications, 5780/193 PUBS, Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University, Kheel Centre for Labor Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library (hereafter cited as KCLMDA). 63 64

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 311

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

312

Maria Tamboukou

that Guglielmo has shown how the ILGWU strategies alienated Italian activists in the beginning of their mobilization,67 Mexican and Chicana garment workers were constructed as “the other” by the ILGWU leadership. As we have already seen above, this negative stance of trade unions vis-à-vis migrant and refugee workers is still the case in the Istanbul garment industry today. Proving the ILGWU leadership wrong thus became Pesotta’s biggest challenge as she faced difficulties on two fronts: the wider undermining of unionism and patriarchy at work. Her campaign was smart and far reaching, including spots on local radio stations, the publication of a bilingual Spanish/English newspaper, as well as home visits. Hopeless as it seemed in the beginning, Pesotta’s grassroots campaign soon flourished, and ILGWU membership numbers went up. This increase in membership was enough to persuade the ILGWU’s president David Dubinsky to finance the organization of a strike despite his initial serious hesitation and his advice to Pesotta “to be very cautious with respect to the calling of a strike in the dress industry.”68 In October 1933, everything was ready for a strike including the rental of a workers’ center at the heart of the city, which was kept as a secret till the very last minute.69 Pesotta’s organizational skills and perseverance in negotiating with “the union boys” changed the landscape: “now my dear President you will have to come across with the help we need,” she wrote to Dubinsky on September 30, just days before the strike erupted in the early hours of October 12.70 Pesotta’s memory of the first day of the strike is cinematically narrated in her autobiography: When all the others had dispersed, shortly after 7 o’clock, I proceeded to strike headquarters alone forgetting about breakfast. I unlocked the door, turned on the light, and looked around. Everything was in good order. I stepped outside to wait. Los Angeles Street was deserted and silent. Minutes dragged by, painfully. . . . Suddenly the silence was broken. Several girls turned the corner, then more girls and women, then a throng laughing and talking excitedly. . . . Soon they were pouring into strike headquarters by the hundreds.71

Despite her initial fears, by the end of the day, Pesotta was able to declare that “we had succeeded in shutting down the Los Angeles dress industry.”72 The 1933 dressmakers’ strike in LA lasted for four weeks; it became violent at times, including arrests and conflicts with the police. But the Mexican women’s perseverance Guglielmo, Living the Revolution, 182. David Dubinsky to Rose Pesotta, letter dated September 28, 1933, ILGWU David Dubinsky Correspondence, 5780/002, KCLMDA. 69 Pesotta, Bread Upon the Waters, 33. 70 Pesotta to Dubinsky, letter dated September 30, 1933, 5780/002, Dubinsky Correspondence, KCLMDA. 71 Pesotta, Bread Upon the Water, 39. 72 Ibid., 40. 67 68

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 312

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

313

and the leading role they played in the organization of the strike destroyed all the myths concerning their ignorance, weakness, and submission to the patriarchal constraints of “their culture.”73 The results of the strike were rather disappointing, however. It ended with an arbitrated decision which directed employees to return to work without penalty and employers to set working hours and wages according to the new NIRA code. This code provided for collective bargaining and no home-based work or child labor. The ILGWU leadership was bitterly criticized for “selling out” the strike, and Pesotta’s correspondence with Dubinsky reveals that she had been struggling to get money from the union until the very last minute (before the strike began) as well as after the strike: “So again I want to plead with you to send us money and remember that we are doing something that was never as yet been attempted (sic!). I am confident that we broke the ice that there will be a dressmakers’ union in this city as good as in any other city. Give us time, time will do the job. But help must come.”74 Despite the strike ending with a compromise, a dressmakers’ union was eventually established, and the ILGWU membership increased from 35 members in 1930 to 2,460 in 1935. But although Mexican dressmakers comprised three-quarters of the ILGWU membership, these rank-and-file women never climbed the ladder of union leadership. Out of the nineteen positions on the first executive board of the ILGWU local, only six were held by Mexican women, and none of them was strategic.75 Overall, the ILGWU records are very poor vis-à-vis Mexican women’s participation. As María Gutierrez de Soldatenko has noted, “we do not have a documented history focusing fully on the participation of women of colour in the union.”76 The ILGWU leadership was very keen to organize the labor force in Los Angeles, “while refusing to acknowledge the contributions, talents, and potential of Latina and Chicana leaders working for them,” de Soldatenko has argued, further adding that the situation had not really changed much even in the 1990s, when she conducted her research on the LA garment industry.77 Writing about efforts to unionize migrant women workers in LA, Richard Sullivan and Kimi Lee have written that it is community-based organizations like the Garment Worker Center78 (GWC) and not the unions that work for See María A. Gutierrez De Soldatenko, “ILGWU Labor Organizers: Chicana and Latina Leadership in the Los Angeles Garment Industry,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 23, no. 1 (2002): 46–66. 74 Pesotta to Dubinsky, letter dated November 19, 1933, Dubinsly Correspondence, KCLMDA. 75 See Duron, “Mexican Women and Labor Conflict,” 158. 76 De Soldatenko, “ILGWU Labor Organizers,” 46. 77 Ibid., 46. 78 See more details about the Garment Worker Center at https://garmentworkercenter.org/, accessed February 12, 2020. 73

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 313

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

314

Maria Tamboukou

migrant workers’ rights. In their view, this is because unions are still “highly gendered institutions.”80 Not only do they still focus on male workers; they are often “unable or unwilling to organize low wage workers,”81 the majority of whom are undocumented migrant and refugee women workers.82 In contrast to the rigidity of traditional union activism, the GWC has supported Chinese and Latino garment workers to claim unpaid wages and employers’ penalties, and it has also offered weekly educational, cultural, and political activities.83 But at least when the 1933 LA general strike was called, it had the full support of all the labor unions in the area. Things were quite different for Pesotta in San Francisco, as I discuss below. 79

THE “UNBOUND FEET” AGONISTIC POLITICS Chinese immigrants, mostly from the Pearl River delta in Southeast China, arrived in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century looking for a better future in the wake of the Californian Gold Rush. Very few women were among them, and those who came were usually following their husbands who had migrated first.84 Chinese women’s lives in nineteenth-century San Francisco were doubly oppressed by patriarchal control within their community and by racism outside the borders of Chinatown.85 As Judy Yung has noted, “whereas most European women found immigration to America a liberating experience, Chinese women, except in certain situations, found it inhibiting.”86 Richard Sullivan and Kimi Lee, “Organizing Immigrant Women in America’s Sweatshops: Lessons from the Los Angeles Garment Worker Center,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33, no. 3 (2008): 527–32. 80 Ibid., 527. 81 Ibid. 82 For more details, see https://garmentworkercenter.org/, accessed February 12, 2020. 83 Sullivan and Lee, “Organizing Immigrant Women,” 530. 84 See among others, Sucheng Chan, This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), esp. chapter 1. 85 See Sucheng Chan, “The Exclusion of Chinese Women 1870–1943,” in Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882–1943, ed. Sucheng Chan (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1991); Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: California University Press, 1995); Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American Women and their Lives (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998); Judy Yung, Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: California University Press, 1999); Shauna Lo, “Chinese Women Entering New England: Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files, Boston 1911–1925,” New England Quarterly, 81, no. 3 (2008): 383–409; Catherine Lee, “‘Where the Danger Lies’: Race, Gender, and Chinese and Japanese Exclusion in the United States, 1870–1924,” Sociological Forum 25, no. 2 (2010): 248–71. 86 Yung, Unbound Feet, 16. 79

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 314

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

315

Confined within their home, many migrant Chinese women took on sewing jobs that, although dreadfully paid, were still a source of extra money for the family. Low How See, one of the first migrants in San Francisco, told the Collector of Customs on March 26, 1896: “I worked in my room . . . my friend who know me well bring me work to do to my room.”87 There were some women who worked in family-run workshops, but many women also found employment in garment shops. But because of their care responsibilities, women workers would opt for the piece-rate system which gave them the flexibility to arrange their workday around their family obligations: “Most of the women drift into the factory from ten to eleven in the morning. They return home when the children are due, around luncheon and at three in the afternoon before they go to the Chinese school.”88 These observations echo the personal testimonies of women’s working and living conditions: “My mother and some other ladies did sewing in a place. They [contractors] rented a store and set up machines. About a dozen women worked there. My mother worked during the day. She came back to cook lunch for us. The hours were very flexible . . . They were paid by piece. The pay was low, but it’s still something.”89 As low as the wages were, women’s contribution to the family income was important. Moreover, the possibility of getting out of the confines of the house was a nice break in women’s domestic routines. As Yung has noted, the garment workshops became social spaces where women could find friends, talk, and socialize. Having some money of their own also gave them a fleeting sense of independence: “The sewing factory was more than just a workplace. It was an arena for social interactions, where women could learn from one another, share problems, support one another, bicker and make up, and pass the time with storytelling and jokes, gossip and news, and singing while they worked.”90 Despite the positive aspects of escaping domestic drudgery, Chinese women were harshly exploited, and to make things worse, they were working without the benefits and support of labor organizations since only men were allowed to join the Chinese guilds that regulated working hours and labor conditions.91 Thus, unlike Jewish women workers in the garment industry who had some opportunities for upward mobility, Chinese women were stuck in sweatshop conditions, “lacking the same language skills, and political consciousness and further hindered by racism.”92 Cited in Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 70. Observations of the Industrial Welfare Commission Investigator in 1922, cited in Yung Unbound feet, 88. 89 Mrs. S. reminisces about her mother’s life as a seamstress, cited in Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 71. 90 Yung, Unbound Feet, 92. 91 Ibid., 329–30. 92 Ibid., 89. 87

88

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 315

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

316

Maria Tamboukou

Working conditions did not change much in the interwar period, but the Chinese garment workers themselves did. As Yung has noted, second-generation Chinese women took the first steps in challenging gender and racial discrimination. “Compared to their mothers they were better educated, more economically mobile, socially active, politically aware and equally partners in marriages.”93 But when the stock market crashed in 1929, Chinese women’s position in the garment industry became dire. During the 1930s, the garment industry in San Francisco had become the largest employer, and there were over three hundred women employed in the Chinatown sweatshops. Pesotta’s political autobiography paints a grim picture of the Chinatown garment district even after the worst years of the Depression had passed and the New Deal was being implemented. “On Grant Avenue we entered a fashionable store, walked down steps that were little more than rungs of a ladder into a cellar and then descended to a second cellar. On both levels, men, women and children were working silently.”94 It was in this context that when Pesotta arrived in San Francisco, she soon realized that “to organize the Chinese workers would be a tough job, infinitely more difficult than dealing with the Mexicans.”95 Apart from having to struggle against miserably low wages, limitless work hours, and dreadful sanitary conditions, Pesotta also needed to address the three reasons preventing young Chinese women from joining the union: fear of their parents, kinship relations between employers and employees, and the fear of job loss.96 Moreover, when she tried to tackle the conditions of the Chinatown sweatshops, she was appalled to find that “the Chinese did not have many friends among the San Francisco labor groups, and that all Asiatics were barred from union membership there except in our own ranks.”97 She was even more dismayed to learn that “this was not only a San Francisco dressmaker’s problem. It was closely bound up with federal government policy, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the attitude of the general labor movement toward Asiatics, the susceptibility of resistance of the young Chinese workers to union education.”98 Pesotta’s response to the miseries of the Chinatown garment industry was to write an article containing all her observations about the appalling conditions there and send it to the ILGWU’s newspaper Justice. The Chinese women workers themselves went far beyond reading or writing articles, although they did this as well: “women in this community are keeping pace with the quick changes of the modern world. The sly Chinese maidens in bound feet are forever gone, making place for active and intelligent young women,” Jane Kwong Lee wrote in the Chinese Digest in June 1938.99 Ibid., 177. Pesotta, Bread Upon the Waters, 70. 95 Ibid., 68. 96 Ibid., 72. 97 Ibid., 76. 98 Ibid. 99 Jane Kwong Lee, “Chinese women in San Francisco,” Chinese Digest 4, no. 6 (1938): 9. 93 94

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 316

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

317

Lee’s optimism was well founded. She wrote this article in the aftermath of the longest strike in the history of the San Francisco Chinatown garment industry which took place at Joe Shoong’s National Dollar Stores sewing factory.100 During this period, more than one thousand Chinese workers were employed in San Francisco’s fifty-four Chinese garment factories. There were many problems in the sector including the lack of capital resources, the seasonal nature of employment, as well as the industry’s lack of organization, according to a 1935 report in Chung Sai Yat Po, the leading Chinese-language newspaper in San Francisco in the first half of the twentieth century.101 The main issue of the strike was low wages since “garment workers in the Chinese community, we are told, work for wages ranging from $4 and $5 to between $13 and $16 a week. In the same industry, union workers receive from $19 to $30 per week for a shorter work week,” Jenny Maytas, an ILGWU organizer, wrote to the Chinese Digest in July 1937.102 Interestingly enough, the source of this inequality was not racial discrimination but the lack of union organization, according to Maytas: “The difference in wages in the Chinese community is not due to the fact that the workers are Chinese! It is due to the fact that they are not organized, that they have no collective bargaining power, that they stand as individuals and consequently suffer from underbidding and exploitation.”103 In response to the exploitative conditions of their labor, in November 1937, 108 Chinese garment workers formed the Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, Local 341 (CLGWU) and started negotiations with the management of the National Dollar Stores sewing factory. But these negotiations collapsed when in February 1938, the factory was sold to the Golden Gate Manufacturing Company, a move that was “obviously phony” given that “the same people have represented the Dollar Stores and the Golden Gate Manufacturing Company in negotiations with the union.”104 The strike lasted for fifteen weeks, and during this time, Chinese garment workers distributed many fliers to the public explaining the reasons for their strike: “Why are we striking and picketing? We are striking for better wages from the factory owner so that we can support our livelihood,” they wrote on February 26, 1938.105 On May 1, 1938, they issued another letter asking their members to carry on and acknowledging the ILGWU’s support:

