Women and the Labour Movement April Speaker: Joey Hartman and the Re: Sisters
Vancouver Historical Society NEWSLETTER ISSN 0042 - 2487 April 2015 Vol. 54 No. 7 Bread & Roses: Women and the Labour Movement April Speaker: Joey Hartman and the Re: Sisters “As we go marching, marching, in the By the first International Women’s Subsequently in the 1940s, most wom- beauty of the day, Day in 1911, almost 6,500 women of en found their union activism limited A million darkened kitchens, a thou- all nationalities represented 8% of the to women’s auxiliaries. Their hus- sand mill lofts gray, paid workforce in Vancouver. Most bands earned a “family wage” and few Are touched with all the radiance that worked as domestic servants, while women participated in waged labour. a sudden sun discloses, other jobs included fish workers, tele- For the people hear us singing “bread phone operators, seamstresses, teach- By the 1970s however, feminism and and roses, bread and roses.” ers and laundresses. economic necessity drove women into the workforce in large These lyrics speak to the need numbers. Unions started to for sustenance, as represented bargain women’s issues such by bread, and beauty in our as maternity leave extensions lives, by roses. Based on a and top up, family leave, flex- poem by James Oppenheim and ible hours, the ability to use inspired by a speech given by sick leave for family mem- Rose Schneiderman, it is as- bers and affirmative action. sociated with a successful 1912 Massachusetts textile strike; By the early 1980s, the however, the message is univer- struggle shifted to equal pay sal. for work of equal value, and other forms of equity.
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