"Working the line--people in my heart".

A Reader's Theatre Presentation

based on work experiences and learning of garment workers at the GWG/Levi clothing factory

Woman 1--garment worker, new immigrant (Asian)

Woman 2--garment worker, new immigrant (European)

Woman 3--garment worker, new immigrant

Woman 4--educator (English as Second Language) and narrator

Woman 5--garment worker, Alberta-born

SCENE ONE

Actors stand facing audience, in front of stools.

Four are in a row in middle, in two pairs. The fifth is Down Right (Woman 4--Educator). All except Woman 4 wear aprons.

Silence. Then bell--all except Educator whirl around, sit on stool, heads down, back to audience. Educator goes over to her stool and sits, facing audience. Machine sounds up.

Projected on large screen behind actors--photos of GWG factory, early days. Photos of early Edmonton. Projected photos continue to change throughout the presentation, showing GWG workers at the machines, at lunch, at company picnics, union activities, etc.

Actors turn around quickly to face audience only when speaking.

Woman 1: I walk to there. When I get there, punch the timecard, punch these papers, punch those papers, then I go closer to sew station to wait for bell.

Woman 2: Of course you couldn't go up until the bell went and you got to your machines and you got your work. A bundle girl would bring the work. We would get quite upset if the bundle girl didn't bring the work on time because you just wanted to work.

Woman 1: I sew clothes, sew till coffee time and then I stop, go to washroom 15 minutes. Go back to work then until 12 p.m. Eat lunch. Afternoon 3 p.m. again is coffee time. Drink something, go to washroom. Then work again. 4:30 work is done.

Woman 2: You went by the bells.

Woman 5: My first day at work was a revelation. All I could see was a sea of sewing machines. At each one a bent-over operator was working as if her life depended on it. All the operators were women. No one was saying anything.

Woman 4: Mass assembly operations are mind numbing. You cannot afford to think of anything but one, get it done right get it done fast, two don't hurt yourself. And you cannot afford to let your mind wander. And so the mind loses its ability to think.

Woman 1: The first day, standing there, the feet were all swollen. I didn't know how--after work--didn't know how to walk.

Woman 3: Everything was dark, the floor was dark, the walls were dark, there was no daylight, artificial light. You didn't get out of your chair.

Woman 5: And I remember being hot in there, there was no air-conditioning I know that. I hated it, it was an awful place. I just couldn't be shut up like that, it was like being in jail almost. Because I was sitting at a, at a, at a machine.

Woman 2: I remember it being stuffy. You would see layers of dust every day, layers of--well not dust, but you know the dust from the sewing ... Fuzz, yeah that's it. And it would cover everything. Even your clothes.

In next section, as each woman faces audience to speak, she remains facing audience.

Woman 1: Why I went there to work? Because I had to make a living. I had a husband, daughter coming to Canada, I need to cam money. When I first came here I didn't know many things so I went there to learn.

Woman 3: Why did I go into sewing factory? I immigrated. I felt I was second-class citizen, not much money, language problem. Not much luck. The working environment, the work is very suited for women to work. Of course if your education was higher this isn't very good. But in terms of us, not much skill then.

Woman 4: These women, it' s the sacrificial generation. I've long witnessed that the first generation of immigrants very often knowingly sacrifice their own life experience to make things better for their children.

Woman 2: The reason I worked there is my grandmother was a seamstress, my mother was a seamstress so they sort of pushed me into, "Oh yeah, get a skill, you know?"

Woman 1: I don't know anything. Where would I go? Luckily there was a sewing factory. Everyone worked here.

Woman 3: GWG, all of us co-workers always say that it is the United Nations. The largest nation is Chinese people. India there are quite a lot, Vietnamese. Next there are Polish people, Italian people, Portugal people, Africa people, Laos people, Philippines people, Ethiopia people, Japanese people ...

Woman 5: When you finish school grade twelve, what does a girl do in those days? The only jobs that were available was GWG--for an inexperienced, twenty-one-year-old girl with no education.

All women whirl around, bend over--back to work.

Woman 2: Blue jeans in those days, the dye job was very bad and at the end of a shift, your hands would be absolutely blue.

Woman 3: You'd come home you're blue, you would be blue from head to foot, your clothes, all would be just blue ... you'd come home you'd try to wash all that off ... It's a wonder our blood wasn't blue (laughs).

Woman 4: Piece work is very dreary. It's very tiresome. You're doing the same thing over and over and over again.

Woman 2: The stuff comes out from the cutting room all in pieces in bundles. The bundle girl distributes to each operator the pieces and you have to keep On going because you couldn't stop for anything. If you didn't finish your bundle the next person could not start the same bundle. This is how it was. And so, it was hard work.