See Patricia M. Fong, “The 1938 National Dollar Strike,” Asian American Review 2, no. 1 (1975): 183–200. 101 Heng Tang Zheng, “The Crisis in the Chinese Garment Industry and Its Future,” Chung Sai Yat Po, April 10 and 11, 1935. 102 Jennie Maytas, “Letter to the editor,” Chinese Digest 3, no. 7 ( July 1937): 14. 103 Ibid. 104 “Chinese Girl Strikers Picket Dollar Stores,” Labor Clarion 4 (March 1938): 6. 105 “A Letter to the Public Regarding the Strike,” handwritten Chinese flyer, translated by Ellen Yeung and reprinted in Yung, Unbound Voices, 400. 100

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 317

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

318

Maria Tamboukou

During our struggle, we have been lucky to have the backing of our New York headquarters, including material and moral support as well as financial, promotional and legal assistance. Dear workers, we must struggle on. No matter what happens, we must fight to the end, so that the support from our New York headquarters will not be in vain. We also hope that you members in all the other local chapters will help to publicize our situation in your areas and continue to give us your moral support.106

But despite the militant spirit of the action, the strike ended with the factory agreeing to become “a closed shop regulated by the union, [a] 5 percent wage increase, time-and-half for overtime, [a] 40-hour work week, improved working conditions and [a] paid holiday for Labor Day.” For many workers the agreement was rather disappointing, as it was far from their initial demands for “a $20 wage for a 35-hour week.”107 As Sue Ko Lee simply put it: “Jennie was trying to get them to accept it, and some of the militant workers were against it. It just wasn’t good enough for them.”108 In the end, they accepted by a narrow vote, 31 to 27; but the effects of this strike were long lasting, and it marked a turning point in the history of Chinese American women. As Yung has commented, the strike “proved that Chinese women could stand up for themselves and work across generational, racial, gender, and political lines to gain better working conditions in Chinatown.”109 Through their involvement in the agonistic politics of the strike, Chinese women crossed the boundaries of the domestic sphere and became entangled in the ranks of the labor movement. The era of the “bound feet” was over, but how much do we know about this part of gendered labor history, even in its feminist corners? The Joe Shoong strike may have not been the first strike in the San Francisco Chinese garment industry, as the labor historiography is still full of gaps and omissions, but it certainly was not the last. Chinese garment workers took on the struggle against sweatshop conditions throughout the twentieth century, and in doing so, they crossed geographical boundaries and migration generations within the United States by reviving the agonistic politics of the New York garment industry. Their labor was at the very heart of the rebirth of the New York garment industry, which had experienced a steep decline in the 1960s, when manufacturers moved their production first to the South (US) and Puerto Rico, and then to Latin America and Asia in search of low wages. Chinese women started migrating to New York from Southern China and Hong Kong en masse after the 1965 Immigration Act, which addressed the Letter from CLGWU to “Fellow Workers and Union Members,” May 1, 1938, reprinted in Yung, Unbound Voices, 404–5. 107 “Chinese Local Pickets Plant, Three Stores,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 1938, 4. 108 Sue Ko Lee interviewed by Yung in Unbound Voices, 394. 109 Yung, Unbound Feet, 209. 106

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 318

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

319

discrimination against Asians in earlier immigration policy. By 1980, there were 25,000 Chinese garment workers in New York working in 430 workshops and ateliers, and women made up over 80 percent of the workforce.110 These migrant workers soon found the conditions in the garment factories backbreaking and appalling. They were also terrified by the demands of the trade: “The work was really hard for me; like so many other women, I didn’t have any experience sewing clothes.”111 And yet, they had to work, and it was in factories that they learned the tricks of the trade: “The garment shops were in such a high demand for workers that they gave us the opportunity to learn. So even if your hands shook and you were scared, you had to do it.”112 But while learning to labor, these migrant women also learned to fight, following the political activism of earlier waves of women migrant workers from Europe discussed earlier. Thus, in June 1982, more than 20,000 Chinese migrant women garment workers took to the streets, demanding better wages and working conditions. Within hours, the workers and ILGWU had won the largest strike in the history of New York’s Chinatown.113 Chinese and other Asian women workers are also alive and well in the LA garment industry today. It seems that the strings of “the unbound feet” have now become red threads that run through the agonistic politics of the garment industry in the United States as well as in China’s garment factories, which have attracted many internal migrant women workers. Indeed, most of the young women who work in the garment factories of the Shenzhen and Guangdong provinces today are from the poor rural areas of China. They migrate to southern coastal provinces so they can support their families. Their life is harsh as low wages make it very difficult for these young women workers to survive.114 And yet, an increasing number of reports indicate that more and more women garment workers have been mobilized to assert their labor rights. The Chinese Working Women Network (CWWN), which is the first non-governmental labor organization in mainland China, runs a series of projects that aim “to promote better lives for Chinese migrant women workers by developing feminist awareness and See Huiying B. Chan, “How Chinese American Women Changed U.S. Labor History,” retrieved from Asian American Writers’ Workshop, accessed February 14, 2020, https://aaww.org/chinatown-garment-strike-1982/. 111 Connie, ILGWU labor activist interviewed by Chan, “How Chinese American Women Changed U.S. Labor History.” 112 Alice, ILGWU labor activist interviewed by Chan, ibid. 113 See Chan, “How Chinese American Women Changed U.S. Labor History” for more details of this strike. 114 See Kimi Lee and Nina Ascoly, “Women on the Move: Gender and Labor Mobility in the Global Garment Industry,” in Made by Women: Gender, the Global Garment Industry and the Movement for Women Workers’ Rights, ed. Nina Ascoly and Chantal Finney (Amsterdam: Clean Clothes Campaign International Secretariat, 2005), 20–27, here 25, accessed April 12, 2020, https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/globaldocs/166/. 110

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 319

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

320

Maria Tamboukou

workers’ empowerment,” following tracks and traces of the genealogical lines in displaced women garment workers’ agonistic politics I have presented in this chapter. It is with some reflections on these genealogical lines that I now want to conclude. 115

Genealogical Insights in Excavating Feminist Labor Histories In this chapter, I have looked at contemporary issues in the Istanbul garment industry, which draws on the cheap labor of extended families and communities as well as the waves of refugees and migrants who pass through this cosmopolitan city in their attempt to cross the borders of Europe. In following stories of uprooted women workers, I have traced genealogical lines of gendered migrant labor in the garment industry. As histories of the present, genealogies have thrown light on the social, political, and cultural conditions that underpin the state of the garment industry today, but they have also unveiled “events” that have disrupted labor, gender, and racial discrimination and oppression. The genealogical lens was crucial for understanding the many fluctuations of labor struggles in the US garment industry in the first half of the twentieth century. Juxtaposed to a linear understanding of the New Deal era (1930s to 1970s) as a period of intense unionism and labor struggle that rapidly declined in the 1980s and later, the genealogical investigations of this chapter have shown that this period was much more complicated, bursting with ebbs and flows, successes and disasters. It is precisely the uneven and non-linear history of the garment industry that this chapter has highlighted by throwing light on some events in the story of its complex formations in the United States, particularly focusing on the agential force of migrant women activists. Just think of how the unexpected eruption and success of the 1909 Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike in New York, which came to be known as “the Uprising of the Twenty Thousand,” was tragically followed by one of the greatest disasters in US labor history: the Triangle fire in New York in March 1911.116 See The Chinese Working Women Network, http://www.cwwn.org/, accessed February 12, 2020. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire at the heart of Greenwich village in Manhattan New York is one of the most tragic events in American labor history: 146 young women garment workers died on March 25, 1911, while trying to escape the burning building in which they were locked. This horrible event led to a series of changes in labor legislation and occupational safety standards but also marked the rise of women’s active involvement in the labor histories of the twentieth century. For a historical account of the event, see amongst others, Leon Stein, The Triangle Fire (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962).

115 116

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 320

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

321

Writing the early history of the labor movement in the US garment industry, Fannia Mary Cohn (1885–1962), a Jewish immigrant who was among the first women to climb the ILGWU hierarchy and join its GEB in 1916 as its first woman vice-president, has also painted a very complicated picture of the pre-Depression period.117 More specifically, in her unpublished “History of ILGWU,” Cohn wrote in detail about the 1920–1922 period, which she identified as “The Employers’ Offensive,” discerning three waves in its deployment.118 During the first wave, which lasted between October 1920 and February 1921, “various manufacturers’ associations in different parts of the country made attempts to cut wages and revise the agreement in their favor.”119 But in most cases, such attempts were fought back by harsh negotiations and, in some cases, local strikes as in Boston and New York. The second wave was launched in April 1921, aiming for “a reduction of wages, reestablishment of the piecework plan and greater freedom to hire and fire.”120 This wave was met with “defensive strikes,” that ended up in a compromise wherein ILGWU was bound to “a promise of better work and high productivity” through a “Supplementary Agreement” that did not go down well with the garment workers, although it was ultimately accepted as “a necessary defensive measure.”121 The second wave ended dramatically in August 1921 with the beginning of the Philadelphia strike, “one of the bitterest struggles in the local history of the trade,” which ended with a humiliated defeat after twenty-six weeks. This defeat, however, was overturned in March 1923, when after only a two-week strike, the Philadelphia dress and waistmakers won “a substantial victory.” The third wave started in October 1921 and was initiated by a conference of the New York Cloak and Suit Manufacturers’ Protective Association in Atlantic City, where employers returned to the demands of the first wave, including wage-cuts and the re-introduction of piecework, among other reactionary measures. The response was a massively supported general strike by the cloak makers in November 1921, when 55,000 workers left their shops in New York; the strike movement spread across a number of US cities, reaching its peak in December 1921, with 75,000 women’s garment workers on strike defending I have worked with Fannia Mary Cohn’s papers in the New York Public Library and have written extensively about her contribution to U.S. labor history in general and the movement for workers’ education in particular. See Maria Tamboukou, Women Workers’ Education, Life Narratives and Politics: Geographies, Histories, Pedagogies (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017). 118 See Fannia M. Cohn, “The International Ladies Garment Workers Union: Its History and Development” (21 chapter essay, n.d), chapter 11, esp. 81–84, Fannia M. Cohn papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations (hereafter cited as FCP/NYPL). 119 Ibid., 81 120 Ibid., 81A 121 Ibid. 117

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 321

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

322

Maria Tamboukou

previously won labor rights. This national upheaval ended triumphantly in January 1922 with the employers finally agreeing “to re-instate the week-work system and the 41-hour week.”122 The January agreement seemed to be a temporary victory, however, as the spring and summer of 1922 were slack periods in the trade; unemployment rose and economic conditions deteriorated, a decline that was reflected in the ILGUW’s membership numbers (105,000 in 1920 to 93,000 in 1922). But by the fall of 1922, the depression in the garment trade had seen its worse days, and signs of improvement started to emerge. We all know, of course, that “these signs of improvement” utterly crashed in the Great Depression, while such micro-histories of “highs” and “lows” in the labor movement in general and the US garment industry in particular, which has been historically populated by migrant workers, reach into our own time. In raising the question of how migrant women workers can help us rethink and redefine feminist labor analytics, such genealogical investigations have generated a number of insights I will summarize by way of conclusion.

THE AMBIVALENCE TOWARD FOREIGNNESS: RETHINKING AGONISTIC POLITICS In deconstructing the myth of an “Immigrant America,” Bonnie Honig has looked closely at the problem of “the undecidability of foreignness,” the ambivalence of welcoming, hosting, or persecuting foreigners.123 “People cross borders all the time,” she has noted, but it is “the symbolic politics of immigration” that we need to understand and analyze: “the struggle and counter struggle to define the terms of foreignness’ in relation to the always shifting terrain and values of national or democratic polities.”124 The flourishing of the garment industry in New York at the dawn of the twentieth century in which Jewish immigrant entrepreneurs played a key role is one of those success stories about “capitalist immigrants” who relied on the exploitation of their own people. But the myth of their success was repeatedly challenged and deconstructed by a strong labor movement led by migrant workers, with many women of different national and ethnic backgrounds among them. Instead of staying away from politics, as the dominant discourse of America’s model minorities would have them do,125 the migrant activists in the garment industry fought against capitalist exploitation as well as gender and race discrimination within their unions. In doing so, they responded to critical questions and issues of intersectional exploitation and grassroots democratic politics. 124 125 122 123

Ibid., 83 Bonnie Honig, Democracy and the Foreigner (New Jersey, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). Ibid., 80. Ibid., 81.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 322

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

Working Women on the Move

323

Following Honig’s line of thought around “the undecidability and ambivalence towards foreignness,” my genealogical investigations have brought to the fore that migrant labor struggles and politics are crucial for analyzing feminist labor histories and understanding how political actors emerge from it. Current reports concerning migrant and refugee women garment workers’ mobilization across the planet show that these labor struggles are alive and kicking in our own day; they are here to stay. Women’s voices are loudly heard in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Poland, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam, in addition to other countries with large flows of internal and external migrant women garment workers.126 In following the tracks and traces of formal and informal labor struggles in the garment industry, I demonstrate that women workers on the move have been a vital force of the international labor movement, shattering all discourses and myths that have historically constructed them as vulnerable, oppressed, and submissive subjects.

