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Last Updated: January 29, 2012
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Interview with Yvonne Smith

Eventually I believe we will overcome!

It was right in the middle of the 1930's depression, I was a young child and my mother was ill. Together with my sister I went to stay with my mother's sister in Prahran, Victoria.

I distinctly remember the poor children at school and the poverty around Greville Street where the shops were. There were many dusty second hand shops, many empty shops and a shoddiness in the whole area.

Looking back, I realize that some of the children were pretty shabby although people tried to keep up appearances. Another aunt lived there too and I remember going down to the shops with her. She went into a second hand shop, saying 'see if there is anyone around, dear', she was so embarrassed. They were working class people and they had their pride.

That was my first contact with poverty.

My mother died and we moved around a bit after than. First to Gardenvale with a housekeeper, then to my father's sister also in Gardenvale briefly then Elsternwick with various other housekeepers. The war had started and the import company my dad worked for went out of business and he became a government employee – a factory inspector. He was stationed at Daylesford so it was back with my aunt at Gardenvale.

In the mistaken belief he would make a lady of me, he sent me to a private girls college nearby. Through that move I met people who were involved, early in the war, in things like sheepskins for Russia, so I became slightly associated with the political scene. I was also introduced to the Eureka Youth League (EYL) – the communist youth club – which had opened a little branch in a shopfront in Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea.

It was terrific for me because I really was terribly lonely. Living with another family made me feel on the outer. I think I spent most of my time at a friend's place, sometimes at the clubrooms, often getting into trouble for not letting people at home know where I was. I wasn't in the EYL for very long however and I don't think the Ripponlea branch existed for very long. I became more interested in dancing and boys etc.

I left school very early and went to a business college, starting work at fifteen in the office at a big conglomerate company in the city. I transferred to a subsidiary office in Port Melbourne and really liked it down there.

We had relatively good working conditions in those times. I didn't start work till 9 o'clock. I knocked off at about 4.20 pm when the factory did as we had special buses provided for us, and on top of that we used to get shopping time off to go into town. Every year we got a bonus, which was equivalent to about one and a half week's wages. Of course, staff were hard to get during the war.

I worked there until a while after I got married. I used to spend quite a lot of time with both my mother's sisters of whom I was very fond. One was a bit of a rebel. She had been divorced, which had put her on the outer with the strait-laced aunt I lived with; she smoked, she didn't mind a drop and she had been involved with the theatre – shock, horror! This, plus my father's sister's disapproval, further endeared her to me.

Auntie had married again, to a tramway inspector. They were associated with the Labor Party and I used to often visit. They were very interested in following the progress of the war, and the opening of the second front, and in listening to debates and public affairs programs on the radio.

Generally, I became very interested in politics. I started reading about Russia and the revolution. I read whatever I could get from the Right or the Left, it didn't matter to me. I was incredibly impressed by what was happening there. Of course, they were an ally at the time.

I was eighteen when I decided to join the Communist Party. I went along to a class at Marx House in the city, where the Communist party had study groups and a library. A young – later to be well-known communist – was holding forth in a fiery and, I thought, a rather exhibitionist way. I had no idea what these people were on about. I asked how to join and was told that someone would come to see me but nobody did, so I didn't join – then.

When I married I found out that my husband's father had been a foundation member of the communist party down at the wharves. He came back from the First World War with bad trench feet, faced unemployment and went through the lottery system to try to get a day's work. These injustices inspired him to get involved.

During the cold war when things got pretty bad for anyone with communist connections, Don, my husband, joined but I didn't. By that time I had two small children.

Don came home one day and told me about a meeting to establish a Union of Australian Women (UAW) – he thought I might be interested. I went to the railway housing estate in Sunshine and heard Alison Dickie speaking. I was very impressed with her, such a gentle, honest person. She spoke on peace and the danger of the US dropping the atom bomb. We also identified local issues for women at that meeting such as a gas levy, which had been imposed on the area.

At that first meeting I was elected secretary. I thought the women were absolutely wonderful. I hadn't been content with my life. Living in Sunshine I was pretty isolated. My dear aunt, who I was so close to and my sister, lived at Glen Waverly – right at the other end of the line.

I really felt with this position that there was something positive I could do. I started writing letters to the papers about the gas levy, we had a deputation to the local gas and fuel corporation manager. We got in touch with our local politician but he was quite cross with me. A Labor man, Shepherd was his name. He wasn't a bad chap I suppose but just didn't like activists (probably women especially) telling him what should be done. He was quite hostile about it.

