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Women from La Línea, workers in Gibraltar

Women from La Línea, workers in Gibraltar
1939. Inside and cover of the Access pass to Gibraltar given to Cándida Casal, Isabel Álvarez’s mother, issued in January 1939. The cover reads «Certificate of Employment of Spanish Subject as a Domestic Servant». Cándida Casal began working in Gibraltar before 1936 and continued during the Civil War 1936-1939 and after being widowed in 1939. Source: personal archive, Isabel Álvarez
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Women from La Línea, workers in Gibraltar

Most domestic servants in Gibraltar as well as workers in schools and healthcare were women who lived in La Línea and other neighbouring villages. Workers in Gibraltar had relatively precarious salary and contractual conditions, but these were better than in La Línea. The situation allowed them greater economic autonomy and also they avoided male control as they were away from their families.

As regards domestic servants, the trust and moral debt they created meant that their jobs were usually hereditary. This was particularly necessary if employment prospects did not improve from generation to generation. Vicente Ricardo’s grandmother grew up as one of the domestic servants of a well-known lawyer, and spent all her working life with the Benoliel-Levi in Gibraltar and London. Her daughter was also employed by the same family.

It was common for younger women to quit their jobs in Gibraltar once they got engaged. Of the Spanish women registered as workers in Gibraltar in 1964, 72 percent were single or widowed.

Family members and neighbours of all those interviewed had looked for work in the colony after being widowed or when their husbands abandoned them. Furthermore, when the Franco administration denied access to the colony to certain men, it was even more essential that the women in the family found work in Gibraltar or went to the colony to «run errands» (take out black market products).