THE UNRECOGNIZED POLITICS OF FEMINIST LABOR STRUGGLES This chapter has revolved around the political autobiography of Rose Pesotta, a Jewish anarchist labor organizer in the garment industry. What struck me during my deep engagement with Pesotta’s archive127 was that her activities have always been subsumed within the ILGWU’s controversial politics, while her own struggles as an anarchist woman worker in the US labor movement have not been recognized and discussed in the relevant literature. It is only in some rare biographical approaches that Pesotta’s intervention in the labor histories It is not possible to follow migrant women garment workers’ movements in all these countries within the restrictions of this chapter. For more studies, see amongst others, Ascoly and Finney, “Made by Women”; Clean Clothes Campaign, “False Promises: Migrant Workers in the Global Garment Industry,” Discussion Paper, 2009, https://cleanclothes.org/file-repository/ resources-publications-migrant-workers-internal.pdf/view; War on Want, “Restricted Rights: Migrant Women Workers in Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia,” 2012, https://waronwant. org/sites/default/files/Restricted%20Rights.pdf; Martje Theuws and Gisela ten Kate, “Fact Sheet: Migrant Labor in the Textile and Garment Industry: A Focus on the Role of Buying Companies” (Amsterdam: SOMO, 2016), https://www.somo.nl/fact-sheet-migrant-labourin-the-textile-and-garment-industry/; ILO, “Working Conditions of Migrant garment Workers in India,” 2017, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/ documents/publication/wcms_554809.pdf; Laura Boudreau, Rachel Heath, and Tyler McCormick, “Migrants, Information, and Working Conditions in Bangladeshi Garment Factories,” Working Paper, International Growth Centre, 2018, https://cgeg.sipa.columbia.edu/ sites/default/files/cgeg/WP76Boudreau.pdf; GAATW-Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, 2019. “Feminised Migration and Deteriorating Conditions of Employment in the Garment Industry in Cambodia: Perspectives of Workers Organised by CATU. A Feminist Participatory Action Researh,” 2019, https://gaatw.org/publications/Safe_and_Fair_FPAR/ FPAR_Report_CATU.pdf. All sites accessed April 12, 2020. 127 See Tamboukou, Gendering the Memory of Work, esp. chapter 4. 126

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 323

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

324

Maria Tamboukou

of her geographies and times has been recognized,128 but such biographical approaches have been marginalized in the wider debates around union politics in the US garment industry. What Pesotta’s unrecognized anarchism brings to the fore is the need for more nuanced analyses of the political controversies and ideological movements within labor histories in general and its feminist strands in particular. Throughout my work, I have followed women’s lives, posing the argument that it is through writing feminist genealogies that we can unveil marginalized and hidden lives that shed new light on the way we see and understand the relations between biography, society, and history. Feminist labor historians have already deployed such approaches, and there is currently a burgeoning literature in this field, as I have already shown. Such trends, however, need to make connections, crossing the borders of ethnic-based historiographies as I will elaborate on below.

DECOLONIZING FEMINIST LABOR HISTORIES The bodies of literature that have been created around migrant labor histories are heavily entrenched within ethnic and racial boundaries. To put it simply, it is mostly feminist historians with Italian, Mexican, or Chinese origins that have written about women workers from their respective ethnic groups in the US garment industry in the case of this chapter, but this trend is also evident in the wider labor historiography. Although speaking and reading the language of historical subjects and documents is an important component of such studies, racial and colonial tracks in the making of labor histories can also be traced. Such trends in the historiography have led to the marginalization of “ethnic based” histories, creating gaps and misunderstandings in the overall labor historiography of the garment industry and beyond. In their recent edited volume, Women’s ILO, Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann have looked back at a century of the ILO’s engagement with women’s work, bringing together contributions from a wide range of national and ethnic backgrounds.129 What I therefore argue is that there is a need to follow such lines of inquiry and create more transnational and trans-ethnic approaches if we are to decolonize the ways we read, understand, and write feminist labor histories. This volume, which emerges from the “Feminist Labor History” Working Group of the European Labor History Network (ELHN), is an important contribution to this project of rereading and rewriting feminist labor histories.130 See Elaine Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer (New York: SUNY Press, 1993). 129 Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann, eds., Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labor Standards, and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill, 2018). 130 See https://socialhistoryportal.org/elhn/wg-feminist, accessed April 18, 2020. 128

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 324

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

List of Contributors Paulo Marques Alves holds a PhD in Sociology. He is Assistant Professor at the Iscte—University Institute of Lisbon, where he teaches methodological and theoretical courses focusing on work, employment, organizations, trade unionism, and labor relations. He is a senior researcher at DINÂMIA’CET—Iscte and an associate researcher of the Institute of Contemporary History (Group of the Global History of Labor and Social Conflicts). As a participant in a large number of research projects nationally and internationally, he is author of many publications in the fields mentioned above including the articles, “From Exclusion to Underrepresentation—Two Centuries of Problematic Relationships between Unions and Women” and “Women’s Militancy in the Beginning of the Portuguese Trade Unionism” (in Portuguese). He is a member of several scientific associations and a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal on Working Conditions and the Journal of Studies on Citizenship and Sustainability. Rory Archer works as a lecturer at the History Department of the University of Konstanz and is a researcher at the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz. A social historian, his research focuses on labor, gender, migration, and everyday life in the Balkans in the twentieth century. Recent publications include “When Workers’ Self-Management Met Neoliberalism: Positive Perceptions of Market Reforms among Blue-Collar Workers in Late Yugoslav Socialism” in Labor in State-Socialist Europe, 1945–1989, ed. Martha Siefert (CEU Press, 2020), co-authored with Goran Musić. He currently leads the research project “To the Northwest! Intra Yugoslav Albanian migration (1953–1989),” supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, 2020–2013) at the University of Graz. Virgínia Baptista holds a PhD in Modern and Contemporary History. She is a senior researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, New University of Lisbon (Group on the Global History of Labor and Social Conflicts). Her research has focused on women’s work, welfare, maternity hospitals, and feminists’ pathways in Portugal in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has published (in Portuguese) the monographs Women in the Labor Market in Portugal: Representations and Daily Life (1890–1940) (Commission on Equality and Women’s Rights, 1999) and Protection and Rights of Women Workers in Portugal (1880–1943) (Social Sciences Press, 2016). A book chapter titled “Mutual Societies: A Social Welfare” is in press.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 325

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

326

List of Contributors

Thanasis Betas is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. He is a historian of labor, gender, and the social and economic history of Greece in the twentieth century. He has published on gender, labor relations, and technological changes, as well as child labor and labor protest in the Greek tobacco industry during the twentieth century. In December 2020, he completed a postdoctoral research project entitled “Filter-cigarettes: Business Strategies, Technological Changes and Organizational Innovations in the Greek Tobacco Industry between 1945–1973” at the University of Ioannina, which was financed by the Research Centre for the Humanities (RCH, Athens). In 20192021, he was a research fellow at the Historical Archive of the General Confederation of Workers of Greece (Athens). He is a member of the Greek Economic History Association, the Greek Network for the History of Labor and the Labor Movement, and a member of the Oral History Association of Volos. Eloisa Betti holds a PhD in European History from the University of Bologna, where she is currently Adjunct Professor of Labor History. In 2014–15, she was a Fellow at the School of Advanced Study of the University of London, and in 2015–16, she was a EURIAS Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. In 2020, she obtained the Italian National Scientific Habilitation as Associate Professor of Modern History. She has been part of several international projects including Cliohres.net, Precarious Work and Social Rights, Incavalc, and the ILO Century project. She has served as external expert for the Italian Office of the ILO, is a member of the Directing Committee of the Italian Society of Labor History (SISLAV), and a scientific advisor for the Emilia-Romagna Network of Archives of the Union of Italian Women (UDI). She has published extensively on labor, gender, and women’s history, with a specific focus on the history of precarious work in Italy as well as globally. She has published two monographs (in Italian) entitled Precarians: A History of the Italian Republic (Carocci, 2019) and The Shadows of Fordism (Bononia University Press, 2020). Marco Caligari, an Independent Researcher, is a historian of labor specialized in dock workers, logistics, and tourism. He obtained his PhD from the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, and his book (in Italian) From the Hook to Containers was published by Franco Angeli (Milan 2021). He studied at several European Research Centers including Södertörn University (Stockholm) and John Moores University (Liverpool). He has been a member of the international research group “Environmental History of North-Western Europe’s Mediterranean Coastline” led by Giacomo Parrinello at the Center for History at Sciences Po University (Paris). He has published several chapters and journal articles, most recently in Scienza & Politica (2020) and “The Shifting Shores of the Anthropocene: The Settlement and (Unstable) Stabilization of the North-Western Mediterranean Littoral over the 19th and 20th Centuries” in Environment and History (2019).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 326

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

List of Contributors

327

Currently, his interests focus on the connections between British and Italian ports as well as women’s migration in the Italian tourist districts. Elizabeth Faue is Professor of History and Department Chair at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan (USA). She is known for her work exploring the gendered dimensions of labor, politics, and the working-class experience in the United States including Community of Suffering and Struggle: Men, Women and the Minneapolis Labor Movement, 1915–1945 (University of North Carolina Press, 1991), Writing the Wrongs: Eva Valesh and the Rise of Labor Journalism (Cornell University Press, 2004), and Rethinking the American Labor Movement (Routledge, 2017). Faue served as coordinator for the North American Labor History Conference from 1991 to 2003 and as labor network co-chair of the Social Science History Association from 2015 to 2019. Her current project is “Work and the Body Politic: Gender, Workplace Risk, and the Health of Democracy.” Anna Frisone earned her PhD in Contemporary History from the European University Institute (2017) and then pursued her research as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bologna, and per invitation at Berkeley and Paris (Sciences Po). She is an associate member of the Centre d’Histoire Sociale at Sorbonne University and, thanks to an Edith Saurer grant awarded by the University of Vienna, she is currently developing a project about women’s unemployment in Western Europe. Her work has been published and awarded internationally. Interweaving oral and archival sources in a comparative and transnational perspective, she focuses on labor and gender history with particular attention to women’s political mobilization in the 1970s. Her second book (in Italian) Feminism at Work: How Women Changed Unions in Italy and France (1968–1983) has been published in November 2020 (Viella). Isidora Grubački is a doctoral candidate in Comparative History at Central European University, Budapest/Vienna, and a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. In her doctoral research, she explores feminist activism and feminist intellectual history in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana in the interwar period and aims to put Yugoslav feminist history into a broader regional and transnational perspective. Her fields of interest include intellectual history of feminisms, transnational women’s history, the history of Yugoslavia, and gendered labor history, and she has published several articles in these topics. She is a member of two COST Action networks, “Worlds of Related Coercions in Work” (WORCK), and “Who Cares in Europe?” She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from the University of Belgrade and has held student and research fellowships at Cambridge University, the Institute of Contemporary History in Prague, EHESS in Paris, among others.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 327

2022.07.30. 22:40:17

328

List of Contributors

Diane Kirkby is Professor of Law and Humanities at the University of Technology, Sydney and a Research Professor (Emeritus) in History at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her principal area of research is twentieth-century feminist labor history. She has authored several books including Alice Henry: The Power of Pen and Voice (Cambridge 1991), Barmaids: A History of Women’s Work in Pubs (Cambridge, 1997), and Voices from the Ships: Australia’s Seafarers and Their Union (UNSW, 2008). Additionally, she has edited or co-edited four other books and has published numerous articles in major journals. Since 2016, she has been the editor of Labour History on behalf of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. Her current research on maritime workers and with Emma Robertson and Lee-Ann Monk on women’s work is funded by the Australian Research Council.  Françoise F. Laot is a Professor at the University of Paris 8 Vincennes-SaintDenis, France, and is co-convener of the network History of Adult Education and Training in Europe (European Society for Research on the Education of Adults). Her work as a social historian has focused on the transnational and gendered history of the education of adults in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has used images as sources to question women workers’ (in)visibility and their oblivion as targets of educational policies, notably in her book (in French) A Film as a Source for the History of Adult Education: Men . . . and Women, Back to School? (Nancy, 1966) (PUN-Editions universitaires de Lorraine, 2014). In her recent publications, she has explored women’s biographies as ways to renew the historical approach in her research domain, resulting in a special issue of Pedagogika Społeczna/Social Pedagogy Quarterly, “Pioneering Women in European Adult Education 1860s/70s–1910s,” no. 1(75) (2020), edited together with Michał Bron (available on-line). Debora Migliucci holds a PhD in Women’s History and Gender Identity from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and a second PhD in Constitutional Law from the University of Milan. She is currently director of the Labor Archive, Documentation, and Research Centre of the Chamber of Labor of Milan. Her main research fields are labor and political history, with particular attention to the evolution of social and gender rights. Her publications (in Italian) include Although We Are Women: A History of Trade Unionists 1891–1981 (Unicopli, 2018) (with Fiorella Imprenti); “To Represent Labor: Women and the Chamber of Labor in Milan,” in Percorsi storici: Rivista di storia contemporanea (2016); Politics as Life: The History of Giuseppina Re, “Deputy” to the Italian Parliament (1913–2007) (Unicopli, 2012); and History and Constitution (Franco Angeli, 2011). Lee-Ann Monk is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the History Program at La Trobe University, Australia. Her research interests focus on the histories of work,

