Hard Earned Wages
Women Fighting for Better Work

Penney, Jennifer

Publisher:  The Women's Press, Canada
Year Published:  1984   First Published:  1984
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX2949



Abstract:  Hard Earned Wages features sixteen women telling the stories of their work - and their efforts to improve their working conditions - in their own words. They appear as women of intelligence and strength, yet, as the introduction says, "it would be a mistake to mark them as extraordinary women, as especially intelligent or fearless or strong. Few of us go to work with the thought that we will be catapulted into a struggle. The women who speak here are no exception. They work because they want to, because they have to support themselves or their families. They had few expectations - positive or negative - when they first took jobs. The fact is that all kinds of women have taken up the fight for better work."

A central fact that emerges from the stories in Hard Earned Wages is that in taking up that fight, people discover strengths in themselves that they may not even have realized they had; in so doing they change themselves and their view of themselves, as well as their surroundings.

Subject Headings

• Wage Labour
• Wages