Gathering signatures for a petition during the Jobs For Women campaign. Photo: Women of Steel film.
Forty-five years after camping outside the Port Kembla steelworks to demand the right to work, the pioneering women behind the landmark Jobs for Women campaign will reunite for a special screening of documentary Women of Steel this month.
Directed by one of the campaigners, Robynne Murphy, the film captures their historic 14-year fight and victory against gender discrimination at BHP, which owned the Port Kembla Steelworks at the time.
Robynne joined migrant and working class women to take on what was Australia’s largest company, initially appearing to have won.
However, when the 1983 steel slump devastated the city’s economy, the women were forced into a prolonged battle for workplace equality.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the tent embassy outside the steelworks, when the campaign for Jobs for Women began.
On 10 July at Warrawong, screening of the film set in 1980s Wollongong will be followed by a panel discussion with Robynne and the original “women of steel” featured in the 2020 film.
“When we started the campaign, I had no idea – and none of us did – of the ramifications of the fight with BHP around the right to work and that it would set some much broader precedents for women at work,” Robynne said.
“By the time it panned out with the High Court case and then the class action, I knew I needed to make the film, because not many people knew about it.”
She said while those who lived in Wollongong through the 80s would be aware of the campaign, younger generations were often unaware of the history of the hard-fought battle.
It was a campaign involving primarily migrant women who had industrial work experience in their home countries and were travelling to Sydney daily to work in factories, but were not considered for jobs at the steelworks which were being given to men.
“You’d be standing there at the employment office and there’d be a fella standing next to you and he’d be getting a job… and we were being told there were no jobs for women,” she said.
“We were all pretty angry at the time.
“Some of the women, from places like Macedonia, were strong women who’d done farm work and done industrial work and it was such a surprise for them to not be employed.”
She said they set up the Jobs For Women Action Committee and through persistent public campaigning, multilingual leaflets and a strategic legal challenge, the women pressured BHP to change its practices.
Women outside the unemployment offices in the 80s. Photo: Women of Steel film.
“We really wanted a genuine campaign that reflected the plight of women in the Illawarra,” she said.
“To do that, we really had to involve that huge array of women, so we started getting the leaflets out in different languages.
“That’s when we set up the tent embassy and it’s been 45 years.”
Robynne said the tent embassy was on the main bridge across from the steelworks, with members putting up banners, posters and camping out.
She said the response was huge support from unions, migrant organisations and women’s groups.
Their efforts not only secured jobs for women but also abolished archaic workplace lifting regulations and established important legal precedents for anti-discrimination legislation.
“It was the fact we had a public community campaign and there was so much media by the end of the 1980s, the company just pretty much had been pressured into employing women,” she said.
“There were many peaks and many hurdles, but just getting a job was pretty fantastic.
“Because I was one of the main organisers, along with three other women, I just didn’t think they’d employ us.
“I thought they’d employ all the other women, but they mightn’t employ – in brackets – the troublemakers.”
As a fundraiser for Women Illawarra, the Women of Steel event will feature a panel discussion with some of the original campaign participants, including Lou-anne Barker, Slobodanka Joncevska, and Yasmin Rittau.
Robynne said some of the women had since passed, but family members would be attending to honour them.
While the film previously aired on ABC TV, she said it was a chance for those unfamiliar with that chapter of Wollongong’s history to join the conversation about justice and equality and for young social justice campaigners to dissect how the grassroots-organised campaign worked.
She said in looking back at the lasting impact it had on gender equality and workers’ rights, she was proud of what they achieved.
“However, I look at workers’ rights and women’s rights now, and I realised we have a lot still to fight for,” she said.
Book tickets for Women of Steel – 45 Years On documentary screening and panel discussion on 10 July at 6:30 pm at Gala Twin Cinema, Warrawong. Funds raised will go to Women Illawarra.
