A Surprising Struggle? the AMIEU (Qld) and the Fight for Equal Wages in the Meat Processing and Export Industry in the 1950s and 1960s

Labour History

Volumn , Issue 77, 1999, Pages 140-159

  Jerrard, Marjorie A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; AUSTRALIA; CATERING SERVICE; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; FEMALE; HEALTH SERVICE; HISTORY; LEGAL ASPECT; MEAT INDUSTRY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIOECONOMICS; TRADE UNION; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS;

FOOD SUPPLY; HEALTH SERVICES; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; LABOR UNIONS; MEAT-PACKING INDUSTRY; QUEENSLAND; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; WOMEN'S HEALTH; WOMEN'S RIGHTS; WOMEN, WORKING;

EID: 67649432100     PISSN: 00236942     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3828/27516674     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. B. Smith, 'Equal pay for the sexes', The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, vol. 4, no. 2, February 1957, p. 5.
2. For a discussion of the history of the equal pay campaign, see E. Ryan & A. Cordon, Gentle Invaders: Australian Women at Work 1788-1974, Nelson, Sydney, 1975.
3. Short semi-structured interviews were conducted with former union members, shed delegates, and officials on 4 December 1997 at the Brisbane offices of the AMIEU (Qld). The questions covered issues relating to the role and duties of delegates but also specifically the struggle for equal pay during the 1950s and 1960s.
4. Conversations on equal pay were also held with Mr Claude Jones, author of 100 Years of Struggle & Change, AMIEU (Qld), Spring Hill, Brisbane, 1989, and former member of the CPA; and in 1997 with Mrs Alice Hughes (ne Anear), former union activist on women's rights during the 1950s and 1960s.
5. J. Naiman, 'Left feminism and the return to class', Monthly Review, vol. 48, no. 2, 1996, p. 21.
6. J. Humphries, 'Class struggle and the persistence of the working-class family', Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 2, September 1977, pp. 241-258
7. A. Curthoys, For and Against Feminism, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988
8. C. Thompson & B. Pocock, 'Moving from masculinity? Australian unions' industrial agenda', in B. Pocock (ed.), Strife - Sex and Politics in Labour Unions, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1997, p. 71.
9. For a discussion of trade union strategy, see M. Gardner, 'Union strategy: A gap in union theory', in B. Ford & D. Plowman, (eds), Australian Unions: An Industrial Relations Perspective, 2nd ed., Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1986, pp. 49-72.
10. M. Gardner, Women Workers, Trade Union Government and Strategies: The NSW Nurses' Association and Teachers' Federation, PhD thesis, Department of Industrial Relations, University of Sydney. For a specific discussion of union strategy and equal wages campaigns
11. M. Gardner, The "Fateful Meridian": Trade union strategies and women workers', in M. Bray & V. Taylor (eds), Managing Labour? Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Industrial Relations, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Sydney, 1986, pp. 168-194.
12. The Committee of Management was (and is) the AMIEU's major policy-making and governing body and consists of three delegates from each sub-branch (Northern, Central, Southern) plus the four state branch Executive Officers (President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary). The COM can reach any decision, provided that it does not conflict with the Queensland Branch's rules or with a decision of the Federal Council of the AMIEU. The COM can also make by-laws applicable only within Queensland, again provided that these do not conflict with Federal AMIEU rules.
13. Stella Nord was a married woman meatworker in the Queensland meat processing industry during the 1950s and 1960s. As a union member, Mrs Nord exerted her influence over other women to become members of the union and to become involved in the campaigns for equal wages. See K. Hargreaves, Women at Work, Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Vic, 1982, pp. 63
14. Mrs Nord was also sponsored by the union to undertake a tour of Queensland meatworks to educate members (male and female) about the equal pay campaign. During these tours, Mrs Nord was often confronted by protests from within the union's own ranks as well as from the Industrial Groupers and the rightwing of the Labor Party. Mrs Nord's contribution to women's rights as a union issue extended beyond the meat industry and in 1969 she published 'New conditions, new demands', Australian Left Review, October-November 1969.
15. Gardner, The "Fateful Meridian"', pp. 168-194
