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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. 5 No. 1, 4 January 1941, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The role of the woman worker has always been a decisive factor in the history of the trade union movement. At first the boss utilized her as a source of cheap labor and later to replace men who were engaged in union activities. He used every means available to create hostility between men and women workers. It was not long before women recognized the fact that they had a serious economic problem to solve. Some effective means of resisting the boss was necessary. The only answer was organized unions such as those the men had.
So we have the daughters of native New England farmers in Dover, N.H., 1828, organizing one of the first walkouts by women, against wage reductions and monthly payments. These textile workers organized street parades and protest meetings to publicize their demands. Women textile workers of Lowell published a paper in 1845 called the Voice of Industry. This newspaper was devoted to publicizing conditions of women workers in the textile industry. The militant organization of textile workers gave an impetus to the women workers in the printing, shoe and tobacco trades. Social and educational gatherings were initiated by groups of organized women workers. These groups became centers of hundreds of workers where they spent their free time.
For many years women were organized into separate local unions with no national or international affiliations. This was only because they were refused entry into the international unions of the men workers. Recognizing the significance of the self-organization of the Women workers and the role they began to play in the labor movement, the Knights of Labor, in 1881, admitted women into their organization. Years later, 1918, the AFL admitted women into all their national and international unions.
Women, united with men, have contributed their share of hard work and sacrifice to the organization of many unions, some of which today are among the strongest in the American labor movement.
The ten hour day, then the eight hour day, labor legislation, higher wages and better conditions enjoyed by workers today, are the result of the militant struggles of men and women workers. Women alongside of the men faced tear gas and machine guns of the bosses’ police on the picket lines. Others were sent to prison because of their militant action during strikes.
Through such experience the working woman also began to take an active part in politics. Increased exploitation, continuous struggles with the boss, seeing the armed forces of the government in action against the workers, opened her eyes to the real meaning of this so-called “democratic” system of government. Such material forces as these impelled her toward the working class political parties and away from the “democratic” parties of the boss.
The importance of the woman in the home to the working class movement, is no less than that of the woman in the factory. Marriage is no escape from the problem of earning a living. Gone are the days – if they ever existed – when a woman can say that she is going to be married and will not have to worry any more because she is secure. Whether as the wife of a worker or as a woman in the factory, she is just as much an integral part of the working class. In it her interest lies and she must fight for its emancipation. More than ever, as a wife, she constantly finds herself affected directly or indirectly by the successes and failures of the trade union and labor movement as a whole. She and her children will always be affected by the wage cuts and working conditions of her husband.
During a strike in which her husband is involved her role is doubly important. The morale of the striker depends much on the understanding and cooperation of his wife. She must stand firm behind the striker-husband and give him courage to carry on his struggle against the boss in order to give her and the children a better life.
The boss doesn’t care one bit about the welfare of the worker’s wife and family. During a strike he will suddenly display a pretended interest in them in order to persuade the wife to make her husband return to work, thus using her as a means to break the strike. The movies, church, schools and even personal contact are the instruments available to the boss to use in contacting workers’ families.
Every wife should understand and have confidence in what the striker is fighting for. Her place is with him on the picket line and at the union headquarters. At strike headquarters there are any number of things the wives can do. Arranging mass meetings, money-raising affairs, organizing food and clothing committees, are only a few of the things the housewife can do in a strike.
We cite a few examples of the militant work of housewives during past strikes: In Passaic Textile strike, 1926–7, the housewives organized into the “Council of Working-class Housewives,” to which members belonged and contributed from all over the nation. These women set up children’s kitchens from which 500 children a day were fed. On the picket lines the wives took their share of picket duty.
In the great steel strike in Gary Indiana, the wives and daughters of strikers organized and marched en masse to the steel mills and helped persuade the non-strikers to join the strike. They organized house-to-house groups to contact wives of these men and gained sympathy for the strike from many of their wives. In Mother Jones’ autobiography she tells of the valiant work of the wives of miners during strikes.
In a society of class conflicts, women in the factories and in the homes must take their place in the ranks of the working-class. They must recognize the unions as the most effective ECONOMIC weapon of the workers.
Tomorrow she will stand alone, that is why today the woman must learn. Tomorrow she will be the worker in the factory, supporting her family trying to earn a meagre living while the boss squeezes every ounce of energy from her. Because tomorrow the men will be taken from their homes and families, thrown into the armed forces of the bosses government and sent out to die once again on the battlefields.
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