Waitresses in Action: Feminist Labour Protest in 1970s Ontario

In the 1970s, women in Toronto created the Waitresses Action Committee to protest the introduction of a 'differential' or lower minimum wage for wait staff serving alcohol. Their campaign was part of their broader feminist critique of women's exploitation and the gendered and sexualized nature of waitressing. Influenced by their origins in the Wages for Housework campaign, they stressed the linkages between women's unpaid work in the home and the workplace. Their campaign eschewed worksite organizing for an occupational mobilization outside of the established unions; they used petitions, publicity, and alliances with sympathizers to try to stop the rollback in their wages. They were successful in mobilizing support but not in altering the government's decisioji. Nonetheless, their spirited campaign publicized new feminist perspectives on women's gendered and sexualized labour, and it contributed to the ongoing labour feminist project of enhancing working-class women's equality, dignity, and economic autonomy. An analysis of their mobilization also helps to enrich and complicate our understanding of labour and socialist feminism in this period. Keywords: waitress organizing, second-wave feminism, Wages for Housework, minimum-wage laws Dans les annees 1970, les femmes de Toronto ont cree le Waitresses Action Committee pour protester contre l'introduction d'un salaire minimum << differentiel >> ou inferieur pour les serveurs servant de l'alcool. Leur campagne faisait partie de leur critique feministe plus large de l'exploitation des femmes et de la nature genree et sexualisee de la serveuse. Influencees par leurs origines dans la campagne Wages for Housework, elles ont souligne les liens entre le travail non remunere des femmes a la maison et sur le lieu de travail. Leur campagne a evite l'organisation des chantiers pour une mobilisation professionnelle en dehors des syndicats etablis; elles ont utilise des petitions, de la publicite et des alliances avec des sympathisants pour tenter d'arreter la baisse de leurs salaires. Elles ont reussi a mobiliser un soutien, mais pas a modifier la decision du gouvernement. Neanmoins, leur campagne animee a fait connaitre de nouvelles perspectives feministes sur le travail sexue et sexualise des femmes, et elle a contribue au projet feministe syndical en cours visant a renforcer l'egalite, la dignite et l'autonomie economique des femmes de la classe ouvriere. L'analyse de leur mobilisation contribue egalement a enrichir et a compliquer notre comprehension du feminisme ouvrier et socialiste de cette periode. Mots clefs : syndicalisation des serveuses, feminisme de deuxieme vague, salaire au travail menager, lois sur le salaire minimum
OVER THE 20TH CENTURY, waitressing became a well-established occupation for women, though they faced stringent prohibitions and regulations specifying if and where they could serve alcohol. When the last moralistic [...]