Early Vancouver telephone operators and strikes

By the early 20th century, telephones were being used in most Vancouver offices.

At first, in the late 1880s, the New Westminster and Burrard Inlet Telephone Company hired boys as operators to connect customers to each other through a switchboard. Boys were thought to be more adept and comfortable handling the technology but the company soon discovered a different problem.

The boys were liable to be rude and talk back to customers, even hanging up on them and the company received a litany of complaints that made it decide to change tack and begin hiring women.

Women, they concluded, would be polite even in the face of outright hostility and impatient customers, most of whom were men, and within a few years almost all the operators were women, all the supervisors, men.

Despite earning more than they would at any other jobs, telephone operator wages were still far from providing a living wage, $17.50/month. At the time, a woman on her own needed to earn about $23/month to cover the most basic of living expenses.

Working conditions were also less than ideal. Operators had to perch for hours on high stools wearing headsets that were heavy and uncomfortable, cheerfully putting up with rude and impatient customers, and being vigilant to avoid the wrath of ruthless supervisors who paced back and forth behind them throughout their shifts. If an operator was sick and had to miss even half a day she had to pay for a replacement or risk being fired.  

In Oct 1901, female telephone operators organized a local of the International Brotherhood Electrical Workers, and the next year, struck along with the BC Telephone linesmen for nearly three weeks.

Many businesses were offended by the women’s audaciousness at asking for higher wages, fearing it would cut into their own profits. Still – by this time, the telephone had become essential for running a business so the community ultimately supported the workers and pressured the company to comply with their demands.

The operators were thrilled to get all they asked for, including 3 days/month sick leave, an 8-hour working day, and, for those who’d been with the company longer than six months, a raise up to $20 a month (linesman’s wages went up to $66 a month).

However, another strike, four years later was disastrous. It dragged on for months, until BC Tel broke off negotiations in May 1906, bringing in scabs who were willing to work for lower wages and under the conditions that existed at the beginning of the strike that January.  

Even though working men and women took it for granted that wives needed an outside income to make ends meet, marriage was considered the correct and expected course of life for women and was used to justify their lower wages. The general attitude was that women only worked for treats and trinkets – what was called “pin money”, and that men’s wages would be sufficient to support a family.

In my story, Kate works as a telephone operator in Vancouver and becomes a leader in the 1902 strike and afterward, a bone of contention between her and her more conventional brother-in-law, Robbie.