Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time with one document—the well-cited (but rarely in detail) ‘But I wouldn’t want my wife to work here: a study of migrant women in Melbourne industry’, published in 1975 the Centre for Urban Research and Action (CURA).1 In this post, I want to simply spotlight some of the testimony in this report—testimony from working migrant women. While ‘But I wouldn’t want my wife to work here‘2 is cited often in studies of migrants in industry, the actual testimony is not.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, young married migrant women were in the workforce in much greater proportions than Australian-born women. Nearly 60% of Italian, Greek and Yugoslav born women who were in the workforce, worked as labourers, production or process workers, compared to only 9.2% of Australian-born women and 14% UK-Ireland born women.3 Their actual lived experiences of their work, however, is rarely contained in the historiography.
Which I get. Due to the nature of their working lives and family responsibilities, many migrant women would not have had the time or opportunity to learn English or participate in public debate—although there are several notable women who were active in the ethnic or migrant rights space in the 1970s (some of them were on the research team for the CURA report!). At least here with the report, we have some testimony. Other reports into migrant women in specific industries followed this one, conducted by the same groups in the migrant rights movement (like FILEF, EMC and AGWS), but I haven’t seen them consulted in much detail.
‘But I wouldn’t want my wife to work here’ was funded by the 1975 International Women’s Year National Advisory Committee. CURA’s Des Storer, who led the research, was assisted by staff from other welfare groups in the migrant rights activist space, including: the Ecumenical Migration Centre (EMC); ethno-specific community welfare organisations like the Federation of Italian Workers and their Families (FILEF), the Australian Greek Welfare Society (AGWS), Australian-Turkish Welfare Association (ATWA), the Spanish Workers’ Commission (SWC), Yugoslav Welfare Society, and the Migrant Workers’ Conference Committee. Representatives from relevant unions also lent their support, which aided the research team’s access to factories. For the research, the team visited 30 factories across several industries—the metal and electrical industries, shoe industry, food processing industry, meat industry, and the clothing industry.
Nearly 2000 migrant women participated in written surveys. The research team had decided that ‘research could only be carried out by migrant women workers themselves’4, and so a further 663 women completed one-on-one interviews with research team members Maria Pozos, Toula Nikalou, and Lilian Ilic (who spoke some six languages between them, including Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Macedonian, Spanish and Italian). Lilian Ilic and Toula Nikalou were welfare workers from the EMC. Maria Pozos was an industrial worker herself, a member of the Migrant Workers’ Conference Committee, and a member of the National Advisory Committee for IWY.
Presented below are some quotations from the report—largely un-curated but presented in broad thematic categories that align with the report’s questions, Sadly, the report didn’t provide individual biographical information for each quotation, presumably for privacy reasons. Furthermore, the quotations from the women surveyed and interviewed are not lengthy. And the raw data from the 663 interviews were not archived (to the best of my knowledge! Unless someone knows otherwise?).
Quotations are peppered throughout the report, and we get a sense in the Introductory chapter of the statistical spread of participants—eg. 46% of participants worked in the clothing industry, nearly 20% in metalworks and electrical, and 17% in meatworks; the majority were born in either Greece, Italy or Yugoslavia; nearly 90% had children. However, as indicated, most of the individual quotations are not properly attributed, even in the broadest terms (eg. industries/factories in which they worked, ethnicity, age, or length of residency).
On why they work
‘my husband’s wages are not enough’ (32)
‘I work for survival’ (32) – many mentioned ‘survival’
On work conditions – the piece work system
‘I like nothing about the job. Too many bosses watching us. These people earn more and for this money they act like guards—with much discrimination against us migrants.’ (34)
‘It’s degrading and makes us nervous.’ (35)
‘The rate of production is too high, the bonus system is bad… because some of the women don’t even go to the toilet – just to keep production up.’ (35)
‘The treatment in this factory is animalistic. Work is too hard. Bonus system is wrong and conditions are unhealthy.’ (35)
‘Production has risen astronomically but there has been no improvement in the conditions at work. We are afraid to say anything about the conditions because management may sack us – the Government must do something to help us migrants in this situation.’ (75)
‘Many women kill themselves on the bonus system and get nervous complaints.’ (75)
On discrimination and treatment by management
‘They push us around like slaves. The way bosses speak to you.’ (35)
‘The bosses continually scream at you. Let a biscuit pass and they look at you as if you were from a mental institution. This is because the rate of work is too fast and women can’t do it for long. This is why every week dozens leave.’ (35)
‘Us migrants are used to doing the more menial jobs and this creates discrimination between workers.’ (35)
‘The workers are not treated equally by mid-management… tears are shed.’ (36)
On Trade Unions
‘We are not sure when meetings are on and never understand what is going on.’ (73)
‘The union should watch more closely from the workers position so they can see that the worker is not only working but is being tortured both physically and mentally.’ (73)
‘They should tell us what is going on.’ (56)
‘I have worked in a factory for over 10 years. Management forced me to look after 3 machines – this was done by 2 persons before. I obviously could not cope so they sacked me. What’s worse I lost my long service leave which was the intention of management to save on 3 months wages – the union didn’t care.’ (75)
‘Unions must speak to us in our own language. We never know what is going on.’ (75)
‘The unions should provide interpreters at our meetings. Over 50% of us are Yugoslav and we don’t know what happened here.’ (75)
‘It seems difficult to us migrants to appreciate what the purposes of unions are in this country. All I know about the union is that I was told to join not knowing a thing about it. To me this was just a further expenditure. I was very surprised to learn later that this Is a worker organisation to protect workers and improve conditions. Another puzzling thing was the strike. I just was not aware of the role of the union until explained to me by you people [the research team]… come to us to explain the why’s and wherefores [in language]… the union must publish material about its work in various language. Also I think it might be an idea to set up some sort of aid system or office where migrants with industrial problems can go and get advice again in their own language. I feel that if these things could eventuate, many friends of mine at work who are strongly against the union and suspicious of the dealings of the union would become more interested and supportive of the union’. (76 – the longest quotation in the report, attributed to a ‘recent South American migrant’)
On Childcare
‘I would like such a centre to be run by people like myself who speak my language and understand what we want.’ (42)
‘We work hard. Employers should pay for such services.’ (42)
‘It is our right – we should not have to pay as if it is a privilege.’ (42)
‘Governments and employers should provide this for us.’ (42)
These are invaluable insights, and there’s lots of potential for future historical research around these women’s experiences. I’m currently working through some of it. If you’re interested in any aspect of Australia’s migrant or industrial past in the 20th century, I encourage you to have a look at the full report (it’s available at the NLA).