I had a few words with him and he challenged me about why I had presented a petition. I replied that I thought that was what we were supposed to do, and he backed down! He eventually did do something and we had the levy removed, but he never acknowledged the work we did.

That was my initiation into political activity, basically. I did join the communist party a couple of years later.

Very sadly, in 1958, my husband died. He was very young, only 31.

I had started work a few months earlier, as we were really hard up, at the Footscray hospital first as clerical assistant and then stenographer to the radiologist. When Don died I had that job, so kept on working. I couldn't see how I could live on the pension, which was about nine pounds per fortnight. I was earning, I think, twelve pounds ten shillings a week.

I had someone to look after my youngest who was only three, but eventually I was able to get him accepted into the creche at Footscray. It was a wonderful creche – the way they all ought to be today. It was a government establishment and provided full time care for all preschool age children.

The only bad thing about it was that it closed at 5 p.m. and if you didn't get there to pick up the children they were taken to the police station! This was barbaric but otherwise, well, they had mothercraft nurses and I knew my child, an asthmatic, was looked after properly.

This was when I became aware of how terribly important childcare was to so many women, whether they were in the paid workforce or not.

I had applied for a war widow's pension but had been rejected. I appealed the decision. Someone from the RSL/Legacy came to see me and asked me what I could say to support my appeal. I told him about Don having been in the occupation forces in Japan. He had been stationed at Bofu, right outside Hiroshima, and he had suffered from a mystery illness while he was there. I wondered whether that had affected him as he later died of a brain tumour.

In the end they must have accepted this because I received the war widow's pension. It was a lot better than the ordinary Department of Social Security pension, and not means tested. I had about a year's back pay coming to me so I got a few bob ahead and bought myself a little car. It meant that I could keep working and handle the childcare system. I used to rush around in a panic trying to get there in time. I was a few minutes late one day – he was with the cleaner, but not much later he would have been taken to the police station which may have involved accusations of neglect etc. I was very nervous of this.

That was a big thing for me, getting that pension. I have often though it is amazing what you have to go through to get any recognition of your rights. Although it worked out well for me, I will never forget the feeling of being completely dependent on your own resources to look after your kids and have them rely on you alone, and not know whether you will be able to keep it up.

It always seemed to be at the last minute at work when the doctor asked me to do something so I was 5 or ten minutes late getting away. It was a real nightmare, trying to pick up the kids, get home, get tea and fall into bed. Anyone who talks harshly about single mothers receives no sympathy from me. You would think, by the way some people speak, it is a bed of roses – that you are a single mother by choice just to get the pension!

After I met Bill Smith, my present husband, he told me of a secretarial job coming up at the railway union and arranged for me to apply for it. I became secretary to the assistant secretary of the union, Bill O'Brien, who was a lovely man and a very active supporter of peace and the antiapartheid struggles in South Africa. There was a woman named Helen Joseph, a white women – this was before the black movement really started to surge – who had been held under house arrest for years. Bill used to go around the unions picking up cards and letters of support for her and other activists. The UAW was also involved in support for antiapartheid activists in South Africa.

Although I hadn't been able to do much in the UAW since Don died, Win Graham, an ex school teacher, had kept the group going. She had always been the driving force in getting the Sunshine group set up and she was a very capable and experienced campaigner for child care, kindergartens, International Women's Day and women's rights – a great role model. We used to have Saturday meetings and we would have all sorts of activities for the kids – including a picnic once a year at Williamstown. It was very much a sisterhood. We supported each other.

While I was still working at the ARU there was a UAW deputation to Harold Holt, treasurer at the time. I was so busy, I didn't have time to prepare anything. I rushed in at the last minute and someone nudged me and whispered 'say something'. So I did. I remember speaking quite fervently about the need for childcare services, particularly for working mothers (this was part of a national 'mother and child' campaign). We didn't get anywhere, but it may have sown some seeds. That was my first active foray into the national child care area. Later I was involved with forming a kindergarten committee and I had also been a member of the Sunshine Child Care Committee of which Win Graham had been a founder.

When Bill and I married I resigned from work. I needed rest, adjustment time and to be able to devote more energy to care of the children, who had not had an easy time. I again became active with the UAW in Sunshine. We had many local campaigns around local and international issues:

  • support for land rights with Aboriginal women speakers;
  • health issues with large public meetings with experts to explain e.g. Salk vaccination, Pap smear tests for women;
  • deputations to the local council on the cost of living;
  • peace art competitions for local schools;
  • speakers on equal pay;
  • organising equal pay speakers at local factories;
  • letter writing, and selling our UAW magazine 'Our Women' on a regular basis at the post office on child endowment day, where we also had goods and cake stalls to raise money.

