Cleaning Up

Portuguese Women's Fight for Labour Rights in Toronto

Franca Iacovetta author Susana P Miranda author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Between the Lines

Published:29th Jul '23

£20.95

Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.

Cleaning Up cover

This fascinating book uncovers the little-known, surprisingly radical history of the Portuguese immigrant women who worked as night-time office cleaners and daytime "cleaning ladies" in postwar Toronto. Drawing on union records, newspapers, and interviews, feminist labour historians Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta piece together the lives of immigrant women who bucked convention by reshaping domestic labour and by leading union drives, striking for workers' rights, and taking on corporate capital in the heart of Toronto's financial district. Despite being sidelined within the labour movement and subjected to harsh working conditions in the commercial cleaning industry, the women forged critical alliances with local activists to shape picket-line culture and make an indelible mark on their communities. Richly detailed and engagingly written, Cleaning Up is an archival treasure about an undersung piece of working-class history in urban North America.

“Invisible no more! Through the caring labours of feminist historians Susana P. Miranda and Franca Iacovetta, the earthy humour and sassy militancy of Portuguese immigrant women office and house cleaners emerges. Their workplace activism shook Toronto’s neoliberal establishment in the 1970s and 1980s, belying stereotypes of passivity and patriarchal oppression, while fighting against discrimination and exploitation. More than a recovery of heroines, this labour history underscores the perils of contracting out and the promise of grassroots coalitional struggle against bosses—and union bosses.”– Eileen Boris, author of Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919–2019

ISBN: 9781771136266

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

256 pages