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 328

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

List of Contributors

329

gender, and disability and their intersections. She is the author of Attending Madness: At Work in the Australian Colonial Asylum (Rodopi, 2008). She is currently researching the history of women in “non-traditional” occupations with Diane Kirkby and Emma Robertson. Leda Papastefanaki is Associate Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Ioannina and Collaborating Faculty Member at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies—FORTH (Greece). Her Greek-language monographs include research on labor, gender, and technology in the Greek textile industry and in mining in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has coedited, with M. Erdem Kabadayı, Working in Greece and Turkey: A Comparative Labor History from Empires to Nation States, 1840–1940 (Berghahn, 2020) and, with Nikos Potamianos, Labor History in the Semi-periphery: Southern Europe, 19th–20th centuries (De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021). She has published on the social and economic history of industrialization and labor in the Mediterranean context and gender history. She is a board member of the Greek Economic History Association and the Chair of the European Labor History Network (since September 2021). She was co-coordinator of the Feminist Labor History (2013–2021) and Labor in Mining (2018–2021) working groups of the European Labor History Network. Emma Robertson is Associate Professor in History at La Trobe University, Australia. Her research focuses on gender, labor, and cultural histories of Britain and the British Empire. Her most recent work has concentrated on the gendered workplace culture of the railways in the United Kingdom and Australia. She is the author of Chocolate, Women and Empire: A Social and Cultural History (Manchester University Press, 2009), the co-author of Rhythms of Labor: Music at Work in Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2013), and co-author of The BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). She is currently researching the history of women in “non-traditional” occupations with Diane Kirkby and Lee-Ann Monk, funded by the Australian Research Council. Laura Savelli is Professor of Gender History at the University of Pisa. She is a historian of socialism, labor, gender, and the women’s movement. She currently deals with the history of the female presence in trade unions and with international women’s and feminist associations in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has published several books on women’s labor in Italy, especially on women working in the industrial sector and in communication services including (in Italian): The Industry in the Mountains: Men and Women at Work in the Plants of the Italian Metallurgical Society; The Italian Economy: Female Work; and Female Autonomy and Dignity of Work: The Female Staff in

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 329

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

330

List of Contributors

the Post, Telegraph and Telephone Service. She also has published articles on women’s associations for the assistance of migrant working women, and the Italian and international movement against state-regulated prostitution in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Maria Tamboukou is a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow and Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of East London, UK. She has held visiting research positions in a number of institutions worldwide, including Affiliated Professor in Gender Studies at Linnaeus University Sweden and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University, Australia. Her research activity brings together the areas of philosophies and epistemologies in the social sciences, feminist theories, narrative analytics, and archival research. Writing histories of the present is the central focus of her work, currently configured as an assemblage of feminist genealogies. She is the author and editor of twelve books and more than eighty articles and book chapters. Her most recent monograph is Revisiting the Nomadic Subject: Women's Experiences of Travelling under Conditions of Forced Displacement (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). More details on her research projects and publications can be found under www.tamboukou.org. Marica Tolomelli, holds a PhD from the University of Bielefeld. She is currently Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Bologna. Her research focuses on social conflicts, social movements, and political cultures between the end of World War Two and the end of the twentieth century. She is also interested in the formation and evolution of public spheres, communication spaces, and the circulation of ideas in the “long 20th century” from a global perspective. Her publications include: “De l’université à l’usine: Italie et Allemagne (1968–1973),” Les Temps Modernes (2015); (in German) “1968: Forms of Interaction between Students’ and Workers’ Movements in Italy and the German Federal Republic,” in 1968: Vom Ereignis zum Mythos, ed. I. Gilcher-Holtey (Suhrkamp: Frankfurt a.M. 2008); (in Italian) Social Movements in Italy: Politics and Society in the “First Republic” (Carocci: Rome 2015); The Public Sphere and Mass Communication (Archetipolibri: Bologna 2006); Sixty-eight: A Short History (Carocci: Rome 2008). Nadia Varo Moral is a historian and a secondary school teacher and holds a PhD from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She has carried out research on labor history, women’s roles in social movements, and political repression during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain. She has written about the involvement of women in labor conflicts in Barcelona in her contribution to the volume Work, Gender and the Labor Movement during Franco’s Regime edited by José Babiano in 2007 (in Spanish). She also wrote about women’s militancy in a clandestine

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 330

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

List of Contributors

331

trade union in The Militants before the Mirror: Class and Gender in the CC.OO. of the Barcelona Region (1934–1978) (2014, in Spanish). Most recently, she analyzed the role of female communist militants in social movements in a 2017 volume edited by Josep Puigsech and Giaime Pala. Susan Zimmermann is a distinguished Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University. She has published widely on social protection and labor policies in local and transnational contexts, the history of women’s organizations and movements, the ILO, women’s labor activism, and on internationalisms and the politics of global inequality. Her most recent book (in German) is Women’s Politics and Men’s Trade Unions: International Gender Politics, Women IFTU Trade Unionists and the Labor and Women’s Movements of the Interwar Period (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 2021). She is a co-editor (together with Eileen Boris and Dorothea Hoehtker) of Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labor Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present (Leiden: Brill 2018). She holds the European Research Council Advanced Grant “Women’s Labor Activism in Eastern Europe and Transnationally, From the Age of Empires to the late 20th Century” (Acronym ZARAH, 2020–2025).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 331

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 332

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Chapter Abstracts

Thinking the History of Women’s Activism into Global Labor History Eloisa Betti, Leda Papastefanaki, Marica Tolomelli, and Susan Zimmermann The introductory chapter gives insight into how women’s and gender historians have helped us think more inclusively about the history of women of the laboring classes; their organizing and collective protest, which developed against the backdrop of highly diverse socio-political circumstances and labor relations; and the role of the state and other institutions in shaping the gendered history of labor and labor activism. We first introduce the overall contribution of the volume to feminist labor history and global labor history and point to the complex historical relationship between these two historiographies. Then, we present a short historiographic genealogy of gendered histories of labor and their relationship to the new global labor history, focusing on the contribution of feminist labor historians and historians of women’s activism in the world of work in advancing the historiography of labor around the world. Finally, we discuss in greater detail the three large themes most prominently addressed by the chapters assembled in this book, highlighting both the centrality of these themes for the gendered and global history of labor and the distinct contribution of each chapter. Elaborating on these three large themes, we address the following issues: how women’s labor activism in a large variety of male- and female-dominated contexts can be “thought together,” and why developing such an inclusive perspective is crucial for conceptual advancement in writing the history of women’s workrelated activism; how studying the history of women’s activism has been informed and can contribute to advancing conceptualizations of agency and social action; and how a focus on women activists’ biographies can contribute to developing inclusive and actor-centered approaches to women’s work-related activism. Women in the Mutual Societies of Portugal from the End of the Nineteenth Century to the 1930s Virgínia Baptista and Paulo Marques Alves  This chapter discusses the situation of women in mutual associations in Portugal between 1880 and 1935. It shows that women were heavily involved in the labor market and in the mutualist movement, including in mixed associations and the fourteen women-only national mutual societies we uncovered in our research. Women workers acted to obtain social security for themselves and their children in mutual aid associations. These associations were characterized by their voluntary nature, and they were managed democratically by members. However,

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 333

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

334

Chapter Abstracts

due to legislation at the time, women were excluded from the democratic life of the mixed associations, and they did not have access to childbirth allowances. In the women-only associations, we demonstrate that women had the right to vote, could be elected, managed the associations, and acquired the relevant right to maternity allowances. This chapter makes visible some women workers and feminists who participated in the congresses of the mutual societies during the First Republic and in some conferences like “Mutualism Week” in 1933, at the beginning of the Salazar dictatorship. It was also possible to uncover the biographies of some of these women who participated in the mutualist movement. We conclude that progressively, women made their presence felt in the life of mutual societies and challenged the hegemony of the male power structure of the societies. The Female Staff in the PTT International between Trade Unionism and Feminism from the Early Twentieth Century to the Interwar Period Laura Savelli This chapter emphasizes the role played by militant post and telegraph women in developing original proposals within the national and the international trade unions and in the debate within the feminist movement on women’s work and working women’s rights. The activism of the women turned against a highly discriminatory organization of work that provided no opportunities for career advancement for women, who were subject to forced dismissal in the event of marriage and usually earned lower wages. The women militants in male-dominated unions (where they had to fight for access to top positions) or in exclusively female leagues took active part in the debate on special labor protections for working women. Some of them were also active in feminist societies and fought for female suffrage. In the interwar period, the presence and engagement of women in the PTTI, their international trade union, and national unions reached its climax. Women also played a role in the work commissions and in the Executive Committee of the PTTI. After forty years of debate and struggle, women workers achieved employment stability, career opportunities, and retirement pensions in democratic countries, and women’s salaries became formally equal to those of men almost everywhere. Facing strong male opposition in some national unions, the question of the prohibition of women’s work and/or women’s dismissal at marriage remained unresolved, and there was no agreement among women regarding labor special protections, especially regarding the exclusion of women from night work. Women and the Labor Movement Under a Dictatorship: Comisiones Obreras (Workers’ Commissions) in Greater Barcelona during Franco’s Dictatorship and the Transition to Democracy (1964–1981) Nadia Varo Moral General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in Spain (1939–1975) suppressed political freedom and banned strikes and trade unions. Nevertheless, some workers tried to

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 334

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Chapter Abstracts

335

organize unions, such as the Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), which appeared in several industrialized areas in Spain from the 1960s onward. One of these areas was Barcelona, where women’s participation in the labor market had been significant since the nineteenth century. Women’s participation and the CCOO’s attitude toward how women should be organized changed over the course of Franco’s dictatorship and Spain’s transition to democracy. We can distinguish three periods. From 1964 to 1969, women who took part in the CCOO came into contact with the movement due to family ties or because labor “militants” contacted them because their knowledge might be useful to the movement. Only the latter were regarded as militants. During this period, the PSUC, one of the parties that had influence over the CCOO, promoted a women’s organization, and many women members were asked to join. During the second period (1969– 1975), the CCOO tried to attract female workers to increase its mobilization capacities. Female participation increased, and the women were treated as fullfledged members, although few of them achieved leadership positions. In this period, women were not organized separately within the CCOO. This happened only in the third period (1976–1981), when the Secretariat for Women’s Affairs was established. The Secretariat was organized by women militants who had taken part in the CCOO since the early 1970s and were influenced by the feminist movement. Nevertheless, they faced many difficulties when they advanced their claims because the CCOO kept thinking of workers in male terms, which was extremely harmful for women in a context of deep economic crisis and increasing unemployment. “Traditionally Reserved for Men”: Australian Trade Unions and the 1970s Working Women’s Campaign for Liberation Diane Kirkby, Lee-Ann Monk, and Emma Robertson In Australia in the early 1970s, the emergence of the women’s liberation movement turned its attention to the role of trade unions in bringing about change. A transforming labor market saw a rise in women’s employment. Women’s activism pressed individual unions and the highest union body, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), to adopt policies that could improve women’s earning power through access to higher-paid occupations. This chapter traces the progress of this policy development to get women into non-traditional occupations. We document the impetus for change and influence that flowed between the ACTU and the unions. A Working Women’s Charter Campaign was organized throughout Australia and convened a number of conferences between 1975 and 1977 with the aim of having the charter adopted by the ACTU and individual unions. Through a focus on key unions in the transport industry, our research illuminates the influence of women’s activism on the Australian labor movement and shows the impact on unions as organizations “traditionally reserved for men.” By the 1980s, the success of the Working Women’s Charter led to women taking on leadership roles.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 335

