The Australian Women's Register

The Working Women’s Centre (WWC) was established in 1975 with the assistance of an International Women’s Year seeding grant and received ongoing support from the National Women’s Advisory Council. Mary Owen and Sylvie Shaw were coordinators and the service employed two part-time migrant liaison officers. A multilingual poster was the Centre’s first publication followed by a discussion paper on the particular needs of migrant women. The centre’s periodical Women at Work saw a growth in circulation numbers from 6000 subscriptions in 1977 to 13,000 in 1982.

The WWC conducted a range of activities from researching issues affecting women in the workforce to running training programs dealing with women’s work issues (occupational health, worker’s compensation, trade union training, dealing with discrimination etc). It gave expert evidence in industrial tribunals, lobbied governments and unions for changes to women’s position in the workforce, participated in government committees dealing with social security and job training etc., helped establish transition programs (at TAFE colleges) for women wishing to return to the workforce, spoke regularly at workplaces, conducted research on shift work, child care and occupational health problems including stress among ‘blue collar’ women workers, and developed a Register of Women in Non-Traditional jobs made up of women who would go to schools and community groups to talk about breaking the ‘traditional’ workforce mould.