Lost Voices
At the beginning of Jan Smith's employment at the Owens Illinois Factory, she worked in the selecting department, as did most of the women. Occupational tasks were assigned according to whether the employee was male or female: If there were any breaks at all, they were for the men. The men had all the higher paying jobs when I went there. Women had the lowest pay rate there. And there was no room to move, no moving up at the time... The men would move up... That’s why when the plant closed, the selecting department had the lowest rate of pay... because that’s where all the women were.
Gender discrimination was somewhat overcome when Opal Mann, the first woman to file a sexual discrimination suit in West Virginia, won her case in court. Jan Smith states: Now, just like when I was training to become a crew leader, I had to bid on it and I had to be trained and everything, but before that, if it was just some man that they liked or anything, they would just choose 'em and make them a crew leader... And it took one lady, I think her name was Opal Mann... And then I could see where the women were moving up in the higher paying jobs. In addition to hesitation on the part of management to promote women, Smith also witnessed reluctance in some of her female co-workers. And still to this day when the plant closed, some of the women were against women moving up... I kid you not, and they would say, "Well, I would rather work for a man any day, you know, than a woman". I was the crew leader, I was their boss, they had to do what I told ‘em to do. They just refused to do what I asked then to do.
The environment in which Jan Smith worked, demanded
quality performance of tasks that were often tedious. Her
employment, coupled with the responsibilities of being a
wife and a mother of three, created a double work load. By the time I would cook and
clean with three children, I didn’t have any other
life, It was just going to work and coming home. And if
it wasn’t for my mother, I never would have made it.