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

336

Chapter Abstracts

The Strike, the Household, the Gendered Division of Labor, and International Networks: Women Auxiliaries and the Ship Repair Workers’ Strike (Genoa, 1955) Marco Caligari Exploring women’s activism during the ship repair workers’ strike in 1955, this chapter seeks to develop a gendered approach to the history of labor in Genoa in the 1950s. The analysis connects the workplace with the private sphere of the household, showing how women’s actions were essential for supporting the port workers’ struggle and how women tried to advance the idea of women’s emancipation. The article is divided into three sections. First, it provides an overview of the existing literature as well as the historical context, including the principal elements of the ship repairers’ strike and the nature of both the female auxiliary groups and the Union of Italian Women (Unione Donne Italiane, UDI). Second, the chapter discusses the relevance of women’s material and moral support for the port workers’ strikes. Third, the chapter analyzes the political discussions—statements, speeches, and institutional and private correspondence—of the women’s associations regarding gender roles in Genoa and Italy more generally, and their proposals to promote women’s emancipation. “In Order to Safeguard the Lives of Our Children and Families”: Resistance and Protest of Women Workers in the Greek Tobacco Industry, 1945–1970 Thanasis Betas This chapter focuses on the Greek tobacco industry in which female work was dominant throughout the twentieth century. It examines trade unionism, protest, and the resistance of women workers in the period 1945–1970 through the example of one of the largest Greek cigarette companies, the Matsaggos tobacco industry. Female workers actively participated in the strikes that broke out in the large tobacco factories in Greece in this period. Apart from the common demands of both male and female workers, a series of demands mainly concerned with labor terms and conditions was made exclusively by women workers. Low wages, the arbitrary behavior of foremen, non-existent working regulations, large fines, intensive work, unfair and secret wages, and improvements in the position of company favorites were often denounced by female workers, who actively participated in the general assemblies of their unions in the large Greek tobacco companies. The women workers challenged the disciplinary rules in different ways. Apart from their participation in “official” forms of protest such as strikes and work stoppages for a few hours, it seems that female workers also expressed their dissatisfaction in informal and “unofficial” ways too. A series of informal practices and collective actions was developed and adopted in cigarette factories by women as a means of evading or bending the strict operating regulations of the factory production model or, in other words, as a means of resistance to Taylorism.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 336

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Chapter Abstracts

337

Inside the Factory, Outside the Party-state: The Agency of Yugoslav Women Workers in Late Socialism (1976–1989) Rory Archer This chapter explores the agency of Yugoslav women workers beyond party-state and self-management institutions. Suggesting a concept of agency that incorporates less formal activities and strategies of accessing welfare to secure one’s well-being, the chapter focuses on two phenomena: absenteeism through sick leave and strategic avoidance of party-state institutions. Taking sick leave as a way of dealing with insufficient childcare facilities available in many workplaces was so widespread that factory management and local authorities incorporated high levels of absenteeism into their plans. Absenteeism provoked perennial discussions about how to best rectify childcare and other welfare needs and balance the demands of productive factory work and social reproduction. The second phenomena concerns the ambiguous ways that one’s classed and gendered position in the social space impacted participation and attitudes toward party-state institutions in the late socialist workplace. For working-class women, particularly those working in unskilled positions like cleaners, couriers, or in food preparation in factory canteens, their labor was devalued according to dominant Yugoslav factory hierarchies that favored direct production. Therefore, their participation in the institutions of self-management yielded different results as compared to that of more skilled (usually male) workers. Non-participation in formal structures can be understood as a tactic of maintaining agency on the shop floor. Unburdened by the pressures of party membership, some women were able to advance their living standards through self-help precisely because of their inactivity in institutions. The chapter concludes by suggesting that agency can be understood as an elastic and expanded concept in a feminist history of labor that should not be limited to formal organization and activism. Work and the Politics of the Injured Body: Nurse Activism, Occupational Risk, and the Politics of Care in the United States Elizabeth Faue This article explores the shift toward activism among nurses and other health care workers in the United States in the late twentieth century as they reformulated a professional ethic of care and sacrifice into committed and engaged worker activism. Seeing the connections between patient advocacy and improving working conditions in the health care sector, nurse associations such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and National Nurses United (NNU) argued for improved health care as a common public good. Organizing drives and nursing strikes in the 1960s and 1970s and campaigns for workplace safety protocols at the dawn of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s were fundamental drivers of this shift. Campaigns for greater protection against needlestick injuries (and Hepatitis-B and HIV/AIDS) were a powerful response to the growing physical precarity of women health-care workers under managed

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 337

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

338

Chapter Abstracts

care systems. During these years, unions and women’s, civil rights, gay rights, and public health organizations challenged employers, federal officials, and government agencies to address workplace health hazards. New chemicals and biohazards, inadequate protective equipment, and increased patient-nurse ratios have increased both occupational risks of health care workers and nurse militancy, as shown in their militant responses to the current pandemic. Women Activists’ Relationship to Peasant Women’s Work in Yugoslavia in the 1930s Isidora Grubački This chapter delves into the history of the feminist movement in interwar Yugoslavia to address the question of the character of feminist and gender activism in a predominantly agricultural country in Southeastern Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. More specifically, by looking at two examples of women’s activism in Yugoslavia in the 1930s, both associated with the work of the feminist interwar organization Women’s Movement (Ženski pokret)—on the one hand, Darinka Lacković’s domestic schools for peasant women, and on the other, communist women’s activism—the chapter explores the connections between women’s activism and peasant women’s work. It argues that peasant women’s work was one of the key concerns for feminist and women activists who focused their attention on the countryside, and that by conceptualizing peasant women’s work, these activists aimed to influence peasant women’s lives and contribute to the transformation of society. The chapter analyzes and carefully contextualizes both conceptualizations of peasant women’s work. In conclusion, it discusses the synchronic and diachronic entanglements of the two cases, pointing to the specificities of the ideological divergence between them, and, more broadly, to what can be regarded as a shift in the dominant views of women’s activism in the 1930s. Women in the Trade Union Movement and Their Biographies: The Camera del Lavoro (Chamber of Labor) in Milan (1945–1965) Debora Migliucci The chapter takes into consideration the career paths of women trade unionists at the Milan Chamber of Labor. It covers their biographies, the ways in which they were included in the mixed union’s hierarchy, the demands they brought to the unions’ agenda, and the difficulties they encountered as they endeavored to acquire visibility and power. It brings to light those women whose faces and voices shaped unique social and organizational battles. For many years, the history of the Milan Chamber of Labor has been presented from a purely male perspective, whereby women members of the trade unions indeed acted entirely within male-dominated organizations. This chapter discusses women’s power roles and positions of leadership, their projects and demands, whether and how they managed to include the specific issues affecting working women and activists into the union’s demands, and the overall role of their activism within the

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 338

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Chapter Abstracts

339

male-dominated universe of trade unionism. The chapter tells us that the complicated relationship between women and the trade union movement is not only an issue of representation. It is, above all, a problem of organization—both formal and informal—and of the determination to carry forward a political agenda that implies sacrifice and political exposure. It is a case of women trade unionists’ “inconvenient but essential” resistance and challenges to the power of male or masculinist leadership and, more generally, the patriarchal system. French Trade Unionists Go International: The Circulation of Ideas on the Education and Training of Women Workers in the 1950s and 1960s Françoise F. Laot In the aftermath of World War Two, workers’ education (trade unionist, vocational, and social education) was in a period of full-scale development in Eastern and Western countries. Noticing that the relevant schemes and programs rarely addressed women, a number of female trade unionists began to call for substantive equality of access to education and training for women and men. Among them were three French union activists from different trade unions, Madeleine Colin, Simone Troisgros, and Rose Étienne. All three women developed an international activist career within the international trade unions to which their national organizations were affiliated. Because of their interest in women workers’ education and vocational training, the women participated in several UNESCO and ILO meetings on this topic. This is how they crossed the paths of other trade unionist women, notably Sigrid Ekendahl from Sweden, and the Belgian unionist Marcelle Dehareng. This chapter showcases the role of several individuals who contributed to the elaboration of an international discourse responsible for disseminating ideas about a “new” social topic. Trade Union Feminism in Lyon: Commissions-femmes as Sites of Resistance and Well-being in the 1970s Anna Frisone This chapter focuses on the experience of “trade union feminism” in France in the 1970s. In the framework of the feminist movement that was flourishing internationally at the time, women unionists fought to infuse union politics with a new gendered perspective. Considering the specific claims raised by the female workforce, they sought to reshape traditional conceptualizations of class identity in order to acknowledge women as fully political actors in the realm of social conflict. Women unionists did so by setting up new structures, les commissions-femmes, which were part of the trade unions but developed women-only activities (embracing the feminist principle of non-mixité). The first part of the chapter explores the history of these structures in Lyon by integrating the analysis of both archival documents and in-depth original interviews. Women defined the commissions-femmes as places of well-being, highlighting them as sites of workrelated political elaboration but also sites they identified as safe spaces to share

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 339

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

340

Chapter Abstracts

life experiences and build a new collective identity. The second part focuses on the role played by Georgette Vacher, a prominent figure in the local CGT commission in Lyon whose experience deeply marked the whole of union feminism in France as well as its historical memory. Through an analysis of her writings and her comrades’ reflections connected to her tragic death, the chapter sheds light on the intersection between women unionists’ public engagement on labor issues and their personal—although collective—search to improve their lives in a broader sense. Working Women on the Move: Genealogies of Gendered Migrant Labor Maria Tamboukou This chapter examines the work experiences of migrant and refugee women on the move by tracing a long genealogy of gendered memories of work in the garment industry. As histories of the present, genealogies have thrown light on the social, political, and cultural conditions that underpin the state of the garment industry today. But they have also unveiled “events” that have disrupted labor, gender, and racial discrimination and oppression. The chapter unfolds in three sections. First, it looks at the current phenomena of labor exploitation in the garment industry under conditions of forced displacement, particularly considering the conditions of migrant and refugee women workers. It then revisits feminist genealogies of labor migration in the US garment industry by focusing on Jewish, Italian, Chicanas, and Chinese garment workers. In doing so, the chapter points to hierarchies, divisions, and exclusions within the US labor movement that developed at the intersection of gender, race, ethnic, and national differences. To conclude, the chapter reflects on the insights that genealogical explorations in feminist labor histories have brought to the fore, highlighting three areas: a) the need to rethink agonistic politics from the perspective of “the foreigner”; b) the importance of recognizing the contribution of anarchist women in the histories of the labor movement; and c) the urgency of decolonizing feminist labor histories through international, transnational, and trans-ethnic approaches, a project at the heart of the whole volume.

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 340

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Index

“21. Maj” engine producer (Belgrade), 177 absenteeism, 169, 172–74, 176–77, 183–84 activism, 1–9, 59, 82, 104–5, 170, 184, 190, 213; asymmetrical, 233; gendered history of labor, 11–15, 39, 125; mixed-gender, 56, 105, 137; trade union, 253, 278–80, 296–97, 307, 314; women-only/single sex, 53–54, 128, 211–13, 283–88 Adams, Carole, 61 Africa, 4, 14, 79, 193, 258 agency, 1, 3, 11, 12, 21–25, 31, 43, 168, 169–171, 176, 177, 179, 183–185, 278, 333, 337 agonistic politics, 318–20, 340 agricultural labor/work, workers, 7, 214, 217, 224–25, 228, 244 AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). See HIV AIDS Education Committee (AEC, USA), 197, 199 Alberganti, Giuseppe, 238, 248 Alcântara, 41 Alembre, Laurinda, 29, 53 Alessandria, 133 Alltagsgeschichte, 168 Altobelli, Argentina, 246 Amarante, Gertrudes, 46 American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees (AFSCME), 190, 191, 195, 198, 205 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 190, 205, 206 American Nurses Association (ANA), 188, 190–91, 193, 195, 197 Amnesty International, 301 Amsterdam, 5, 62, 106

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 341

anarchist, anarchists, anarchism, 30, 241, 246, 303, 305, 323–24 ancillary role, 140 Ancona, 135 Annoni, Carolina, 238 Ansaldo (factory), 135–38 anti-communism, 128–30 anti-fascism; anti-fascist movement, 29, 133n, 135, 241, 249–51, 308 Aparício, Laura Mendes Fernandes, 54 Araújo, Amarina Rego Martins d’, 51 Argentina, 36, 76 Asia, 4, 14, 258, 318; Asians, 309, 316, 319 Associação Conimbricense de Socorros Mútuos para o Sexo Feminino Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes (Olímpio Nicolau Rui Fernandes Conimbricense Mutual Association of the Female Sex), 44, 45 Associação de Proteção e Instrução do Sexo Feminino Funchalense (Female Association of Protection and Instruction of Funchal), 44, 47 Associação de Socorros Mútuos A Feminina (Female Mutual Association), 44, 47 Associação de Socorros Mútuos A Fraternizadora (Fraternizer Mutual Aid Association), 44, 47 Associação de Socorros Mútuos Autonomia das Senhoras (Autonomous Mutual Association of Ladies), 44, 46 Associação de Socorros Mútuos das Senhoras Portuenses (Mutual Association of Ladies from Porto), 44 Associação de Socorros Mútuos de Empregados no Comércio de Lisboa (Trade Employees Mutual Aid Assotiation in Lisbon), 53

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

342

Index

Associação de Socorros Mútuos do Pessoal Jornaleiro dos Tabacos (Mutual Association of Daily Tobacco Workers), 44, 49 Associação de Socorros Mútuos do Sexo Feminino do Funchal 15 de Setembro de 1901 (Women’ s Mutual Aid Association September 15, 1901), 44, 47, 48, 51 Associação de Socorros Mútuos na Inabilidade Feminista da Madeira D. Filipa de Vilhena (D. Filipa de Vilhena Mutual Association of Feminist Disability of Madeira), 44, 57 Associação de Socorros Mútuos Nossa Senhora do Socorro (Protective Association of Our Lady Help), 44, 45 Associação de Socorros Mútuos Rainha D. Amélia (Mutual Association Queen D. Amélia), 44, 49 Associação Protectora e Montepio das Senhoras e Crianças (Protective Association of Women and Children), 44, 45 Association générale des agents des PTT (France), 68–90 Associazioni Cristiane dei Lavoratori Italiani (Christian Association of Italian Workers, ACLI), 131 Athens, 326 Australia, Australian, 2–4, 20, 36, 74, 76, 78, 103–21, 274 Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations (ACSPA), 110 Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Employees (AFULE), 103, 117 Australian Labor Party (ALP), 104, 110, 120 Australian Railways Union (ARU), 117, 118 Austria, 63, 64, 69, 70, 72, 78 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 64 auxiliaries, auxiliary groups, 43, 66, 125–27, 132, 135–40, 143–44 Avdela, Efi, 61, 66 Bachrach, Susan, 61, 66 Badalona, 91

