In this article, I choose struggles over skill development as an entry point to uncovering features of women's labor activism in state-owned tobacco factories in Romania, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. I look at the processes that constructed women tobacco workers, especially those at the Tobacco Manufactory in the city of Cluj, as non-skilled workers, and examine the forms of labor activism in the tobacco industry that challenged those constructs. I describe how women's work at the Cluj Tobacco Manufactory, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, was shaped by successive waves of production intensification and rationalization, demonstrating that these reorganizations affected female workers more than they affected their male coworkers. I point out that although they were considered non-skilled laborers, female tobacco workers exercised an amount of control over their work and were important contributors to their families’ maintenance. I show that spanning two different political regimes, matters of skill were at the core of labor activism. For female workers, in the interwar period, labor activism in male-dominated organizations and structures entailed skill-mediated political strategies that emphasized experience and shopfloor status besides skill. By the 1950s, labor activism encompassed engaging in confrontational politics over seasoned women workers’ lack of access to skill training programs. I show that both in the late 1920s and in the early 1950s, illiteracy and women's more limited access to formal schooling in general shaped new experiences of participation in labor politics.

在本文中，我选择围绕技能发展的斗争作为揭示 20 年代至 1960 年代初罗马尼亚国有烟草工厂妇女劳工行动主义特征的切入点。我研究了将女性烟草工人（尤其是克卢日市烟草制造厂的女性烟草工人）塑造为非技术工人的过程，并研究了烟草业中挑战这些构造的劳工激进主义的形式。我描述了克卢日烟草制造厂的女性工作，从 20 年代中期到 1950 年代中期，是如何受到连续的生产集约化和合理化浪潮的影响，表明这些重组对女性工人的影响大于对男性工人的影响合作伙伴。我指出，尽管女性烟草工人被认为是非技术工人，但她们对自己的工作行使了一定程度的控制权，并且是维持家庭的重要贡献者。我表明，跨越两种不同的政治政权，技能问题是劳工激进主义的核心。对于女性工人来说，在两次世界大战期间，男性主导的组织和结构中的劳工激进主义需要以技能为中介的政治策略，除了技能之外还强调经验和车间地位。到了 20 世纪 50 年代，劳工激进主义包括因经验丰富的女工缺乏接受技能培训计划的机会而参与对抗性政治。我表明，在 20 年代末和 1950 年代初，文盲和妇女接受正规教育的机会普遍有限，塑造了参与劳工政治的新经验。