16. Gardner 'Union strategy: A gap in union theory', pp. 49-72.
17. C. Healy (ed.), The Lifeblood ofFootscray: Working Lives at the Angliss Meatworks, Melbourne's Living Museum of the West, Footscray, Melbourne, 1986?
18. V. Beechey, 'Rethinking the definition of work: gender and work' in J. Jenson, E. Hagen & C. Reddy (eds), Feminization of the Labour Force: Paradoxes and Promises, Polity Press, Oxford, 1988, p. 49.
19. C. O'Donnell & P. Hall, Introduction in C. O'Donnell & P. Hall (eds), Getting Equal: Labour Market Regulation and Women's Work, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988, p. 8.
20. The Fruitpickers' Case, 6 Commonwealth Law Reports 1912, at 71.
21. R.W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1987, p. 99.
22. Connell, Gender and Power, pp. 99-100.
23. Gardner, The "Fateful Meridian"', pp. 169-170.
24. Beechey, 'Rethinking the definition of work', p. 48.
25. Fieldes, 'Everybody was "Girls" in the minds of the management': the fight for equal pay in the Australian Insurance Industry, 1973-1975', Labour History, vol. 73, November 1997, pp. 187-207.
26. For discussion of male trade unions acting as agents in securing the exclusion of women from the workplace and for an analysis of the inverse relationship between the male trade union movement and the women's movement, ie the stronger the union the greater the oppression or segregation of women, see M. Dixson, The Real Matilda, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1976
27. A. Foreman, Femininity as Alienation, Pluto Press, New York, 1977, especially pp. 93-94, 151
28. R. Milkman/Organising the sexual division of labour: Historical perspectives on 'Women's Work and the American Labor Movement', Socialist Review, 29, vol. 10, no. 1, January-February, 1980, pp. 95-150
29. M. Thornton, '(Un)equal pay for work of equal value', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 23, no. 4, December 1981, especially pp. 467-468.
30. P. Armstrong & H. Armstrong, Theorizing Women's Work, Garamond Press, Toronto, 1990
31. Fieldes, 'Everybody was "Girls" in the minds of the management', pp.187-189
32. Naiman, 'Left feminism and the return to class', p. 21
33. D. Fink, 'Reorganising inequity: gender and structural transformation in Iowa meatpacking', in S. Stromquist & S. Bergman (eds), Unionizing the Jungles: Labor and Community in the Twentieth Century Meatpacking Industry, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 1997, p. 218
34. Thompson & Pocock, 'Moving from masculinity?', pp. 67-68.
35. Thornton, '(Un)equal pay for work of equal value', p. 467.
36. Gardner, The "Fateful Meridian"', p. 175.
37. Fieldes, 'Everybody was "Girls" in the minds of the management', p. 188
38. L. Bennett, 'Legal intervention and the female workforce: the Conciliation and Arbitration Court 1907-1921'; International Journal of the Sociology of Law, vol 12, no. 1, February 1984, pp. 23-36.
39. Fieldes, 'Everybody was "Girls" in the minds of the management', p. 189.
40. M. Nolan, 'Sex or class? The politics of the earliest equal pay campaign in Victoria', in R. Frances & B. Scates (eds), Women, Work and the Labour Movement in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand, special issue of Labour History, no. 61, November 1991, p. 121.
41. Jones, Interview 1993.
42. L. Finch, 'Could Winnie the War Winner' organise women? Problems of CPA women during World War II', Hecate, vol. X, no. 1, p.
43. See also T. O'Lincoln, 'Women and the CPA', Hecate, vol. VI, no. 1, pp. 53-66
44. Finch, 'Could Winnie the War Winner' organise women?', p. 11.
45. Unpublished interview with Lucas. The consensus among the former members interviewed was that the Northern Regions had more members of the CPA than either the Southern or Central Regions. See also D. Menghetti, The Red North: The Popular Front in North Queensland, James Cook University Press, Townsville, 1981.
46. A.E. Davies, The Meatworkers Unite, AMIEU (Vic), Carlton, 1974, 231; also see interview with George Seelaf, in Healy, The Lifeblood ofFootscray, pp. 95-96.
47. AMIEU (Qld) Submission pre-amble for Re-registration after the 1946 strike and subsequent de registration of the union, made by State Secretary Jim Neumann, AMIEU (Qld) documents, East Brisbane.
48. Statement by State Secretary Jim Neumann, in seeking re-registration 1946, AMIEU (Qld) documents, East Brisbane. Also cited by S.C. Wynn, The Social Structure of an Australian Abattoir, PhD thesis, School of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, La Trobe University, March 1977, pp. 65-66.
49. D. Blackmur, The meat industry strike of ?946', in DJ. Murphy (ed.), The Big Strikes: Queensland 1889-1965, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1983, pp. 215 234.
50. B. Bowden, A Breed Apart: The History of the Bacon Factories' Union of Employees 1946-1996, Boolarong Press, Moorooka, Qld 1996.
