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adjust to the weight of the equipment. It was, Linda says, "very positive learning from women actually doing the jobs. The workshop enabled the students to ask questions they had never liked to before, and the questions were answered in an unpatronising way.
*The industry is beginning to open up to women because of our pressure and organisation,' Linda explains. 'Women have got together over the past two years both inside and outside the union to discuss how to force our demands through. Yet it has become clear that without facilities like paid maternity leave and creches, all women, whether they intend having children or not, will be held back because they might be tied down with family responsibilities. Solidarity is not just right, it is necessary.* -Geoffrey November (see News story).
uS Pickets in action at the Hoover factory in in the fight for equal pay and we support them now", retorted Margaret Thompson, a GWU steward in reply to the personnel manager.
Unfortunately this feeling of solidarity broke down with the advent of craftism rearing its head. This came when the AUEW executive made the toolmakers strike official. The attitude of the craftsmen changed then and they got "illusions of grandeur" one militant told Socialist Woman.
The skilled men formed their own separate picket line, told the production workers, some of whom had been on the picket line every morning for eight weeks, that they could clear off. that they the craftsmen would man the picket line now, it was their strike 'I can't understand it' explained one woman picketer, We've been together up to now, united in one fight. The management have been try••• NEWS ••• NEWS ••• NEWS•
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Three of the women who took part in the demonstration explain what happened ing to split the workforce for weeks, in an attempt to weaken us. The bos ses must be laughing their heads off, now that the craftsmen have succeeded in doing that. The girls from the canteen have been doing a great job keeping everybody cheerful on the picket with cups of tea-all that's stopped now too The toolmakers withdrew from the joint bargaining machinery in the factory because they felt that they could win higher wages if they did not have the productions workers who were in a weaker position At Christmas, the management began to sack production workers and threatened to continue sacking 100 per week until the toolmakers ended their strike. Eventually the production workers were forced into accepting a guarantee not to chase the toolmakers' settlement.
This acceptance was the only way out of breaking the deadlock bet ween craftsmen and management. The toolmakers won a rise from £42 to £S7 per week, leaving the production workes a paltry E3 per week beginning only on Ist August this Instead of attempting to win an across-the-board-increase for all workers regardless of grade, one section of the work force had allowed an alarming widening of differentials.
A woman worker from Hoover spoke at a Working Women's Charter Conference held in Brent in November, and the Conference-attended by over 300 women-pledged its support to the Hoover struggle. This was backed up by the Brent Trades Council, and Charter supporters regularly joined the factory picket.
In conjunction with the Trades Council, Brent Charter Campaign organised a speaking tour for Hoover shop stewards at 14 local factories. The campaign was also instrumental in raising the issue of nationalisation under workers' control with the Hoover shop stewards committee-a demand which the committee supported-and a arranged for Hoover workers to speak at an Institute of Workers' Control meeting held during the Labour Party conference. ying. then they undressed the ones really had to fight. The worst treaten in Lisbon decided to organise a small demonstration to mark the *Children yes, but only if we want them!"), a typical sex object (with long eye-lashes, a violet wig, highand one dressed in a sheet on which carried posters with slogans calling attention to job discrimination ag'THOUSANDS OF MEN were waiting for us. As soon as we arrived they saw us and started running and screaming: "Here they are. Let's get them!" Then they jumped on us, and after a struggle destroyed all the posters we were carrwho were masked, and we heard all sorts of insults: "Women are only good in bed', 'Go home and do your cooking'; "Burn them'..and so on. Some of us managed to escape, but the others ment was reserved for a black woman militant. And this lasted for more than This is how one woman described what happened when a group of womstart of International Women's Year.
•We were no more than 15 when we left home. We were dressed in different ways to symbolise the position of women in this society -a bride, a pregnant woman (with a poster saying:
heeled red shoes, etc.), a housewife, was drawn a naked body with prices on various parts just like a cow. Others They were supposed to burn toys whose purpose is to impose a sex role on children (dolls, little pots and pans, irons, etc., for girls; guns, tanks, action man' types etc. for boys).
The brutality of the response knew no bounds: Later we found out that they had also beaten an old lady who had brought a broom to burn, as well as undressing a young girl of 17 who was probably just coming from a schBut the forces of 'law and order' turned a blind eye. "There were about five or six thousand men, and only about two hundred women at most. We called the police several times, and even the CopCon (a special military unit which is supposed to maintain public order"), and finally they said that if there were many people inolved they couldn't come!"
Despite the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal in April, the final victory over reaction is still very far from assured. And the survival and perpetuation of reactionary ideas on social questions such as the family, the position of women, and so on, threatens the ability of the working class to launch a united struggle in defence of its interests.
The militant concludes: "The only way of being able to do something in Portugal is with international help. We ask you, please, to give all the publicity you can and if possible to demonstrate and picket the Portuguese Embassy and other government offices."
This appeal must not go unheard. The implications of what happened on that demonstration in Portugal