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 342

Bagnoli, Ione, 247, 251 Bambace, Angela, 308 Bangladesh, 323 Barać, Stanislava, 214, 221 Barcelona, 81, 85–86, 88–96, 99, 331 Barlow, Lillian, 191 Bavaria, 64 Beccalli, Bianca, 238 Beirão, Sara, 29, 46, 49, 52 Belgium, 38, 64, 70, 72n, 77–78, 262, 267, 271 Belgrade, 169, 171, 177–85, 214, 218, 219n, 220, 222n, 226 Berlin, 17, 75 Bern (Berne), 70, 74, 79 Bibliothèque Durand, 280 biographies (autobiographies), 1, 11, 18, 20, 26–30, 178, 214n, 236, 238–240, 253, 292, 295, 303, 305, 307, 310, 312, 316, 323–324; and working women’s history, 28, 275 Black Panthers, Black Panther Party, 191–92 Bock, Gisela, 8 Bologna, 5, 127, 133, 136 Bonaccini, Aldo, 248 Borderías, Cristina, 60, 62 Borwegen, Bill, 199n, 203–4 Bosnia, 227, 228; Bosnian, 217n, 321 Boston, Sarah, 237 bound feet, 316, 318–19 Brambilla Pesce, Onorina (Nori), 238, 247, 250 Briskin, Linda, 189, 253 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 300 Brooklyn, 307 Brussels, 268, 270 Bulgaria, 70, 266 Cabernardi, 135 Cabete, Adelaide, 55 Cambodia, 323 Camera del Lavoro (Chamber of Labor, Italy), 20, 29, 235–44, 246, 248–250, 252

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Index Canada, 76 care work, 43, 60, 65, 189–90, 253, 288, 302. See also family burden; labor Castillo, Bonnie, 187, 207 Catalonia, Catalan, 84–86, 90, 95n, 96–97, 99–100 Catania, Tina, 306–7 Catasta, Anna, 241 Catholicism, Catholic, 86, 89, 92–93, 129, 130, 132, 243, 278–79, 282 Centers for Disease Control (CDC, USA), 195, 200–2 Central Europe. See under Europe Centro Italiano Femminile (Italian Women’s Center, CIF), 132 Chambrin, Mrs., 69 Chicanas, 300, 310, 312–13 childcare, 50, 55, 110, 112, 128, 140, 169, 170, 172, 174–75, 177, 184, 288; in kindergarten, 154, 168, 169–72, 176, 178, 288 China, 314, 318–19 Chinatown, 314, 316–319 Chinese Digest, 316–17 Chinese Exclusion Act, 316 Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (CLGWU), 317 Chinese Working Women Network (CWWN), 319 Christian Democrats (Italy), 129, 236, 244 Chung Sai Yat Po, 317 Civil Rights Movement, 191 Clark, Anna, 11 class. See cross-class/mixed-class organizing/activism; working class; see also under gender Class Association for Ironing Workers (Portugal), 53 Class Association for Maids (Portugal), 53 Class Association of Seamstresses and Tailors (Portugal), 53 Class Association of Tobacco Handlers (Portugal), 53 Cobble, Dorothy Sue, 11, 53–54, 253, 268 Cohn, Fannia Mary, 321

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 343

343

Coimbra, 43–45 Cold War, 22, 128–29, 168, 256, 258–59 Colgan, Fiona, 244, 249 Comisiones Obreras (Workers’ Commissions, CCOO, Spain), 20, 81, 83–101 Comisiones Obreras Juveniles (Youth Workers’ Commissions, COJ, Catalonia), 9–94 Comissió Obrera de Barcelona (Workers’ Commission of Barcelona, COB), 86 Comissió Obrera Nacional de Catalunya (National Workers’ Commission of Catalonia, CONC), 90, 95–97 Comitato Familiari Portuali (Port Families Committee, Italy), 131 commissions-femmes (France), 278, 280, 285–86, 296–97 Committees for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH), 191 communism, communists, 2, 9, 18, 29, 72, 76, 89–90, 92, 93n, 105, 109, 131–33, 137, 139, 140–42, 147–48, 155n, 167, 175–77, 214, 216, 219, 226, 241, 244, 249, 251, 260, 266, 278–79, 282 Communist Party of Australia (CPA), 104n, 105 Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 215, 185, 226, 232 Compagnia Portuale del Ramo Industriale del porto di Genova, 130 Compagnia Unica fra i Lavoratori delle Merci Varie (Unique Corporation among Workers of Various Goods, CULMV, Italy), 130 Confédération française démocratique du travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labor, CFDT), 256, 260–61, 273, 278–80, 282, 285–86, 288, 290, 291n, 293, 295, 297 Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens (French Confederation of Christian Workers, CFTC), 256, 260–61, 267 Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor,

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

344

Index

CGT, France), 20, 30, 256–57, 259–61, 265, 278–80, 282, 283n, 284–86, 288, 291–97 Confédération générale du travail-Force ouvriére (General Confederation of Labor-Workers’ Power, CGT-FO, France), 256, 257n, 259–61, 268n Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (General Confederation of Labor, CGdL, Italy), 236 Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (Italian General Confederation of Labor, CGIL), 131, 133–35, 138–39, 236, 238, 242–43, 247–249, 251–52, 260 Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori (Italian Confederation of Labor Unions, CISL), 131, 247 congress, 55, 57, 92, 226, 240; ACTU, 107–109, 111, 113; Camera del Lavoro of Milan, 242–43, 248; CCOO, 97; CGT, 291, 294; ICFTU, 106, 269, 271; mutualist, 35, 47, 50–52; PTTI, 68, 70–72, 75–78; UDI, 140; US Congress, 117, 192, 196–97, 201, 203–204 Consorzio Autonomo al Porto di Genova (Autonomous Port Consortium in Genoa, CAP), 130, 142 Copenhagen, 78 Council of Trade Unions (ACTU, Australia), 20, 104 Croatian Peasant Party, 213n, 217 cross-class/mixed-class organizing/activism, 3, 17, 27, 49, 54, 57 culturalism, 15, 24n culture of care, 190 Cunha, Albina Guilhermina Martins da, 51 Curli, Barbara, 66 Czechoslovakia,76, 79, 180 Daley, Karen, 203 D’Amico, Ernesto, 65 De Beauvoir, Simone, 280 De Carlini, Lucio, 248 De Moro, Rose Ann, 187 Del Ponte, Adele, 251

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 344

Denmark, 63, 69 Detroit, 191 Di Nola, Giacomo, 307 discrimination, 35, 134, 264, 316; gender, 19, 20, 42, 44, 53, 56, 57, 66, 90, 91, 105, 109, 127, 163, 253, 266, 268, 274, 316, 320, 322; racial, 316, 317, 319, 320, 322 dock workers, 130, 133, 134 domestic activities/duties/tasks, 49, 175, 178, 315 domestic schools, 29, 218–220, 233 domestic servants, 62 domestic work/workers, 40–1, 48–9, 74, 86, 88, 94, 125, 141, 212, 236 double burden, triple burden, 168, 175, 178, 253, 288–90 Dubinsky, David, 312, 313 Dutch Indies, 76 Eastern Europe. See under Europe education. See workers’ education Egypt, 323 Eigensinn, 23, 163 emancipation, emancipationists, 125–26, 128, 139, 141–42, 144, 167, 215n, 224, 232, 241, 253, 279 emigration. See migration employer, 162–3, 194, 197, 199, 201, 256, 272, 274, 301, 308, 311, 313–4, 316, 321–2. See also management equal pay/wage, 63, 69, 71–2, 75, 77, 79, 90, 95– 96, 104, 107–10, 147, 154–6, 211, 226, 246–248, 257–58, 260–61, 265–66, 269. See also piece-rate; wages Estado Novo, 35n, 41, 52 ethics of care, 189–90 Europe, European, 2–5, 11, 14, 16, 20, 36– 40, 64n, 65, 67, 71, 73, 79, 134, 215, 241, 279, 302, 314, 319–20; Central, 213, 215; Eastern, 7, 14, 16, 167, 184, 212, 257; Southern, 303; Southeastern, 211, 213, 220; Western, 9, 16, 257 European Labour History Network (ELHN), 5, 12, 14n, 324

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Index European Union, 300 everyday resistance, 23, 168 Executive Council of the Parliament of Vojvodina (Yugoslavia), 171 family allowance, 63, 73, 75, 77 family burden (commitment/labor/obligation/responsibility), 152–3, 244–45, 252–53, 260, 301, 315. See also care work family economy, 130 family network, 301 farmers, 133, 135–36, 141 Fazio Longo, Rosa, 132 Federal Council of the Yugoslav Parliament, 175 Federated Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA, Australia), 103, 112 Fédération Générale du Travail de Belgique (Belgian Confederation of Trade Unions, FGTB), 262 Federterra, 243, 246 Feinberg, Diane, 207 Female Workers’ Office, 240, 244 feminism; second-wave, 56, 128, 247n, 282, 287, 289; worker, 246; and socialism, 17. See also left feminism; new women’s movement; state feminism; women’s movements Feminist Labor History Working Group of the ELHN, 2n, 5, 324 feminist labor history, 2–5, 10, 11, 13–6, 125, 324; decolonization of, 324 feminist; activism, 46, 111, 213–14, 216, 220–21, 227, 229–33, 265, 278, 284; association, 54, 62–63, 257; collectives, 284, 288; consciousness, 249n; historians/history, 3–4, 8, 18, 146, 170, 212–13, 214n, 305, 324; labor activism, 284n; movement, 20, 54–55, 59, 63, 73, 97–99, 101, 211–12, 214, 277, 280, 282, 284, 287, 296; organization, 51, 55, 59, 73, 214, 218, 223; perspective, 3, 277, 286; theory, 293; tradition, 3–4, 215n. See also feminist labor history; genealogy; see also under trade unions

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 345

345

feminists, 29, 35, 49, 51, 53–57, 98, 120, 156, 214, 219, 231, 233, 241, 249, 249n, 260, 277–79, 282, 284, 284n. See also under trade unions femocrats, 22, 120, 120n Fernandes, Rui, 44, 45 Ferreira, Maria Emília Baptista, 47, 51 Ferro, Peggy, 196, 197, 203 Finland, 76, 264 Florence, 134 Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 305 Fontana, Ida, 241 Frader, Laura L., 9, 10 Fraiture, 72 France, 36, 38, 41, 56, 61, 63–65, 68, 70–71, 77–78, 257 260–62, 265, 268, 275, 277–80, 282–83, 292, 294 Franco, Francisco, 81, 86, 97, 101 Francoism, Franco regime/dictatorship, 2, 20, 82, 85, 100 Funchal, 43, 44, 47, 51 Gallini, Sofia, 54 garment industry, 28, 29, 299–305, 309–10, 312–13, 315–24 Garment Worker Center (GWC, USA), 309, 313 Geddes, Charles J., 78, 80 gender history, 5–8, 10–13, 16–17, 21, 61. See also women’s history gender; essentialist notions of, 167; male, 23, 169; and class, 6, 8–11, 19, 30, 49, 137, 169–70, 185, 212, 215, 229, 222–32; and colonialism, 7; and labor, 2; and ethnicity/nation/race, 22, 169, 304, 310, 316, 318, 320, 322; and organizing, 100; asymmetries, 19; contract, 167–68, 173–76; discrimination, 19, 274, 316; diversity, 261; equality, 67, 72, 77, 258, 266; identity, 165; ideology, 7; interests, 27; oppression, 2; politics, 11, 19, 27; relations, relationships, 21, 127–29, 140, 142–43, 168, 233; roles, 90, 96, 99, 126, 279, 282; segregation, 20; shaping work, 60; gender-specific

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

346

Index

law, protection, 73, 77, 279; stereotypes, 24. See also activism; gender history; gendered; mixed-gender organizing/ activism; women’s history; working mother gender contract; see also under discrimination; international organizations; violence gendered, 2, 7, 100, 108–9, 173, 301; claims, 100; difference, 20; division of labor, 60–61, 125–44, 177, 223, 239; hierarchy, 24, 304; history of labor and work, 1, 5–15, 129, 318; labor contracts, 62; memories, 299; migrant labor, 302, 320; moral standards, 76; perspective, 39, 57, 128, 139, 255, 297; position, 170; power relations, 24, 279; rules, 129; social movements, 22; solidarity, 249; stereotypes, 304; subjugation, 228; workplace, 173 genealogy, 1, 28, 241, 299, 300 General Executive Board (GEB) of the ILGWU. See ILGWU General German Women’s Association, 69, 77 Genoa, 25, 125–26, 130, 133–39, 142–44, 296n Germany, 17–18, 38, 63–64, 69–72, 75, 77–78, 163n, 180, 218n Gilles, Christiane, 279 Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 189 global labor history, 3–5, 10, 12–15, 17, 30, 127, 144 Global Labour History Network (GLHN), 12 global North, 4n, 11 global South (“Third World”), 4, 11, 12, 14, 26, 258 Gnocchi Viani, Osvaldo, 238 Goodolphim, Costa, 39n, 56 Gourdeaux, Mrs., 72 Great Britain, 38, 64, 70, 78, 129 Greece, Greek, 25, 61, 76, 145–48, 154–55, 161, 164, 299 Greek Civil War, 147, 155 Grilo, José Francisco, 52, 55

