(continued from page 9)

rearguard, to bring them up, to be part of a revolutionary relationship, to be workers, to have homes. We women have had to work much harder than men to fulfill all our responsibilities, but when we do so we blame ourselves because we are always giving our time to one role to the detriment of the other.

So, where is the solution? We do not have the answer. The collectivity should give the answer. Clearly the situation is not to find a woman who will do the housework in exchange for an hourly wage. Nor is it to send the children off to those relatives with more time, because they are not involved in the struggle. Nor is it to choose one or the other role, giving up our integral quality. Nor do we believe that the solution would be for women to take on all those roles in a voluntarist manner, like superwomen, making tremendous physical, psychic, and intellectual efforts, and in the long run disintegrating.

In order to find the solution, men must make our struggle for autonomy theirs. The solution necessarily requires a great debate, which clearly we women must push for but which must involve us all, all those who by questioning capitalist society aspire to build a better world, a just, solidary, and socialist world. If we set ourselves up as the forgers of freedom, if we want to be consistently revolutionary, we cannot separate the theme of exile, of solidarity, of the struggle of our people, from the present condition of

women.

We represent 50 percent, and we have revolutionary potential. Only a privileged sector of women has had the chance to prove this. There are two great battles to be won: the incorporation of more and

more women into vanguard positions, and, in addition, the assurance that the existing vanguard of women continue to develop without interference. We must support this sector so that it does not falter midway.

The people will never be free if women do not join the struggle en masse. There will be no revolution if women are kept on the sidelines, as inferior, thirdclass beings.

In the early dawn of history, women played important roles in the social group, and when the rules of the game were changed, the relegation of women was implacable, cruel, pitiless. That was the beginning of a history of suffering and humiliation. The regaining of our lost identity, the advancing along the road of our liberation as women, the winning of our emancipation, and the assurance of support and comprehension, will be part of a process, a process which we acknowledge to be slow and fraught with difficulties. The job of initiating it is ours, but it is obvious that millions of women all over the world have already begun to move.

History begins anew each day, when in some corner of the Resistance a woman ceases to be a simple courier because she has won the right by working twice as hard to organize, to create, to lead. The history of our emancipation begins each day that a woman in Chile, in Latin America, in any part of the world, joins the struggle of the exploited and learns to expect that if she falls, the generous hands of the people will raise her children, learns to walk beside her companero, at the same pace as he, toward the definitive victory.

Clara Fraser: Fighting City Hall (continued from page 3)

policies during hearings of a Public Review Committee to investigate City Light Superintendent Vickery's practices. She drew attention from the media and was publicly criticized by Vickery.

Many other City Light employees were highly visible leaders, but Fraser was also a known socialist, a 35-year participant in the antiwar, civil liberties, Black freedom and Native American movements. After 21 years in the Socialist Workers Party, she left it and helped to found the Freedom Socialist Party in 1966 and Radical Women in 1968. Fraser was clearly anathema to the anti-labor mayor and the City Light bosses. She became the target of constant harassment, which included circulation of her FBI files, of a hoax flyer purporting to describe her politics, and a crude sexist cartoon of her, as well as a specially contrived civil service exam to get rid of her, the secret elimination of her position from the budget, and unwarranted reprimands. Ten days after the women trainees started, the managers curtailed their initial training, revamped the entire program and removed Fraser as program supervisor. Finally, on July 11, 1975, Clara Fraser was "laid off" without notice, which is illegal under the City Charter.

City Light contends that her job was climinated as part of a staff cutback. But testimony at the hearing revealed that her position was retained under a different job title and at a higher salary and filled after she was fired.

الية

The City's case is now built on "management's right to employee obedience and loyalty," and on what it alleges was Fraser's "abrasive, uncontrollable and incompetent" job performance. A socialist feminist, Fraser claims she was fired for her strong labor views, support of affirmative action programs and for her off-the-job affiliations with Radical Woman and other activist groups.

Fraser's charges have been supported by the city's own exhaustive two-year investigation of her com-

plaint by the Human Rights Department. On October 11, 1977, the Commission confirmed that her political rights had been intentionally violated by discrimination in the terms and conditions of her employment because of her sex and radical political beliefs, and in retaliation for her filing a complaint and for opposing Vickery's unfair employment practices.

For the next two and a half years, City Light attorneys used a steady stream of legal challenges and motions to prevent the case from coming to hearing.. In July of 1979, all the involved parties-the Human Rights Department, City Light, the City Attorney, and the Mayor's Office-agreed to a conciliated settlement of the case. But this was unexpectedly aborted by the City Council in a 6-2 vote last summer, with the majority insisting that the case be settled in hearing despite the enormous expenses involved. Testimony in the case so far suggests that the city may stand to lose a lot more than the $21,000 ap propriated for the Hearing Examiner and the attorney representing Fraser and the Human Rights Department. Fraser and her supporters have put the city's employment practices on trial.

During her testimony before the panel, Fraser equated her experiences at City Light with the utility's treatment of all employees. She was seconded on that by several other employees who testified on her behalf. "It was a typical management device to circumvent required procedure and get rid of someone," said Robert-Leighton. "City Light is a revenue-producing agency, and did not need to cut back. Clara was not laid off; she was terminated." And witness Al McDougall, a journeyman cable splicer and another walkout leader, was equally emphatic: "[Until Clara] I never heard of anyone being laid off at City Light for incompetence....If you are incompetent at City Light, you are promoted to management!"

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