Chapter 6: - Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW

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*On Wooden Rails Chapter 6 8/30/05 8:50 PM Page 216 On Wooden Rails - Celebrating 150 Years of Work on the NSW Railways was built consisting of a meal room, a change room with lockers, a rest room and hot water for washing and showers exclusively for the women. Records for 68 of these women were found in the State Rail Authority Archives. Some of them came from rural NSW. A number had already been railway employees. Others combined their munitions work with carriage cleaning at Eveleigh and also Central Station or waitressing in refreshment rooms. Their incursion into the workshops was, however, short-lived. On 12 June 1943 the Annexe ceased production. 4 Although these women experienced the same sort of segregation and isolation as those who had previously performed various railway-related jobs at Eveleigh, they were more visible. Despite the hessian partitions that surrounded them, their numbers and their location in the very centre of the main locomotive workshops had an impact on the men, many of who thought it was inappropriate for women to be working in such large numbers so close to them. Bob Matthews, who was an apprentice in the locomotive workshop from 1940 commented on how the influx of women munitions workers ‘dramatically’ changed the place, not only 216 because of the work they were doing but as importantly because they had what he referred to as ‘a separate identity’. ‘They were all fenced off’, he said, ‘and nobody was allowed in because security was very tight.’ 5 These women experienced extremely dangerous conditions. The 35lb lifting restriction for female workers did little to protect them from hideous accidents. Quite a few had their fingers severed. Such dangerous conditions were the norm for the majority of Eveleigh’s male workers, whose representatives fought long and hard to improve first aid and medical resources. 6 According to Frank Bollins the rank-and-file shop committee fought for improved conditions in the workshops from 1926 by raising ‘the whole concept of improved and more adequate first aid facilities’. As part of its campaign for an ambulance to take injured workers to hospital and fully qualified medical assistance in Eveleigh’s first aid rooms, the committees printed up the proposal in ‘a clearly legible form’ and ‘circulated it amongst the workers’ who were asked to endorse it at a series of mass meetings. In Frank’s view, they succeeded in fulfilling the latter aim because it ‘fell 4 NSW Government Railways, Railway At War: A Record of the Activities of the NSW Government Railways in the Second World War, Sydney, n.d., State Rail Authority Archives (SRAA) M27 [1], p. 22, p. 46, pp. 52-54 pp. 56-57; Personal Cards, Mechanical Branch, SRAA; NSW Department of Railways, 'History of the War Effort, Mechanical Branch, September 1939 - December 1942', typewritten mss., SRAA, M143, pp. 1-9, pp. 42-43; Annual Report (AR) of the Commissioner For Railways for the Year 1940, SRAA, R10/9, pp. 24-25; AR for 1941, SRAA R10/10, p. 11, p. 17. 5 Interview: Bob Matthews conducted by Joan Kent on 20 February 1996. 6 Women’s Employment Bureau (WEB), In the matter of an application by the Ministry of Munitions under regulation 11 of the National security (Employment of Women) Regulation’, pp. 3-4. Decisions of Women’s Employment Board, Manpower Directorate, Australian Archives Series: SP 191/1/0; Item 25621 Part 2, Box 5; Personal Cards, SRAA. Chapter 6 - No Place for a Woman
*On Wooden Rails Chapter 6 8/30/05 8:50 PM Page 217 in line with what the railways may have had in mind for the future of the medical service’. The result was the full-time appointment of industrial nurses. 7 The first nurses were employed at Eveleigh in April 1946. Heather Duffy lasted only four months before being transferred to another First Aid Station, while the services of Winifred Williams were terminated in May the following year ‘owing to her recent marriage’. Her replacement was Agnes Mary Lions, who became Senior Industrial Nurse in February 1947 and remained at Eveleigh until 1968. 8 A total of ten nurses worked at Eveleigh. One of these women, Lucia Anna Nardi, transferred there from the Chullora workshops in the late 1940s and stayed until she retired in 1973. These nurses worked in the First Aid Rooms that were adjacent to the Locomotive workshops, the Carriage workshops and the Running Sheds. 9 Their relationships with the men were always ambiguous, partly because they were women and partly because their employment closed off an avenue for promotion for men, who had previously occupied the salaried position of full-time First Aid officer. In addition, the nurses challenged the skills the men had acquired through their first aid training through On Wooden Rails - Celebrating 150 Years of Work on the NSW Railways the Ambulance Corps that had been established in the railways in the late nineteenth century. Those who had a long association with the Corps vehemently questioned the nurses’ expertise. This was simply one dimension of the men’s opposition to the employment of these women. Frank Bollins recalled being ‘on a platform at a mass meeting in the carriage works, defending the right for the nursing sisters to be there and arguing with some of the male workers as to why they should be retained.’ This ‘was quite an interesting fight’ led by those workers ‘who could see a little sinecure they had an eye on for a number of years going down a spout’. 10 But the hostility was more pervasive. There ‘was an immediate reaction’ to the women’s appointment, in his view, because of ‘the absolute conservatism’ of ‘the old… railway workers’ whose usual practice’ had been to ‘go to the first aid room’ and ‘have a bit of a yarn with the first aid officer’ about ‘any personal problems’ including ‘haemorrhoids or piles and a few other male problems’ which they found too embarrassing to ‘talk to a female nursing sister about’. 11 Lifting the Engine, Eveleigh 7Stan Jones, ‘Eveleigh - The Heart Of The Transport System’, Daily News: Feature for Transport Workers, 19 January, 1939; Interview with Frank Bollins conducted by Russ Herman in 1987 for the Combined Railway Unions Cultural Committee Oral History Project; Interview with Frank Bollins conducted by Lucy Taksa on 10 August 1998 for the Work, Technology, Gender and Citizenship at the Eveleigh Railway Workshops Oral History Project funded by the AustralianResearch Council. 8Agnes Mary Lions referred to herself as Mary. File on Mary Lions held by the NSW College of Nursing Archives. 9SRAA Personnel files. 10Interview with Frank Bollins, 1987. 11Interview with Bob Matthews. Chapter 6 - No Place for a Woman 217
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Chapter 6: - Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW

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