I also started to help in the central office of the UAW and later became assistant secretary.

I needed to get back to work mainly for financial reasons when the children were older and I decided to try a factory. I got a job at Smorgons, the meat works. It was a terrible job, packing in a meat factory. The hygiene was appalling - it was an eye opener. We were packing offal. It was clean on the tables where we worked, but where we went to get the plastic bags the meat was packed in wasn't. It was a terrible, dark little shed with holes in the wall where vermin could enter. The bags would often be on the floor which was anything but salubrious.

The factory inspectors knew – they would go in there for a smoke. It wasn't a good job. There was no way anyone tried to involve the women in the union. I later found out that it was said around the industry that this company was notorious for buying off their leading hands and some of their union people – maybe that also extended to factory inspectors?

I got put off after a month, they just said on pay day ' you're not coming in next week'. Perhaps I wasn't fast enough, I don' t know. I didn't agitate. It was a casual job. The workers there were nearly all migrant women who didn't speak English so it was hard to know what was going on. Anyway, I didn't want to go back. It had been an interesting experience.

I heard about a job at the meat employees union, as a secretary. My work and responsibility extended and I was eventually given the position of Claims Officer, doing workers' compensation and the smaller disputed industrial claims. This was very interesting advocacy work which also gave me the opportunity to visit the workers in their factory and take educative information to them on the job about their rights.

When I first took on this job, a lot of the workers were dubious about a woman speaking for them but after a while they liked it. Once there were a couple of chaps waiting in the union foyer. One was demanding to see the secretary, not me, about his workers compensation problem, when the other one said, 'no, mate, see her, she's better'.

During this period Bette Olle and I went out and handed out leaflets of support for Zelda D'Aprano who had chained herself to the Commonwealth Building to protest about the lack of equal pay. It was in 1969 after the first equal pay case - the Meat Employees Union test case – which had been so disappointing – came down. Joan Curlewis had presented the UAW submission to the Court – the same case we had been arguing for years. We were very supportive of her action and other initiatives of the women's liberation movement, which had followed on from the Women's Action Committee initiated by Zelda, Bon Hull and Alma Geike.

The tram rides particularly captured my interest. At an earlier International Women's Day Committee I had suggested hiring a tram and using it to highlight equal pay during IWD. It wasn't a bad idea but wasn't taken up at the time.

The Tram ride initiated by the Women's Action Committee was a better idea and a great publicity raiser in which I and many UAW women participated.

The Meat Employees union was the hub of activity in the Trades Hall, George Seelaf was the Secretary of the Union at the time and gave very good support to the equal pay campaign; earlier equal pay marches were organised through our office and were always a hive of activity preparing banners and placards. The Union was also the organising centre for the May Day march, peace activity, organising receptions for visiting overseas trade unionists or activists in one progressive activity or another. George Seelaf was the driving organising force behind the publication of Frank Hardy's book 'Power without Glory'.

I had the pleasant job of organising equal pay functions for women meat workers and got to know and admire some of those down to earth factory workers and their difficulties in achieving equal representation in such a male dominated industry.

At one time I was a member of the Clerk's Union and would go to the meetings at the Trades Hall. It was dominated by the old Democratic Labor Party people who were opposed to anything they saw as 'left'. It wouldn't make any difference what issue you raised. If you were not one of them you would be howled down. They were past masters at rules of debate. If there was any way they could stop a motion, they would do it. They had it right down pat, if they didn't have the numbers they would work out some way to have it deferred or declared invalid. You get intimidated after a while, the atmosphere was so bad. The internal political war went on until the DLP dissolved, and some of it is still there.

The main campaign for equal pay in 1969 tried to involve a lot of women workers. It wasn't all that easy but when the case was on at the Arbitration Commission the various meatworks bussed in women (and men) workers from all over to the Trades Hall and we all marched up to the Court. We stood outside calling out slogans, which could be heard in the Court and waving banners and such as:

UNEQUAL PAY IS SEX DISCRIMINATION – MAKE 1969 EQUAL PAY YEAR – EQUAL PAY IS A HUMAN RIGHT – LET'S NOT BUILD ON CHEAP LABOUR – THE TIME IS NOW FOR EQUAL PAY – DELIBERATE DELAY ON EQUAL PAY – MEAT INDUSTRY WOMEN SUPPORT EQUAL PAY. UAW magazine, 'Our Women' June-August 1969.

