By Tamara Desiatov and Stephen Robson
PERTH — Heather Horne and Gail McIntosh, previously employed at Press Clough, a joint venture producing accommodation modules for Woodside's North West Shelf gas rig site, are currently bringing a case of sexual harassment in their workplace before WA's Commissioner for Equal Opportunity.
The women allege that during 1991 they were subjected to sexual harassment in the form of numerous posters of women's genitals, women masturbating, and simulated sex acts with various objects. Following their complaints, harassment was actually stepped up and after repeated attempts to take up the issue through the metalworkers' union (MEWU) they turned to the equal opportunity commissioner.
Neither Horne nor McIntosh were new to industrial work. Horne worked at a mine at Mt Newman in WA's northwest for four years from 1979. At the time there were four other women at the mine. McIntosh came from New Zealand several years ago, working on a construction job in Geraldton in 1988. Later she obtained her class B welding licence. Horne commenced her employment as a trades assistant with Press Clough, in early September 1990, McIntosh three months later.
A document obtained by Green Left Weekly makes it clear that Horne and McIntosh's complaint differentiates between "girlie" magazines depicting women with their breasts uncovered and the lower portion of their bodies covered and the "more recent 'hard core' and explicit posters".
Despite attempts by women in recent years to get work in non- traditional areas of work, figures compiled by the MEWU show that little progress has been made in this area. The union's quarterly report for September 1991 indicates that a tiny 0.0054% of tradespeople in the union are women, with WA, South Australia and Tasmania having the lowest figures.
At Press Clough, out of a blue-collar workforce of around 450, Mcintosh and Horne were the only women.
According to their complaint, in early January 1991, a poster "was displayed in the supervisor's office which depicted a naked woman lying back facing the viewer with her legs apart showing a full view of her genitals". They approached the Site Construction Manager, Jock Watts to request that the specific poster be removed. They explained that most women would find these posters offensive.
As a result of their request, someone drew a pair of pants on the woman in the picture, and later a company sticker with the initials PCJV was placed over the genitals.
Horne and McIntosh indicate they were "disappointed with the reaction of their supervisors to their request... believing the way the matter was dealt with indicated that it was being treated as a joke." A few weeks later another poster, this time of a "man and woman engaging in anal intercourse" was pinned to the wall of crib hut 7. This poster was eventually removed after the person believed responsible for putting it up was confronted by the two women.
In March 1991 a dozen "hardcore" posters were put up in another crib hut which McIntosh sighted when cleaning up the hut and which she said physically sickened her. The posters showed women masturbating and simulating sexual acts with various objects, and close-ups of women's genitals. McIntosh approached one worker she believed to be responsible for the posters, asking him to remove them. He refused, describing the posters as "art". It was at this stage that the metalworkers' union was brought in.
The women told MEWU site organiser, Bob Dalrymple, they "found the posters offensive and [they] had not been able to get the men to agree to their removal". They proposed removing them and Dalrymple "did not disagree with their suggestion" and began removing them.
Within a couple of hours they were summoned to Dalrymple's office and informed that "the men had objected to the removal of the posters and were of the opinion that... [they]...had no right to dictate what sort of material could be displayed in the workplace".
Dalrymple allegedly indicated at this stage that there "would be little, if any sympathy", for the women if they decided to push this issue and that it "may result in them not being employed in this type of work in the future".
From here the incident became a major issue on the site and the other men "became vocal in their opposition". The women became aware that derogatory comments were being written about them on walls around the site, including the men's toilets.
About a week later, during a period of wet weather, McIntosh had to enter the crib hut as part of her job as a "peggy", to stock the huts with milk, coffee and other lunch supplies. She says that when she entered crib hut 5 there were about 35 men playing cards inside.
"The room immediately went silent", she said, "One man booed and another hissed and this call was taken up by most of the men in the hut while I attended to my duties". She left the hut feeling intimidated, embarrassed and demeaned.
McIntosh and Horne were not alone in feeling intimidated. They report noted that "women from the local shop make a practice of entering the crib huts in pairs on rainy days when collecting lunch orders because they feel safer and less intimidated by the reaction they receive from the men".
McIntosh visited the union organiser's office in November 1991 to do some cleaning. On the wall behind the desk she says there was "a Penthouse poster of a naked woman with her legs apart and her vagina displayed". McIntosh removed this. In early December she met with MEWU assistant secretary Jock Ferguson. McIntosh said that Ferguson "appeared to be sympathetic to her complaint and enthusiastic about her suggestion that some equal opportunity workshops be organised through TUTA [Trade Union Training Authority] for union representatives and others workers on site". However, no action was taken by the union to organise this course.
In March the women wrote formally to the MEWU explaining that "it was regrettable that the MEWU may be perceived by some to have actively contributed to the discrimination, harassment and victimisation of two of its members". They still received no response and decided to take their case to the Equal Employment Opportunity Board.
Horne visited a clinical psychologist, Margo French, who diagnosed her as suffering from Critical Incident Stress. Both McIntosh and Horne went on sick leave and applied for workers' compensation. This was opposed by the company's insurer, SGIO, and their application was unsuccessful.
McIntosh and Horne's complaint states clearly that "it was not uncommon for 'girlie pinups' to be displayed in such workplaces and... that such pinups were not the cause of their complaint..." It was "because of the increasing number of explicit posters in the workplace which depicted women masturbating, explicit sexual acts and graphic photographs of women's genitalia".
McIntosh is now training to be a cook and Horne is presently unemployed.