Woman 5: We were just doing our little operation and we weren't concerned how long it would take to make a pair of pants and I doubt if anybody told us either.

Woman 3: The bar tack was my specialty.... And there was another girl I used to compete with. See how many more bundles I could do than her.

Stay facing the audience.

Woman 2: (to Woman 3) At first I did one year sewing belt loops. Then they trained me to sew the crease. I have worked--four years, about. Sew the crease.

Woman 1: (to Women 2 and 3) I started work 1989, November 20. Sewed jeans waist. Sewed jeans waist many years.

Woman 5: (to Women 1, 2, 3) I started working at GWG in 1965. I was a bundle girl. Matching fronts and backs together of jeans. I'm still doing the same thing now. I've worked here for 35 years.

Woman 3: (to Women 1, 2, 5) I started working there in August 13, 1963. I was an engineer--I thought, this will just be for a few months. (all laugh, nodding) I worked there until March 29, 2002. Worked for 38 years.

All turn back to audience to face machines.

Woman 4: When you're trained in just one little specific seam you can't go and sew a pair of pants. You're not much use any place else. So they were limited to their jobs and that's I think, the management knew that.

Woman 2: You didn't have time to get up and look around to see what everybody else was doing, you were there to do your work. (aside to audience) Some of the women, they wouldn't even take time to go to the washroom. They were just givin' her, you know.

Woman 3: Everybody was in a hurry sewing, because the faster they sewed the more money they made. I almost took this finger off because I got it caught in the guide and I--trying to go fast, you see--and the finger cut. But I kept on working, they put a bandage on it and that was about it (laughs).

Woman 5: And don't forget if you made a mistake you'd get the bundle back and you could rip I you might rip for a few hours a day--so you wouldn't get paid for the ripping and you would have had to redo it.

Woman 2: Even if you were five minutes early, waiting for your machine, you couldn't work on the repairs. You had to do them within your working hours and of course if you had repairs then you didn't produce very much.

Woman 1 : And sewing machines keep breaking. After sewing machine get fixed you start working. But wait for fix. It waste time, so you can't earn money.

Woman 3: About the sixties they brought in production engineers from the States. Every little movement is studied. Every little pick up and they tell you with which fingers too. They stood for hours and days and months of this stop watches and their little benches.

Woman 1: (shrugs) If you told me be faster, it was alright. If you told me go slower, that was alright.

Woman 5: I would have done whatever I was told because I was raised that way, I had a very strict mother and I was used to doing exactly what I was told and when I was told and how I was told: So I would never have challenged anybody on anything--and I remained that way for too long in my life.

Woman 2: You had no control, no control at all. You didn't even keep track of your own work, they told you what you did. It was all up to them. You had to trust they were honest.

All in unison: You had no control over anything. (Stay facing audience.) Woman 2: You just were there--doing.

Woman 3: (to others, who nod as she speaks) But there was lots of friends. Like when we came here we just fit in--no problem at all. In our line most of the woman are from my country. And we work together, it's a nice atmosphere.

Woman 1: Working, you have to learn right. You have to give into people. It's not that you do good and the other people doesn't do good. You can't, just because you know something, be proud. You have to go slowly so that everyone can follow you together.

All in unison: Teamwork.

Woman 5: Everyone has to help each other. You work together. I make clothes and you done this and someone fixes the sewing machine. We all have to help each other, but we don't talk about it.

All turn backs to audience to face machines.

Woman 2: They put us on officers' army shirts--fine materials. The material would get all bunched up in the machines. We couldn't work, we couldn't produce and we were still paid by the piece work. So we started to complain and nobody was listening. We were told, it's war time. So one day we were just sitting there waiting for the bell to go after lunch and somebody said,

Woman 3: I think we have a solution here. When the power comes on we'll stop it. Maybe they'll listen to us.

Woman 2: So one of us went to the place and pulled the thing down.

Woman 3 gets up, goes to left wall, pulls. Silence--sound of machines stops.

Woman 2: Within minutes there were officials, managers, mechanics, union representative ...

All others, including Woman 4, put on jackets, swarm Woman 2, with backs to audience.

All in unison, shouting variously: What happened? Why?

Woman 2: (stands on stool) OK all we want is to put us on time work until we can pick up speed. And then we can go back on piece work. This way we can't even have enough to pay our board.

All huddle.

Woman 2: (continues as she steps off stool, coming down stage to face audience) So anyway, between the union and management they came to a deal. And we got paid time work a little while! But if we weren't so scared we would have realized that they couldn't fire us, all of us.

