May-Jun 2008

Women of the wharves & ships

Once it was wives not workers, but since the 1900s women have been crossing oceans, working up the giant portainer cranes, on deck and down the hatch.

The first women to work in the previously male domain of the wharves and ships go back to the 1900s. Now they are also taking their place in the union.

Women are still a minority in the maritime industry and therefore make up only a fraction of union membership.

MUA statistics20 show that in JUNE 2001, women made up only 255 (or 2.6%) of the 9842 members in the Maritime Union of Australia.

No woman has been elected to branch or national office, but the union has adopted an affirmative action program & women workers are now represented in all enterprise bargaining committees, as observers to national council and as delegates to the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Port Botany wharfie Sue Gajdos was chosen to represent women transport workers on the international stage in 1998.

The Maritime Union appointed the P&0 Ports stevedoring worker as the MUA delegate to the International Transport WorkersB9 Federation Women's Conference held in New Delhi, India.

Sue was among 1500 representatives of transport unions from Europe, the Middle East, North America, the Asia Pacific, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The 150 women at the conference elected Sue as one of four permanent delegates to represent women workers on the ITF Asia Pacific regional committee - a position she holds until 2002.

Making history

The first full time woman wharfie was Sandra Elliman, 21, who followed her grandfather, father and brother onto the Townsville wharves in 1989. Before her, three women checkers were granted admission to the union in Whyalla in October 1976. Their duties included checking cargo to and from the ship's holds. Others followed as casuals and first aid workers.

Then came the Australian Vocational Training Scheme of 1993 and jobs for two women stevedoring workers at Sea-Land container terminal in Adelaide - Michelle van Rens, 19 and Monica Judd,18.

The first fully trained women wharfies to join men at Port Botany Sydney were Sue Gajdos, Melissa Bowrey and Christine Ednie. They also started their training under the Carmichael scheme, graduating with much media fanfare, as fully fledged stevedoring workers in November,1997. Melbourne and Brisbane too boast women on the wharves in trade positions and as stevedoring workers.

It was the Centenary Convention of the Seamen's Union in October 1972, which voted to allow women into the union and onto ships as crew members. Up until then only the Marine Stewards Union included women employed in traditional female jobs on passenger ships, serving food and washing dishes.

Among the first woman to work on the ships was Camilla Wess, deck cadet, Bass Trader, 1984. Heather Yarnton was the first woman to graduate from the Australian Maritime College with an Associate Diploma in Maritime Electronics in 1981. The first seagoing female graduate was Sandra Risk who received a Diploma in nautical science in July 1986.

Then came amalgamation and, in 1995, the inaugral MUA National Women's Conference. This brought together women wharfies, seafarers, port and administration workers from around the coast at the unions training centre to formulate a women's stragey for the union.

Now women are represented at all levels of the union, with meetings or phone hookups every few weeks. Women of the wharves and ships unite: Vital Statistics: how women figure in the union

Women flag the MUA: union adopts policy to advance women in the union & on the job (April, 2001)

MUA adopts hard line on harassment; (December, 2000)

MUA women's policy back on course: report by Sue Gajdos (July, 2000)

Women's Work: Discrimination, harassment & prejudice still stalk the wharves & ships 8B women members tell Melbourne Branch confab (September, 2000)

20 Pregnant wharfie: Jenny Wright proud mother-to-be part of the battle for casual paternity leave. (May, 2000)

Word First: Jane Holgate made history in the Year 2000, when she became the first woman in the world to receive the Merchant Navy Service Cross.

World rep: Sydney wharfie is Asia Pacific women's delegate to the International Transport Workers' Federation

Women at Work: Kerry Easton, caterer, Spirit of Tasmania (May, 2000)

Women at War: the Patrick dispute

Picket Fences: artist, writer & wharfie's wife Louise Sherret commemmorates the dispute

Women of the wharves & ships

Making history

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