The Australian Women's Register

The Unemployed Women’s Union was a response to the economic downturn of 1980. They wanted to debunk the myth of married women working as the cause of unemployment, defend the right for all women to work, and as a support group for unemployed women. The picketed employers laying off women and published a newsletter called ‘Fury’. They provided speakers at rallies, wrote letters to newspapers and politicians, and applied for jobs en masse. They formed the Unemployed Women’s Union Support Group. The union liaised with the Working Women’s Centre on issues of discrimination, unfair dismal. Unemployed Women’s Union produced stickers, badges, pamphlets and made a banner for marches. They participated in the Beef March of 1980.  This was a reference to a famous march of unemployed in Adelaide during the Great Depression. Some of the women involved included Silver Moon, Betty Fisher, Jillinda Thompson, Anne Farrer, Chris Wijesinha, Lyz Holdsworth, Claire Groves, Evelyn Dent and Dale Bacon.