All in unison: Because then they would have come to a total standstill. Machine noise starts up again. Back to stools, backs to audience.

Woman 4: The union was never the immigrant women--well, they were immigrant women but they weren't the Chinese women. They never did want to go to the union meetings. They didn't feel they belonged there.

Woman 1: Didn't know, didn't talk about the Labour union. When they had a meeting you came to the meeting. When we worked we didn't talk about the Labour union issues.

All in unison: Didn't talk about it. (Remain with backs to audience.)

Woman 4: How did they feel about their union? That it took their money and didn't do much for them.

Woman 2: They had to pay their union dues and I--it was a horrible job, nobody wanted it. So of course, dumb me ... I stood on the stairs with all the names and if they were paid up to date or how far behind they were. This union lady from Winnipeg came and said if they didn't pay up they would be fired, right on the dot.

Woman 5: (to Woman 2) I don't think the union had too much clout in those days. "Why do you want a pension? You know you've got a husband that's supposed to support you. You're just here like a secondary job, just a little fill in with your little spare time. What else would you do at home?"

Woman 4: But I think a lot of these women didn't want to rock the boat so they just went along.

Woman 1: As workers our target is to work and earn money. Sometimes that is pretty bad, but that is it. After all, we are the immigrants. We have a few Canadian workers. They are never satisfied, always. They have high power, the pressure is on. We're all like, whatever, whoever, work is the same. They always want to ask for reform, but can't reform. So what can change? So don't do it.

Woman 4: They're happy to have a job. So the union really had it made.

Each woman stands from stools, takes off apron, and moves to right or left side, as Woman 2 delivers the following speech. They take on supervisor role (in front of Educator). Woman 1 is the only one left sitting.

Woman 2: Before long, I guess because I talk a lot, they asked me to be supervisor. So of course I couldn't be in the union anymore. When you're supervisor you're in the middle of the workers and you're in the middle of the top level. You're in between there, sandwiched. It was quite stressful.

Woman 3: The supervisors were given courses for, how happy are you in your work? And your attitude towards everything.

Woman 5: My goal was to train the people, working like a team. But not every supervisor wanted to do teamwork because that's more work for you, because you have to really concentrate on people. Some supervisors only care for, how much I can push out, how much I can push out.

Woman 2: By the time I finished, they were looking for people with professional training in production, in supervision, in the business end of it which I didn't have any (shrugs). I was just a farm girl who went to work.

All supervisors go back to their stools and put aprons back on.

Woman 1: Everyone had to use English. Supervisor know--Chinese not know English. You watch, he use gestures to talk you, then you understand what he say.

As Woman 4 speaks, the machine noises shut off the others gather the stools into a semi-circle.

Woman 4: The English classes began to be held every day after work, and on Saturdays. The company were great--gave us the rooms and tables and even built these wonderful cupboards for all the materials.

Woman 1: Since I went to learn English that I learned, I know a lot more things. It helped me to become more ambitious.

Woman 4: It was a sharing time. All during the day they were push, push, push, push, then they'd go home and cook dinner and do laundry and all the other things and so they were tired. But that was precious time that they could sit down with one another and laugh and talk and be.

Woman 1: They tell you, talk in Chinese if you don't understand--then they taught US.

Woman 3: They taught you about work things. Teach you how to talk, how to repair the sewing machine, how to write, they wanted you to learn things.

Woman 4: They had questions about you know, what's this pap smear thing we're supposed to get every year and why should we get a mammogram? And they brought personal things about their families and their fears, their concerns. There was a great deal of information giving . about the community, about the country. We had mock elections ...

Woman 1: I get very good education there you know, they make sure you know, you get--all the tools what you needed for, and--I'm very happy and I'm very appreciated.

Woman 4: They were part of a circle of women, they learned about themselves, they learned about Canadians, they learned that people would listen to them, they learned ways of expressing themselves.

Woman 2: A lot of the people whose English got better they would interpret for problems at the plant and things like that. As so there was a respect of people in the English classes. They would be used by other employees to get the real message from union meetings and stuff. Because people would go and they wouldn't understand to full and so then they would be like check it out in classes.

Woman 3: (stands, walks to Down Right facing audience, arms folded) And also then, you know, some of the supervisors I think didn't trust the English classes, because they'd see how people would bring things up from the classes.

Woman 2: (stands, walks to Down Left facing audience, arms folded) One of the supervisors said, oh, they're getting lippy ... the workers, because they could talk now.