This case did not have a successful outcome (only about 10% of women actually got equal pay) but it raised awareness of the issue. It also played a big part in arousing the women's movement. The Meatworkers Union also continued with the struggle to spread the range of coverage but it really wasn't until the 1972 decision that we got equal pay – not until the Labor Party formed government. The Arbitration Commission had rejected it that year but on taking power in November the Labor government reconvened the Court, and withdrawing government opposition to equal pay was one of the first things they did

The funny thing was – as I found out much later – the Liberal Party government used the same wording in their submission to the court to oppose equal pay as the Labor Party government later used to support it! It is very interesting, it makes you wonder if the Arbitration Court was as impartial as we were always told it was.

In 1974 the Minimum Wage Case was the final legal obstacle to equal pay, by establishing an equal minimum wage for men and women.

The broad campaign by the women's movement was an illustration of the power of liberated thinking – a new approach. That was one very good thing about it.

The UAW hadn't been used to deciding and applying freer forms of activity. Our credibility was restricted, I believe, by the cold war pressures and fears, which saw the public opposing ideas that were challenging.

Our ideas and actions were credible and challenging but only were seen to be credible when those new movements, not seen to be aligned to any established political ideology – who could not be accused of party political motive – like Women's Liberation, got up and did things in a spontaneous way. Such is the power of some people - ASIO and public opinion.

Unfortunately, at a UAW national level, (and some states) women's liberation was received with a certain antipathy. This should have been more strongly challenged, but it wasn't easy to do. Betty Olle was the Victorian representative on the national committee and was outvoted. I attended a couple of conferences but stopped thinking they were worthwhile. I though they were too tied to a political agenda, to rather doctrinaire union views which did not allow for feminism.

Women's Liberation were tackling issues in new and exciting ways but there was a perception by some of the left that feminism was associated with the early suffragette movement and was a middle class phenomenon. They didn't redefine feminism in a modern context, and I think they should have.

In practice, though, the UAW at both national and state level, continued to give practical support to the new women's issues. In Victoria, we worked with and supported women 's liberation. Women from Women's Liberation did redefine feminism, but got trapped in lesbian separatism. I think the result was that the 'Corporate Woman' stepped in and became role model and representative, at least as far as the press was concerned.

During some earlier readjustment of personal values, I had decided that I would never not say what I think just because it goes against some doctrinaire point of view. So I have tried to say whatever I feel about events and things even though they may not be the popular view.

Many UAW members, including myself took part in women's liberation consciousness raising, as well as the large public gatherings which discussed sexual liberation issues, contributing strongly to the body of evidence on abortion, marriage, the nuclear family. The UAW was active in countering Right to Life demonstrations at clinics and hospitals and Betty Olle (Sec. UAW) established, with Ruth Schnookal of WEL, and others, The Right to Choose coalition.

When I resigned from full time work at the AMIEU, and finally came back to help with the UAW in 1978/9 I hoped to work only on particular issues as they came to our notice so that the people most concerned could follow their special interest. The side effects of the use of DES (diethylstilbestrol) came to our notice, and Joan Curlewis asked if I would see what could be done to instigate an action group.

It seemed that very many women had been affected through their mothers having been prescribed this drug during pregnancy, for the purpose of preventing miscarriage. It had been found that the incidence of clear cell carcinoma in the daughters of these women had skyrocketed. Adeno-carcinoma was a seldom occurrence prior to 1970, when the daughters reached their teens. Then many displayed symptoms and some died.

It seemed women who had taken DES were also developing a most malignant form of breast cancer. (See IN OUR OWN HANDS, a Women's Health Manual, Hyland House 1980) Although I wasn't affected, I had, like many other women, a couple of abortions earlier in my life and I and other women I know, had been given DES to stop lactation.

So I took on this work of getting women who had taken DES together. With UAW resources a luncheon and public meeting were held and many wonderful and active young women got together and formed DES Action, which is still operating, collecting and exchanging information from overseas, keeping women informed. There may still be women out there who have no idea they were exposed to this drug.

Doctors and gynaecologists denied they prescribed it. Some were very well known obstetricians. The women had to really fight to get any details given to them. Some of the mothers were told during their pregnancy that they were given 'vitamin pills', some weren't given any information at all. Others were told they were given DES 'just in case'. Of course, many G.P's didn't understand the special way to diagnose the particular type of pre cancerous symptom.

One battle DES Action had was to establish a proper clinic at the Women's Hospital specifically to diagnose and monitor DES caused damage and abnormalities. Marion Vickers did wonderful research and was successful in getting wide television coverage, which resulted in hundreds of women contacting the organisation and being given information and support. There were groups of DES set up right across Australia.

