The charlady was once a well-established entry in the mythology of solid British characters; cheerful as the Tommy, mischievous as a Cockney urchin and as reliable as the Bobby. She was worlds apart from the industrial ills of the daylight hours.
Cheerful, reliable and mischievous she might be but according to May Hobbs she was and is also underpaid, denied union membership and decent working conditions. Mrs Hobbs is an ex-charlady, a tough 34-year-old Cockney mother of four children, who is the guiding spirit behind the Cleaners' Action Group, dedicated to a better deal for the "girls".
"We are campaigning for cleaners in general but the night cleaners especially. They are exploited. Most are aged between 20 and 40 with young small children and often it's the only work they can do. It's not for pin money because the money is needed", said Mrs Hobbs. She had just returned from spending most of the night with pickets outside a Government office. To get the cleaners out for one night could be regarded as something of an achievement but this strike was going into its second week.
The Ministry of Defence has become the latest target, with 10 charladies mounting a 24 hour vigil against understaffing, difficulties over union membership and a basic rate of 12.50 for a 45 hour week plus attendance money.
In the three years since she took up what she calls her "campaign" Mrs Hobbs has accrued a wealth of information about her male combatants in the big and small cleaning companies. "Vacuum cleaners and electricity are the only things which make it different from Dickens's time. We have got more respect for the Mafia. They don't exploit cleaning ladies like these bastards do", she said.
She instances the woman who broke her leg falling down stairs during a power strike because the cleaning force was told to go in and wait for power. Compensation was refused. "Some women stay until eight in the morning because they cannot get the work done in an eight hour shift. Some work through their dinner hour." The catalogue includes intimidation against union membership. The heat is stoked up in a weekly magazine-Cleaner's Voice-produced from Mrs Hobbs' little terrace house in North London.
Help comes from the Women's Liberation movement but there is a strong streak of independence. One union offered to print the magazine but was turned down because it might have meant censorship.
Mrs Hobbs was born in Hoxton and went through the mill of a secondary school and a series of factory jobs ("I always got the sack for speaking up for me rights") before getting married, starting a family and beginning night cleaning.
The pattern familiar in many working-class families began to break down nine years ago. She and other cleaners, members of an uninterested union, went on strike over the sacking of a coloured girl. They won. Three years ago as a supervisor she told her girls to join a union. She got the sack and a blacklisting which one employer at least admitted existed. Since then she has been fighting with the group to get cleaners to join a union and get the unions to take more interest.
Why has Mrs Hobbs taken on the task? "I feel for these people. I used to see it with my mum. I think something has got to be done. The employers have had it cushy for years." After hesitation she admitted she had joined the Communist Party, but added vociferously, "Go down and ask any of the cleaners if May Hobbs has ever talked politics to them". Her children have been baited at school for their mother's beliefs and she prickles at a newspaper headline which read along the lines of "Reds Under the Pails".
The work means hours outside offices for months on end, handing out leaflets and talking, talking, talking. There are meetings and visits all over the country.
The final aim is a wage in the region of 19 per week and full benefits and protection. Only one company comes near par at the moment and she said it was significant that it was run by a woman who had done the job herself.
Helped by Women's Lib she manages with the children and living-she is separated from her husband-and at the moment sees nothing but the present fight in her future. With questions in Parliament and the attention of MPs, including Jeremy Thorpe, she thinks the end may be in sight.
.lcThe first significant equal pay campaign was that of the women sewing machinists at the Ford factory in Dagenham in 1968. Hailed as a great victory by the labour movement, it proved to be a source of inspiration for other women workers fighting for improved working conditions.