Woman 4: The real question was what difference are these classes making in people's lives, how are their lives better because they're participating in the English class?

Bell. Machines start up again, stools returned to factory pattern, aprons on as Woman 5 talks while she puts on her apron. She does not sit.

Woman 5: About 1970 they were going to cut us down from twelve cents a bundle to less. LC and I, because we did the same job, we were side by side, she says, Are you gonna take that? and I says, well I gotta work. She says, well I gotta work too, I gotta son to look after, but I'm gonna walk out. Then she said, I think you and I should both walk out and leave them stranded. So this is what we did.

Woman 4: At that day and age the ladies' garment unions were not as powerful as the men's workers unions. They were classed as like, oh she's got a husband.

Woman 5: Our floor lady at that time--boy I'm tellin' you, she was mad. She says, you can't walk out! And I says, we're walking out. So we did. (laughs) So they came to Woodward's after I got my job, they came to Woodward's and told me, Would I please come back and work at the GW6? And I said, no way! No way. I had already started at Woodward's for seventeen dollars a week and I knew I would get it every week, it wasn't just--whatever you earned, that's what you got.

Woman 2: Being involved in the union it sure opens your eyes. A lot of them didn't even know they had rights--They were kind of in their own little cocoon there--Like, come on you girls, you have a lot more rights than what you think you do. Because you come from a country where you have no rights.

Woman 5: When I went back in 1988 I think I was a little more educated on my rights. Because I was older and I'd learnt things over time. I wasn't going to get treated like I was there in the sixties.

Woman 4: When we came into the plant the women were on piecework. And after several years of the English program, the union felt that the workers had enough English to understand negotiating a process to get off piece work onto wage employment.

Woman 3: (stands as she talks, steps down stage to face audience) I got involved in union because I wanted to help people, I mean, to make difference. To make difference in people's life. And to change things. The more you get involved the more you get the stuff for the people. We can have a vision.

Woman 2: I was a different person after I went through lots of training and studying books myself, which gave me more knowledge to be a better leader. As people learnt that they had more rights, they stand up more to their supervisors.--"Listen, if you don't help me"--like talking to a supervisor--"I can go and talk to management." It was a learning process, and then they would teach their friends. They got more and more confident.

Woman 1: Machine break, you run to another machine. Once fixed it breaks again. You keep running back and forth and you can't earn money. So--(stands) I fix machine. The stupid sewing machine man screamed, but actually, he doesn't know how to fix it. Luckily he didn't scream at me or else--(walks down stage to stand beside Woman 3) I would have screamed at him to death.

Woman 5: I was the union president for five years now. I was a little bit intimidated my first time I went to a meeting--these big people and me so small. I don't know what they were talking about. But (stands') I can see they're warm to everybody and it was--(walks down stage) it was OK. (pause) I can say whatever I want, you know.

Woman 4: (stands as she talks, to walk slowly Down Right in line with others but apart) In--the women bargained successfully for wage payment, and the old piece rate pay was abolished for good. In--the women finally did get their pension. Which was a hugely freeing thing for the women, and they were extraordinarily pleased that they were now being paid a wage.

Machine sound turns off All women slowly turn backs to audience to face the screen. Projection--news story of plant closure. Throughout the following, photos of exterior of plant, gatherings of workers outside. Song comes up with slides, then Woman 1 turns, and starts.

Woman 1: When I heard the plant was closing I was very upset, I was crying. Yeah, that was my second home, you know. I been educated, I been--I know more, more, more things like ever I can have.

Others turn and silently and slowly hug one another--Woman 4 joins this. After speaking her last line, each woman picks up her stool and walks offstage.

Woman 2: I love working with GWG. I'm going to miss it a lot actually.

Woman 3: It was like suddenly the family, it was suddenly breaking up.

Woman 4: So many other people, everybody was crying when they heard the news.

Woman 3: In terms of myself I feel that GWG has given me a lot of opportunity help, like letting me study, working as a supervisor, and gains were very good. It let me help my family atmosphere so it was better. I could get my three children through university so it's very good.

Woman 5: Our factory is like a big family they say. They really encouraged me, they really respect us workers. They really care for us.

Woman 4: I feel that these women in some way live in me and I in some way live in them. And there's a sisterhood.

Woman 1: All those people in my heart. I never forget them.

Final photo--group of GWG women sewers standing arms about each other -Maria Dunne song up.

Woman 4: My philosophy of workplace education is that you're like a tightrope walker. You try your best to serve the interests of the individuals that are in the class, the company and the union and you try to keep those things in balance and if you're good you can. I can't say that I've ever fallen off the tightrope. Well, come really close.