Burning Issue

The picket line was long. The message clear. Equality for all! Chanted the disenchanted.

Our eyes blazed with barely suppressed rage; sisters were getting real about getting a fair deal. The factory had ground to a halt, and we keenly felt our muscles flexing in the silencing of mechanical beasts that fed on our labor. Female employees dominated our workplace. Cheaper by the hour! Boasted the men upstairs with dollar sign eyes and empty smiles.

First, they sent down a junior executive; his face turning beetroot at the lie that he had come to ‘negotiate’.

“Negotiate?”, I roared at him, after being informed there would be no sackings if we quietly returned to work. But we were tired of being good girls and he was ill-prepared for an army of righteous women.

“We’re not here to negotiate, we are demanding!” I continued. Not once in his young life had a woman spoken to him so assertively, except perhaps his mother. I took pleasure in seeing his mouth hanging loosely like a barn door blown open from a freak wind. With his Adam’s apple bobbing ineffectively, anything further he had to say caught in his throat. “Go back and tell your masters, we are here to stay until we get equal pay.”

The hapless young man scampered off, confused yet responding to my order. My order! I savored the moment like an exotic treat tasted for the first time, which indeed it was. I felt a brief moment of pity for him, but as they say, it’s the 70’s man, get with the plan!

I scanned the picket line and saw the exchange had briefly silenced the chanting, then after the collective gasp, it resumed louder and more strident than before, buoyed by our audacity.

Only Mary faltered and looked as though she wanted to hide behind her placard rather than hold it aloft like a battle sword. As a single mother, the young woman had everything at stake during this gamble to make history.

“Hold strong Mary,” I said, giving her a level look. “Our fear is what will keep them winning.” Smiling weakly, she nodded. Then lifted her sign only to half-mast so it still looked like a distress signal, but she stayed. How I admired her bravery!

By the second day, no one had broken our number, and it was the arrival of the reporters that saw the Big Cheese himself come down to speak to us. Bad press was the last thing he wanted, considering women were the consumers of his goods.

We had won! Triumphant we hugged each other, then marched through the gates of the brassiere factory. Tomorrow there would be a picket line somewhere else; change was in the wind.

Not a single bra was burnt during the strike, a misnomer about this period if ever there was one. Besides, we had only wanted to bite the hand that fed us crumbs, we all had a personal stake in the humble bra.

(WC: 498)