Tickets to Women of Steel, which premiered in Perth on November 26, sold out some two weeks in advance, reports Sam Wainwright.
Robynne Murphy
You’ve probably heard The Ballad of 1891 about the Queensland shearers’ strike. You can probably sing Kev Carmody’s From Little Things Big Things Grow about the Gurindji Walk Off at Wave Hill in 1961. But do you know the story of the Jobs for Women campaign at the Wollongong steelworks in the 1980s? Check it out at the Sydney Film Festival, writes Karen Fletcher.
The world premiere of a 14-year struggle for jobs will be screened at this year's “virtual” Sydney Film Festival. Women of Steel, a finalist for an award, documents a hard-won campaign by women in the Illawarra to force BHP to hire them, write Pip Hinman and Peter Boyle.
Rural Fire Service volunteer Robynne Murphy, who has been on the bushfire frontline since November on behalf of her local community on the NSW south coast, told Green Left: "I want this government brought down because they have no solutions".
The first screening of the cinematic tale of women fighting for jobs at Port Kembla steelworks screened to 250 people at the Gala Cinema in Warrawong on April 17.
Set in 1973, The Women Who Were Never There tells a dramatic story, based on real events, of women who chained themselves to the front gates of BHP to protest the lack of jobs for women.
The film brings to life the drama of the women who took on Australia's biggest corporation in their fight for equality.
On June 12 the Geelong Women’s Unionist Network (GWUN) hosted a book launch for Women of Steel at Geelong Trades Hall. The purpose of the event was not only to launch the book recounting the Jobs for Women campaign which took on BHP in Wollongong in 1970s but also to raise funds for the Jobs for Women film project.