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 346

Grosseto, 135 Gruppi d’Azione Patriottica (Patriotic Action Groups, GAP, Italy), 249–50 Guangdong, 319 Guelfi, 72 Guimarães, Elina, 54 Hall, Stuart, 10 harbors, 130 hazards at work, 54, 161, 196–97, 202 health and hygiene, 218, 224, 246 health care; activism, 191–92, 201, 205; sector, 192, 194; unions, 187, 198, 204; work/workers, 188–96, 195, 197–208 Health maintenance organizations (HMOs, USA), 194 Health Revolutionary Union Movement (HRUM, USA), 192 Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), 195–96, 198–201, 206 Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), 201–3 Herzegovina, 217n, 227 hidden transcripts, 23 historiographies, 3–5, 7, 9–14, 17, 23, 27, 36, 129n, 145, 212–13, 215n, 244–45, 255– 56, 274, 277, 279, 305, 208, 318, 324 HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), 25, 189, 195–203 home health care aides/workers, 188, 190n, 193, 206, 207 homework, 302, 309 Hong Kong, 318 Horasek, Miss, 72, 73 hospitals, 87, 188, 191–92, 194, 198–99, 202–4 household, 52, 53, 57, 65, 143, 152, 154, 178; male-headed, 35, 43, 46, 129, 140; peasant, agricultural, 217, 222–26, 228–229, 232–33; working-class, 127; labor, 178, 226 housewives, 45, 49, 87–88, 90–91, 93–94, 96, 125, 127, 135–36, 141–42, 212, 218, 224, 230, 264n housing, 154, 172, 177, 179–181, 246, 311. See also squatting

2022.07.30. 22:40:18

Index Igualada, 96 Immigration Act (USA), 318. See also migration India, Indian, 6, 15n, 36, 78, 80, 323 Industrija mašine i traktora (Industry of Machines and Tractors, IMT, Belgrade), 179 infrapolitics, 23, 170, 185 Institut Pasteur (France), 290 International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), 105–6, 108, 256, 258, 261–63, 267–70, 272–73, 275 International Congress of Working Women, 1919, 74 International Council of Women, 218 International Federation of Christian Trade Unions (IFCTU), 256, 261–62, 267, 270, 272–73 International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 76, 268n International Institute of Social History (IISH, Amsterdam), 14n, 62 International Labor Conference (ILC), 263–64, 266, 272 international labor movement, 256, 259, 323. See also labor internationalism; labor movement International Labour Organization (ILO), 20, 29, 73, 105, 256–58, 262–64, 269–74, 324 International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU, USA), 303, 305–9, 311–13, 316–17, 319, 321, 323 international organizations, 26, 255 257–59, 263, 269–70, 275; gendering the history of, 29 International Trade Secretariat (ITS), 268, 270 international trade unionism, 260n International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 68, 218 International Women’s Year (IWY), 96, 97, 110 Internationale du personnel des postes, télégraphes et téléphones (IPTT).

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 347

347

See Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International internationalism, 15 Iotti, Nilde (Leonide), 140 Ireland, 76, 78, 79 Istanbul, 299–303, 312, 320 Italy, 38, 60, 63–65, 67, 70–71, 77, 125–31, 134–36, 138–42, 144, 148, 180, 235–36, 239–41, 246–47, 259, 277, 279n, 303 Japan, 74 Jewish, 300, 322; anarchist, 323; women, 29, 303, 305, 315, 321 Joe Shoong Sewing Factory (USA), 317–18 Jones, Diana, 195, 200 Jordan, 323 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, 211, 216. See also Yugoslavia, Kingdom of Kluz textile factory (Belgrade), 182 Koch, Felix, 70 Kolarić, Ana, 224 Kolshorn, Else, 72, 75–76, 78 la sartina, 304 La Spezia, 137 labor; family, 153, 260, 301; paid, 62, 152; unpaid, 12, 140, 178; commodification of, 13; conflict, 23, 82, 85, 96, 100, 192, 194, 296; history, 2–6, 9–15, 17–18, 212, 237, 255, 303, 318, 321n; market, 12, 20, 24, 35, 40–41, 46, 57, 81, 85, 89, 104, 116, 120, 126, 131, 133n, 137, 156, 167, 252, 257, 264, 281; rights, 73, 77, 98, 100, 129, 257, 319, 322; struggle, 9, 25, 125, 130, 135, 266, 278, 305, 320, 323; unrest, 127, 130, 135–36, 144. See also feminist labor history; global labor history; labor internationalism; labor movement; reproductive labor; family burden; workers; see also under gendered labor history. See feminist labor history; global labor history

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

348

Index

labor internationalism, 15 labor movement, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 15–19, 27, 29, 59, 67, 81–85, 89, 91, 93n, 95–96, 100–01, 103, 106, 112, 128–29, 145, 147, 148n, 187, 245, 247n, 303–05, 308, 316, 318, 321–23. See also international labor movement Lacković, Darinka, 29, 213–14, 219–22, 224–25, 227, 230, 233 Landsorganisationen i Sverige (Swedish Trade Union Confederation, LO), 256, 262 Laot, Jeannette, 279, 261n Latin America, 4, 14, 82, 318 Latvia, 76 Lazzari, Costantino, 238 League of Communists of Yugoslavia, 30, 169, 173, 176, 179–80 League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW, USA), 191–92 League of Seamstresses (Milan), 246 Leal, António da Silva, 38 Ledwith, Sue, 237, 244, 249 Lee, Jane, Kwong, 312–13 Lee, Sue, Ko, 318 left feminism, 214–15, 227, 227n, 229–233 LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender), 198 Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN, USA), 193 Ligue des dames de PTT (France), 77 Ligue des femmes (France), 78 Liguria, 137, 140 Lima, José Lobo d’Ávila, 48 Lisbon Class Association of Bookbinding Workers (Portugal), 54 Lisbon Press Workers’ Union (Portugal), 54 Lisbon, 40–46, 49, 51, 53–54, 56 Livorno, 133 Ljiljana, 30, 179–83, 185 London, 64, 70 L’Operaia, 306 Los Angeles (LA), 309–13 Lucini, Maria Pia, 250 L’Unità, 133, 137, 141–42 Luxembourg, 38, 70 Lyon Women’s Bookshop (France), 284

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 348

Macedonia, 213n, 218, 227 Madeira, 36, 44, 57 Magee, Mary, 200 Magni, Maria Luisa, 251 Maier, Ludwig, 73 Makiš wood processing plant (Belgrade), 182 Malaysia, 323 male breadwinner, 43, 128–30, 138–41 male dominance, 1–3, 9, 13, 15–19, 24, 27–8, 37, 49, 57, 59, 63, 95, 106, 111, 113, 120, 244, 277, 283–85 Malnati, Linda, 238 management, 2, 25, 60, 71–72, 143, 147, 158–60, 163–64, 169, 172–74, 176, 182, 193, 201, 206, 246, 252, 317. See also employer Maniacco, Franca, 250 Maori, 26 Marseille, 70 Martins, Virgínia Cândida Rego, 47 Maruani, Margaret, 283 Marxism, 7, 184 masculinity, masculinism, masculinization, 3, 13, 15, 18, 81, 83, 86, 99, 129, 140, 143–44, 238, 248, 252, 281 Massilotti, Clara, 305 material conditions, 132 Maternity Hospital Dr. Alfredo da Costa (Portugal), 43n maternity, 19, 37, 50–51, 53, 57, 69, 73–74, 77, 110, 112, 172, 246 Mauritius, 323 Medicaid (USA), 194 Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR), 191–92 Medicare (USA), 194 Medicare for All (USA), 189n Melis, Guido, 60 Menabrea, Luigi, 64 Mexico City, 22 Mexico, 309 migrant workers, 304, 308–9, 314, 319, 322 migration, 12, 74, 86, 301–4, 310, 318; gender and, 302, 314; labor, 300, 309; policy, 319, 322

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

Index Milan, Milanese, 67, 71–72, 75, 133–34, 236, 239, 241–42, 249–50 militancy, 9, 20, 63, 90, 93–94, 100, 158, 194, 252–53, 284, 286, 305 Milkman, Ruth, 8 Ministry of Agriculture, Industry, and Trade (MAIC, Italy), 246 Mirjana, 30, 173n, 181–83, 185 Misericórdias (Portugal), 38 mixed-gender organizing/activism, 17–19, 27, 35–36, 39, 41–44, 48–49, 54, 56, 77, 236–237, 278, 280, 285–286 Modena, 133 modernization, 6, 15, 161, 169, 220 Montagnana, Mario, 248 Montenegro, 227 Montepio Fraternidade das Senhoras (Mutual Fraternity of Ladies Association), 44, 45 Morrison, Clifford, 198 motherhood, 50, 155, 289n Mouvement républicain populaire (Popular Republican Movement, MRP, France), 261 Moviment Democràtic de Dones (Women’s Democratic Movement, MDD, Catalonia), 90–92, 96, 99–100 Movimiento Comunista (Communist Movement, MC, Spain) 93, 98–99 Mutualism Week, 35, 52n mutualism, mutualist societies, 29, 35–42, 44–54, 56–57 mutualist associations, 44–47, 53, 57 Nadia, 299–302 National Council of Portuguese Women, 46, 49, 51 national health insurance (USA), 188, 192, 194, 208 National Nurses United (NNU, USA), 187–88, 190, 205, 207 National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW, USA), 205 needlestick injuries, 190, 195–96, 198–99, 202–4, 206

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 349

349

Needlestick Safety and Protection Act, 198, 203–04, 206 neighborhood movement, 97 Netherlands, the, 64, 69–70, 77–79, 114 Neves, Maria Rosa da Silva, 47, 51 new women’s movement, 19–20, 144 New York, 188, 302–8, 318–22 New Zealand, 79 NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), 268, 273, 300 Norway, 64 Norwood, Stephen, 61–62 nurse activism, 187 nursing, 106, 188–91, 193–95, 197–98, 206; division of labor in, 189–90, 194, 223, 232, 235, 239; labor force in, 190n, 192–93, 206, 208, 313; workload in, 190, 194, 197, 204; and occupational hazards, 197; and race and ethnic divisions, 194; and unionism, 192, 194 O Século, 35, 52 occupational hazards, occupational risks, 195, 197, 207 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA, USA), 197n, 199–203, 206 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), 120 Omaha, Nebraska, 306 Oporto, 40, 42–44, 47, 51 oral history, 84, 169, 173n, 178, 277, 296 Orleck, Anneliese, 11 Ortigão, Maria Adelaide Ferraz da Ponte, 51 Osório, Ana de Castro, 55 paddies, 139 Palestine, 76 pandemic, Covid-19, 206 Paris, Parisian, 5, 39n, 64, 69–70, 76, 134, 260, 283 Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party, PCF), 260, 261n, 294 partisan(s), 135, 167, 238, 241, 249–251

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

350

Index

Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party, PCI), 131, 133, 134n, 136, 138–39, 143, 236, 244, 251 Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party, PSI), 60, 131, 236 Partito Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (Catalan Communist Party, PSUC), 84, 86–90, 92–93, 95, 97–100 paternalism, paternalistic, 92, 176, 281 patriarchy, patriarchal, 17, 129, 139–141, 167, 215, 224, 252, 282, 305, 309, 312–314 Pavia, 133 Pearl River, 314 peasant women, 2, 29, 211–15, 217–25, 227–33 periodical studies, 214 personal protective equipment (PPE), 188, 204 Pesce, Giovanni, 250 Pesotta, Rose, 29, 303, 305–8, 310–14, 316, 323–24 piece-rate, 311, 315; piece-rate wages, 311, 315; piecework, 158–59, 237, 246, 321 Piombino, 127 Pisa (province), 133 Poincaré, Raimond, 77 Poland, 323 Polesine, 135 political advocacy, 189, 205 political participation/non-participation, 30, 146, 169–70, 172, 178–79, 181, 183, 185 politics of care, 189, 192, 208 Polleri, Angela, 136 popular front, 136, 227, 232 port workers cooperatives, 130 port workers, 126, 130–131, 133, 135–38, 140–42, 144 ports, 125, 130, 132, 143–44 Portelli, Alessandro, 178 Porto. See Oporto Portugal, 29, 35–40, 42, 53–56, 70, 82; Primeira República (First Republic), 35, 42, 51

