Women’s labour rights at centre of world premiere play ‘Sisters of ‘78’

'Sisters of ‘78,’ the Blyth Festival’s opening play, highlights the historic strike that changed labour relations in Canada. CTV’s Scott Miller explains.

In 1978, 80 women working at a Huron County automotive wiring factory changed Canadian labour law forever.

“I didn’t know about this, and I consider myself a feminist. I know that our playwright, Kristen Da Silva, didn’t know about it. And when she discovered it, her first thing was, ‘Where’s the play about this? Where’s the movie?’ And there wasn’t one,” explained Mary Francis Moore, director of Sisters of ‘78 at the Blyth Festival.

Now Sisters of ’78, a dramatization based on the strike at Fleck Manufacturing in Centralia, is now in previews at the Blyth Festival Theatre.

The strike, lasting five months, is based on horrific working conditions, low wages and workplace harassment, involved heavy handed police intervention, and government meddling, to try and break the all-female work crew.

But they preserved, securing the first ever sexual harassment clause in a Canadian labour agreement, and bringing women’s workplace rights to the forefront of every labour negotiation from that point forward.

“The fact that so many people sat up and paid attention, and this small group of women did what they did, what they accomplished across the country moving forward, and then the impact they made, it can’t be underestimated,” said Moore.

For those recreating the female strikers’ perilous journey, against all odds, it’s been a harsh reminder of the conditions women dealt with less than 50 years ago.

“When you tell people that in the year before this play, 1977, that was a first-year women could have a credit card in their own name. That blows my mind, like I take so many of these rights for granted, and I take the fact that I can walk in the world as an equal person for granted,” said actress Shaina Silver-Baird.

The world premiere of Sisters of ‘78 has its official opening Friday night in Blyth.

“Just seeing a moment when women changed history, I think is really inspiring for me, because there are lots of things happening in the world that sometimes make me feel powerless. And, it’s been really inspiring to work with these characters, work with Kristen’s beautiful text, and also be in the room with these powerful women,” said Silver-Baird.

“It has some like pretty strong themes, but it’s actually really funny. It’s full of heart. It’s about female friendship and it’s about empowerment. The costumes are amazing, too. Like, is everybody in the 70s, cool?” said Moore.