Cleaners' Action — Little Portugal

This mural, made in October 2021 with Expanding Roots and the Little Portugal Toronto BIA, honours the Portuguese immigrant women who worked as cleaners in Toronto’s office towers during the 1970s and organised against exploitative working conditions. Its central portrait depicts Idalina Azevedo, who was connected to St. Christopher House and became a leading figure in the 1974 wildcat strike at the TD Towers. By placing her image and the movement’s protest slogans — ‘EASTWICK ON STRIKE’ and ‘O POVO UNIDO JÁ MAIS SERÁ VENCIDO’ (the People United Will Never Be Defeated) — within Little Portugal, the work makes visible a history of female labour, migration and collective action that remains central to the Portuguese-Canadian community.