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 350

Portuguese Midwives’ Association, 53 postal, telegraph, and telephone (PTT), 59, 62–63, 65–72, 74–80, 260, 284 Postal, Telegraph and Telephone International (PTTI), 19, 20, 59, 62–63, 70–71, 73, 75, 76–80 postcolonial studies, postcolonialism, 10, 12 private sphere, 24, 85, 96, 127, 132, 140–41, 280–281, 292 Professional Union of Nurses of the Southern Region (Portugal), 54 propaganda, 55, 87, 128, 133, 138, 245, 250 protests, 12, 17, 22, 25, 54, 56, 83, 85–86, 96, 127, 129, 137, 145–49, 151, 154–58, 161–65, 168, 187–88, 205–6, 285, 305 PTT Federation (Italy), 67 public sphere, 24–25, 125, 127, 130, 136, 140, 142–43, 146, 280–81 Puerto Rico, 318 Re, Giuseppina (Pina), 238, 246, 250–51 Rebosio, Vittorina, 251 refugees; women, 29, 299–300, 314, 323; workers, 312 Reggio Emilia, 133, 135–36, 250 Registered Nurses (RNs, USA), 193 reproductive labor, 132, 175, 189, 224 Republican League of Portuguese Women, 46, 55 Rita, Guilherme Augusto de Santa, 41, 43, 47, 49, 56 Rogerat, Chantal, 279, 295n Rome, 55, 67–68, 131 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 307 Rose, Sonya O., 9–10 Rosendo, Vasco, 36 Rossi, Maria Maddalena, 132, 134, 142 Rovelli, Ida, 243, 249 Russia, Russians, 64, 74, 311; pogroms in, 303 Sacchi, Ettore, Legge Sacchi (Sacchi Law), 70 San Francisco Chronicle, 202

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

Index San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), Ward 5B (HIV/AIDS, USA), 198, 200 San Francisco, 193, 309, 314–317 San Severo, 135 Sangari, Kumkum, 6 Santos, António Martins dos, 45 Savona, 133, 137 Schiatti, Artenice, 243, 250 Scott, James C., 23, 168 Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA), 103, 105,–6, 112–17 Seamstresses’ Class Association (Portugal), 53 Second Feminist and Education Congress, 55 Second National Mutuality Congress (Portugal), 50 Secretaria de la Dona (Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, SD, Spain), 97–99 Secretaría de la Mujer (Secretariat for Women’s Affairs, SM, Spain), 97–99 See, Low How, 315 self-management, 25, 30, 169–70, 173, 175, 177, 179–81, 183–85, 286 Seljanka, 213–15, 219, 221–25, 227, 228, 230–33 Sen, Samita, 7, 11 separate organizing, 18, 240, 252, 285; activism, 92; separate organizational structures, 19, 84, 110, 244. See also women-only organizing separatism, 18, 287, 311 Serbian National Women’s Council, 218, 222n Service Employees International Union (SEIU), 190, 193, 195, 197–206; Local, 250 sexual harassment, 173n, 190, 204 Shenzhen, 319 Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike, 320 shop floor, 169–70, 172, 175, 177 Sicily, 135 sick leave, 154, 169, 170–7, 182, 184–85 Siena, 133 Silva, José Ernesto Dias da, 50–52 Sindacato Unitario Nazionale Inquilini e Assegnatari (National Unitary Union

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 351

351

of Tenants and Assignees, SUNIA, Italy), 251 Singapore, 323 single-sex organizing/activism, 2n, 17–9, 39 280, 286 Sloga textile factory (Zrenjanin, Serbia), 171–7, 181, 184 smuggling, 180–81, 183 social movements, 22, 27, 92–93, 100, 127, 191, 287, 294 social reproduction, 13, 31, 60, 170, 224 social workers, 87, 89, 90, 94, 189 socialism, 17, 70, 168, 249 socialist modernity/modernization, 167–69 Society of Instruction and Beneficence of the Worker’s Voice (Portugal), 51, 55 solidarity committee, 136, 137 solidarity network, 88–9, 127, 131–32, 134–35, 138, 144, 301 solidarity, 8, 17, 28, 37, 51, 70, 87, 91, 96, 128, 133–34, 136, 137, 139, 141, 143, 155, 235, 249 South Africa, 79 Southeastern Europe. See under Europe Soviet Union, 9, 14, 167, 184 Spain, 20, 36, 38, 62, 81–82, 92, 96, 97–100 Spanish Civil War, 81, 88 squatting, 180–182 state feminism, 22 state socialism, state-socialist, 2, 7, 14, 24, 30, 167–69, 176, 178, 183–84 Stein Erlich, Vera, 212 Steinkopf, Miss, 76 Stolić, Ana, 213, 218 strikes, 17, 25, 28, 55, 71, 82, 96, 126, 127, 139, 146–48, 154, 156–57, 161, 164, 193–94, 205, 305, 321 Styles, Margareta, 197 subaltern studies, 3, 6, 12, 26 support network, 125, 133–35, 142 sweatshops, 316 Sweden, 64, 256 Switzerland, 38, 64, 70, 77

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

352

Index

Taiwan, 323 Taranto, 133 teachers, 45, 56, 66, 88, 94, 219; league, 71; strikes, 161 Technical and Further Education (TAFE), 112 Teixeira, Arminda, 54 Terni, 127 Terrassa, 91 Thailand, 323 Thiebaud, Lorraine, 203 Thiede, Paula, 17–18 Thieme, Miss, 72 Tito, Josip Broz, 184 tobacco industry, 25, 40, 44, 147, 148–50, 153, 156, 160, 162–64 tobacco workers, 55, 154, 159, 161–62 Tomić, Milica, 220 trade unionism, 18, 60, 67, 70, 72, 79, 108, 147–48, 156, 159, 161, 238, 245, 247, 255, 261, 279, 282, 292. See also international trade unionism trade unions; and women workers, 5, 7, 7n, 18–20, 24, 60–61, 63, 69, 72–73, 77–79, 82, 84, 99, 103–4, 107, 119–20, 236–7, 244–47, 254, 258, 262–3, 282, 311–14, 322; feminism, feminists, 2, 20, 277–79, 282–84, 291–92, 294, 296. See also trade unionism; unionization transnational, 2, 3, 11, 12, 15, 17, 20, 26, 37, 53, 56, 73, 127, 268, 291n, 304–5, 324 Triangle fire, 320 Trieste, 180 Troise, Romelia, 67, 68 Trollope, Anthony, 66 Turati, Filippo, 67 Turin, 5, 134, 266, 271 Turin Women’s House (Italy), 291n Turkey, 29, 180, 300, 323 Tuscany, 135, 136 UNESCO, 256–57, 262–63, 266, 269–72 Union of Australian Women (UAW), 106, 114 Union of Public Sector Employees (UNISON, USA), 244

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 352

Unione Donne Italiane (Union of Italian Women, UDI), 25, 125–27, 133–44, 205, 250 Unione Italiana del Lavoro (Italian Labor Union, UIL), 131, 247 unionization, 6, 60, 61 unions. See trade unions United Nations, 21, 90, 96; commission, 265, 268–69, 271; conference, 270 United States of America, 2–4, 11, 25, 29, 36, 54, 64, 70, 74, 76, 78, 105, 127, 134, 137, 187–89, 191, 193–95, 199, 205, 268, 300, 303–4, 306, 308–10, 314, 318–24 Universal Scientific Congress of Welfare Institutions (Portugal), 38 Uruguay, 74 Vacher, Georgette, 29–30, 278–81, 283–84, 286, 291–96 Vaia, Alessandro, 250 Vaid, Sudesh, 6 van der Linden, Marcel, 14, 37, 126–27, 143 Van Giessel, 72 Vasconcellos, João Leme Homem de, 47 Vasconcelos, Estevão de, 50 Vecchio, Stella, 238, 241, 246–47, 250–51, 253 Veleda, Maria, 49, 51 Venegoni, Carlo, 238 Venegoni, Guido, 238 Venice, 133 Verband der Deutschen Reichspost- und Telegraphenbeamtinnen (Union of German Imperial Female Post and Telegraph Clerks, VDRPT), 69, 72, 75, 77 Vercelli, 133 Vertemara, Luigia, 251 Vidal, Angelina, 46, 49, 55 Vienna, 72–73 ,75, 79 Vietnam, 323 violence; against women, 229; genderbased, 301; workplace, 204–5, 204n. See also sexual harassment Vode, Angela, 229 Vojvodina, 171, 227

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

Index Volonteri, Santa, 246 Volos Labor Center (VLC, Greece), 159–60 wage, 57, 61–62, 138, 154, 173–74, 177, 293, 311, 313; decent, 67; family, 290; high/higher, 60, 191, 317; low/lower, 50, 59–60, 63–64, 66, 78–79, 154, 158, 160, 164, 172, 191, 257, 309, 314–19; minimum, 310–11; undisclosed, 164; unpaid, 314; women’s, 43, 50, 96, 128; cuts, 78, 321; demands, 154, 164, 318–19; discrimination, 66; earner, 107, 157, 228; gap, 77, 95; increase, 95, 100, 109, 155, 161, 164, 318; labor/work, 40, 56, 236. See also equal pay; piece-rate Washerwomen’s Association (Portugal), 53 Washington, 55, 72, 74 Waterside Workers Federation (WWF, Australia), 106 Watson, Edna, 192 Weingarten, Randi, 190, 206 West-centrism, 10, 24 Western Europe. See under Europe Women Defense Group, 131 women. See under activism; feminism; Jewish; peasant women; refugees; trade unions; violence; wage; women-only organizing; working class; workers; and the following entries Women’s Commission (Italy), 240, 250 Women’s Coordination (Italy), 240, 248 women’s history, 5–13, 26n. See also gender history women’s labor leagues, 244 Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF, France), 280, 282, 284 women’s movements, 15–17, 19, 20, 63, 92, 97, 103, 110, 119, 189, 217, 220, 278, 289. See also new women’s movement Women’s Office (Italy), 240, 244 women’s organizations, 1, 17, 27, 77, 91–92, 97, 100, 114, 128, 140, 184, 212, 218, 245 women’s organizing, 17, 19

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 353

353

Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL, USA), 237, 306 women-only organizing/activism, 16, 35–36, 42–42, 48–49, 53–54, 57, 77, 237, 252–253, 277–278, 280, 282n, 285–288, 293–294. See also separate organizing workers; blue-collar, 87–88, 93–94; cannery, 55; chemical, 244; clerical, 239; factory, 135–37; food service, industry, 189, 207, 251; garment, 300–22; hospital, 188; hotel and canteen, 250; industrial, 87, 89, 93; laundry, 134; Jewish women, 315; low wage, 314; male, 54, 60, 70, 76–77, 79, 81, 84, 96, 98–99, 120, 135, 139, 159, 170, 248, 254, 257–58; maintenance, 189; married women, 72, 152; migrant women, 26, 303–14; paddy, 245; placement of, 235; railway, 117, 161; regular, 157, 240; skilled, 23, 170, 185, 235, 245; social, 87–90, 93–94, 189; struggle, 7, 90, 125, 134, 139, 279; textile, 147, 168, 171–72, 244; transport, 107, 115; unskilled, 169, 185, 235, 245; waterside, 106; white-collar, 87–89, 93–94, 183; women, 8, 17, 20, 23, 39, 52, 59–61, 70, 76, 83, 90, 92, 96, 100–1, 107–9, 147, 149–50, 156, 158, 164, 175, 185, 197, 206, 228, 279, 291, 306, 319, 323; and family burden, 152–53; and family strategies, 143; and recruitment, 131; councils, 181; education, 255–74, 360; health, 161; movement, 12, 36–37, 212, 238, 277, 295, 323; organization, 92–93, 106, 155n, 274, 277–78, 280, 283, 296; sick leave, 174, 176. See also domestic work/workers; tobacco workers; trade unions; see also under health care working class, 9, 11, 13–14, 36, 56, 83, 127, 129, 136–37, 139, 141, 152, 155, 159, 161, 169, 255, 278; activism, 305; communities, 27, 129; culture, 128; families, 135, 139–41; households, 127;

2022.07.30. 22:40:19

354

Index

history, 8; interests, 81; masculinity, 140; movement, 141; neighborhood, 41, 96; organization, organizing, 7, 18; politics, 7n; respectability, 140; struggle, 138; women, 1, 16–19, 30, 35, 49, 68, 127, 137, 141, 169–70, 178, 182–85 working conditions, 20, 45, 49, 60, 62–63, 66–67, 70–71, 96, 100, 148, 154–55, 158–60, 171–72, 188, 191, 194, 203–4, 207, 281, 290, 293, 310, 316, 318–19 working mother gender contract, 167, 173–76 Working Women’s Charter, 20, 110–12, 117–19, 121 World Conference on Women, 1975, 21 World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), 105, 256, 258–61, 265–67, 269–70, 272–73 World War One, 38, 73, 129, 217, 226 World War Two, 29, 134, 167, 261 Xabregas, 41

Women_Work_Activism_PART 3.indd 354

Young Lords (USA), 191–92 Yugoslav National Women’s Council, 218 Yugoslavia, Yugoslav, 25, 29, 78, 167–73, 175–80, 183–85, 211–18, 220–22, 224, 226–27, 232–33; Kingdom of, 211, 217. See also Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes Zagreb, 222 Zanaboni, Pina, 249 Zanardelli, Giuseppe, 64 Zanetta, Abigaille, 238, 241 Zanini, Maria, 67 Zelenka, Stefanie, 72–73, 75 Žena danas, 214, 227, 228–33 Žena, 220, 224 Ženski pokret, 214, 218–21, 223, 226–27, 231, 233 Ženski pokret’s Youth section (Yugoslavia), 214, 219, 226–27, 231 Zrenjanin, 171–72, 177, 181, 184

2022.07.30. 22:40:19