By Jill Hickson
WOLLONGONG — Supporters of women denied work in BHP's Port Kembla steelworks picketed a BHP shareholders' meeting in Sydney on September 25. The women, many of them supporting families on unemployment benefits, made the trip from the Illawarra region to appeal to the shareholders of one of Australia's richest companies for justice in their long battle for compensation over discrimination that has meant years of financial hardship to many.
The protest was organised by the Justice and Jobs for Women Campaign, which is continuing the battle for 238 women seeking entitlements already paid to a representative group of 34 women who won a million-dollar settlement in May 1988 after a nine-year political and legal battle with BHP.
Until the Jobs for Women Campaign took on the company following a public meeting in February 1979, BHP employed only a tiny proportion of women in the steelworks, the biggest employer in the Illawarra. At the time, 25% of women in the region were unemployed.
By November 1980, following a vigorous publicity and legal campaign by the women, the company had been forced into an agreement to employ all of the women in the campaign by the following February.
But for most, their victory was to be short-lived. Within a year, BHP was planning a rationalisation of its operations which was eventually to reduce its work force by about 70% over a decade. The women, being among the last hired, were the first fired.
This led to a new round of legal battles, and eventually the $1 million settlement. Following complaints to the Equal Opportunity Tribunal and a series of legal hearings, the women established that past discriminatory hiring by the company meant that they were disadvantaged when retrenchments began in 1983, and most of the company's female workers were swept back out the gates.
BHP appealed the 1988 decision all the way to the High Court, and eventually lost. The company had to compensate the 34 complainants, who conducted their case as a representative action on behalf of all the women disadvantaged by BHP's discriminatory practices.
But, true to its reputation as one of the most ruthless employers in the country, BHP has stalled on compensating the other 238 women who have lodged complaints. "It's ridiculous: we complained on behalf of all the women, and we proved that BHP had discriminated", says Robynne Murphy, one of the original members of the Jobs for Women Campaign and now back at the steelworks after being retrenched in 1983. Murphy was eventually rehired from a seniority-based list of retrenched workers. "BHP is prepared to waste a lot of money to make all these women go through the courts. They should have learned from the last case, which they lost", says Maureen Nolan, who attended the shareholders' meeting and raised the women's claim at it. "I think the money would be better spent on creating jobs in the Port Kembla region", she added.