51. Thornton, '(Un)equal work for equal value', p. 467;
52. P. Ryan & T. Rowse, 'Women, arbitration and the family', in A.Curthoys, S. Eade & P. Spearitt (eds), Women at Work, Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra, 1975, p. 57.
53. Jones, 100 Years of Struggle & Change, p. 18.
54. G. Reekie, 'Comment on "Manning the Mines'", Australian Feminist Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1987, p. 104.
55. Davies, The Meatworkers Unite, p. 230.
56. As discussed in: Dixson, The Real Matilda; Foreman, Femininity as Alienation; Milkman, 'Organising the sexual division of labour'; Thornton, '(Un)equal pay for work of equal value'; and Armstrong & Armstrong, Theorizing Women's Work.
57. Curthoys, For and Against Feminism; Gardner, The "Fateful Meridian"', p. 170.
58. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, March 1957, p.
59. Jones, 100 Years of Struggle & Change, p. 18.
60. M. Thornton, 'Work and Consciousness' in P. Boreham & G. Dow (eds), Work and Inequality: Ideology and Control in the Capitalist Labour Process, vol. 2, Macmillan, South Melbourne, 1980, p. 203.
61. C. Burton, 'Equal pay: a comment', Australian Feminist Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1987, pp. 105-113.
62. D.S. Cobble (ed.), Women and Unions: Forging a Partnership, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1993, p. 25.
63. O'Donnell & Hall, Getting Equal, p. 49.
64. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, February 1957, p. 6.
65. A recent article by M. Theobald & D. Dwyer, 'An episode in feminist politics: The Married Women (Lecturers and Teachers) Act, 1932-79', Labour History, no. 76, May 1999, pp. 59-77
66. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, February 1957, p. 12.
67. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, August 1958, p. 12; cited as a reprint of 'Right to Work is Universal', in Labor News (undated).
68. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, August 1958, p. 13.
69. R. Fitzgerald & H. Thornton, Labor in Queensland From the 1880s to 1988, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1989, p. 51.
70. J. Hagan, Australian Trade Unionism in Documents, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 164 166, reproduction of ALP Industrial Groups Menace to Labour Movement.
71. The Groupers had some success in Victoria which further emphasised state differences between the Victorian and Queensland branches of the union; see The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, May 1957, p. 2.
72. AMIEU (Qld) Committee of Management Minutes, March 1958; The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, July 1958, p. 11.
73. Davies, The Meatworkers Unite, p. 232.
74. If this view is taken and applied to other leftwing unions, an explanation may be posited for the contradictory evidence put forward by O'Lincoln on 'the work of the CPA among women in the post-war period' in 'Women and the CPA', p. 53.
75. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, August 1958, p. 12.
76. Women at Work, p. 63 for the description.
77. In Hargreave, Women at Work, pp. 63-64.
78. Smith, 'Equal pay for the sexes', p. 5
79. Thompson & Pocock, 'Moving from Masculinity?', p. 73.
80. C. Andreas, Meatpackers and Beef Barons: Company Town in a Global Economy, University of Colorado Press, Niwot, Col., 1994
81. Fink, 'Reorganizing Inequity', pp. 188-217.
82. Queensland Guardian, 21 July 1951
83. O'Lincoln 'Women and the CPA', p. 55
84. Davies, The Meatworkers Unite, p. 231.
85. D. A. Deslippe, 'Challenges to Gender Inequality in the United Packinghouse Workers of America', in S. Stromquist & S. Bergman (eds), Unionizing the Jungles: Labor and Community in the Twentieth Century Meatpacking Industry, University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 1997, p. 193.
86. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, November 1956, p. 13, report from the first Australian Women's Conference held at Sydney, November 7-12.
87. Naiman, 'Left feminism and the return to class', p. 21.
88. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, July 1959, p. 10.
89. Davies, The Meatworkers Unite, p. 232.
90. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, April 1959, p. 15.
91. C. Johnson & J. Wajcman, 'Comment on "A comparative Analysis of Equal Pay in the US, Britain, and Australia"', Australian Feminist Studies, no. 3, Summer 1986, pp.91-95
92. C. Burton 'Equal pay: A comment', Australian Feminist Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1987, pp. pp. 105-113; Connell, Gender and Power.
93. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, April 1959, p. 15.
94. Interview with Lucas.
95. Interviews with Fox and Lucas.
96. The Meat Industry Journal of Queensland, December 1968-January 1969, p. 12.