Nominally, women from racialized countries were encouraged into Canada by the new official policy of multiculturalism and by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s promise of a more Just Society. (“Canada Must Be a Just Society,” 00:02:19 - 00:02:21). Immigration policy’s structurally embedded sexism, however, meant that most contemporary newcomer working-class women were excluded from social services programs such as language classes and became reliant on spouses and other male “heads of household,” who were contrastingly supported to advance within the workforce. The immigration sponsorship system also placed newcomer women in potentially exploitative and dangerous situations, as they were unable or unwilling to leave abusive marriages for fear of jeopardizing their immigration status (Cumsille et al. 215).
Jamaican-born community organizer Tamam McCallum founded Working Women Community Centre (WWCC) in Toronto, in 1974, to meet working class women’s needs on entering Canada. Having directly experienced racism and with knowledge of the Black Power movement, McCallum approached immigrant women’s lack of employment opportunities as structurally embedded issues (Lior 13).
Working Women Community Centre is still in operation in Toronto, today, and its archives are housed within the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections: the fonds (or archival collection) documents immigrant women’s feminist activism in Canada, including its creation of programs to address women’s barriers to opportunities in the workforce. The fonds includes WWCC slideshow presentations on workers’ rights and records from programs that prepared immigrant women for sustainable and meaningful employment. Contrastingly, state-sponsored services siphoned women into dead-end and low-paying jobs such as factory workers and sewing machine operators (Cumsille et al. 215-216).
Creating Modistas Unidas
A deep dive into the Working Women Community Centre fonds also reveals the records of a grassroots collective of mostly Portuguese-speaking immigrant women, who formed the Modistas Unidas Cooperative (United Dressmakers Cooperative). The cooperative started as a WWCC sewing circle and ran from 1981-1983 with support from federal grants.
As recounted by former WWCC executive, Marcie Ponte, Modistas Unidas demonstrated immigrant women’s potential, “to run businesses, to be leaders, and to move things forward,” (Lior 36). Modistas Unidas developed in a non-hierarchical organic way when members met at a WWCC sewing circle, accepting commission work, and decided to apply their skills toward ending the exploitation they experienced as factory workers.
Workers posted notices advertising their services and articulated their demands, “Since emigrating to Canada, our only opportunity for employment using our skills has been as sewing machine operators in garment factories. Like many women, we have suffered under the pressures and oppressive working conditions of these factories. We are unable and unwilling to continue with this type of work” (Modistas Unidas Flyer).
Early Modistas Unidas archival documents demonstrate workers' intention to overcome structural barriers to meaningful employment. Their mission statement/business plan outlines the group’s goal of training comprehensively on dress-making skills, contrasting with the dead-end work environments they faced within the textile industry in the nearby garment alley district of Toronto’s West End. Workers also state their intention to further both their social and employment opportunities through ESL courses and business management training (Modistas mission statement/objectives).
On obtaining funding through the federal granting program, LEAP (Local Employment Assistance Program), the cooperative officially opened in early 1981. From late spring 1982, Modistas expanded operations, renting a factory, employing workers full-time, and hiring a young designer, Alexis Tamara, to create a women’s clothing line featured in local publications. Modistas Unidas also applied for and received articles of incorporation in 1983. It designated its employees as shareholders and its workers garnered business acumen and entrepreneurial abilities while articulating their rights, skills and abilities, as empowered women workers. Modistas closed in late 1983 in part because it no longer qualified for grant funding; its legacy, though, demonstrates how individuals and grassroots organizations pooled their creativity and business acumen to create a successful cooperative and entrepreneurial venture.
Modistas Unidas Cooperative is one of many examples within 1980s Toronto of activists and community members working together to improve conditions for those experiencing oppression based on structural inequalities and social perceptions of class, race, and gender. Leaders within immigrant women's organizations like WWCC and Modistas also supported demonstrations and labour action, including the successful 1978-1979 strike at the Puretex Knitting Company, (a Toronto garment factory). Community and grassroots organizing contributed substantially to improving conditions for workers, generally, and for those who faced specific barriers as immigrants and women.
Works Cited
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Lior, Karen Charnow, ed. Making the City: Women who Made a Difference: Working Women Community Centre. Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2012.
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Cooperative: Modistas Unidas, 1980-1983, Working Women Community Centre fonds. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections, Ottawa, Ontario.
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Mission Statement/Objectives of Modistas Unidas, ca. 1980, Working Women Community Centre fonds. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections, Ottawa, Ontario.
Modistas Unidas Workshop flyer, ca. 1981, Working Women Community Centre fonds. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections, Ottawa, Ontario.
Mission Statement/Objectives of Modistas Unidas, ca. 1980, Working Women Community Centre fonds. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections, Ottawa, Ontario.
Newsletter, 1986, Working Women Community Centre, Women's Archives Periodicals Collection, University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections.
“Pierre Trudeau Declares ‘Canada Must Be a Just Society’ in 1968.” CBC News, CBC/Radio Canada, cbc.ca/player/play/1245673027626. Accessed 9 Feb. 2024.