During the eighties when I was working with Betty Olle in the UAW office I felt the UAW needed a project which would help to finance the organisation and meet some of the needs of the women's movement. We needed a computer and modern aids if we were to keep up with the changing world. It seemed that we were getting a lot of telephone calls from young women wanting information, historical details, school project work, when and how things happened etc. One day I had an urgent call from a solicitor who was in court. He wanted to know the date of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Another time someone wanted to know about the Menhennit ruling on abortion.

There was definitely a need for this type of information to be at our fingertips – a women's historical data kit. I set about getting funding and compiling it.

When I was dealing with Aboriginal women's history there was a problem. Their struggle had been based so much on land rights and women's rights were dependent on their relationship to land. This couldn't be incorporated into any women's history. I got in touch with Edith Fesl and asked if she would agree with putting in a timeline history, which she provided.

The result, minus an index and some of Eve's material – because we were over budget and pages – is TAKING TIME, Women's Historical Data Kit, Compiled and Edited by Yvonne Smith, Published by UAW. Available from UAW Victoria, 2/247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne Vic 3000, $15.00 including postage in Australia.

I have had some interesting experiences from the book. I once went out to a large Catholic girls college where a musical program was taking place and when we went into the dining room for a cup of tea there were all these little excerpts about women on placards around the room – they were taken from TAKING TIME. I was thrilled to the back teeth. Once my granddaughter told me the book was in her school library. It has been used as a study guide at many other educational institutions.

Going back in time – when the Vietnamese people were struggling for independence, the UAW had been in touch with the Vietnam Women's Union. They sent us much information about the nature of their struggle – we knew what was happening and were active in support for them. And although it was a very important issue – it was to become even more so with the conscription of Australian young men – my feeling at the time was that the antiwar struggle had taken over the UAW at the expense of women's specific issues and problems.

I hadn't formulated what those problems were as the Women's Liberation movement did later, such as challenging the role of the family, the sexual revolution etc. but I just had an uneasy feeling that we were becoming the women's adjunct of the peace movement.

When Save Our Sons was formed following the introduction of conscription this single issue organisation was able to take on the role that was needed. That was great. Once again a lot of UAW women supported them. The feeling was that Australia was being more and more led by USA. Five SOS leaders were arrested and jailed. They were known as the Fairlea Five.

Because of the conscription the young people formed their own movement: Youth Campaign Against Conscription, I think it was called.

That was the first time I got picked up by a policeman. Not arrested, literally picked up. There was a demonstration at the Swan Street army depot at the induction of the conscripts. Some of the young men chained themselves to the fence rails. A big crown of supporters went along and just sat down, refusing to move and the police came and just picked us up! I was frightened out of my skin actually, I think we all were.

This was the beginning of the movement which became the moratorium against the war. I remember the huge demonstration out at Fairlea prison where so many people came along to support the release of the 'Fairlea Five' women who were imprisoned from Save Our Sons. It was a glorious day and I remember how my sixteen-year-old son stood out, with his gleaming, long red hair shining in the sunlight. And really appreciating what a wonderful thing those women had done for our children.

In those early days, and I am going back further, UAW was very active in the peace movement of the 1950's and against the atomic testing in Australia, the blasts at Woomera and Maralinga as well as the French tests in the Pacific Islands. We organised demonstrations in the city. We walked through shops carrying placards saying – Don't buy French Goods, for example

They were all actions that preceded public awareness. I think we can be proud that we did do those things when other people weren't speaking out, even though we were not listened to – at least not to the point of action being taken on what we had to say.

Even though circumstances were against our being seriously heard, we proceeded with what we believed in, and I think that is all you can do.

In the UAW I think we have always tried to support issues we believed needed support, even if it meant working with people we didn't fully agree with. Whatever happens in the future I think there will be a place for ongoing organisations like the UAW to provide continuity, and I believe the historical understanding we have been able to establish over the years will need to be taken into account in all future activities.

In more recent years editing the UAW Newsletter has been the focus of my attention, this is a monthly publication which keeps readers informed on a whole range of events of central importance to women. This is really a collective effort of many dedicated members put together in a flurry of activity and frantic struggles with the computer – and a lot of laughs!

Since the Grand Prix forced itself on Albert Park some years ago, and cracks appeared in the wall of our house, I have had some hectic moments in opposition to the construction of the track and ongoing races. I still do a regular stint at the Vigil tent, which operates six days a week opposite the Grand Prix office in Albert Road. This wonderful body of people, through superb organisation and an outstanding information campaign have changed the face of protest.

Eventually I believe we will overcome!