What do we want? Equal Pay! When do we want it? Now!

John Hughes, the FCU's NSW assistant state secretary opened the conference arguing that equal pay "means the establishment of economic independence for women and...remove[s] the intolerable unfairness to which women have been subjected in working for a rate below the value of the work they perform."

But then came the war. World War II had a contradictory impact on the fight for equal pay. On the one hand the war cut the ground from under workers' campaigns as the ruling class pushed for cross-class nationalism with appeals such as "Winnie the War Winner," encouraging women into volunteer and paid work to support the war effort.

On the other hand, precisely because the war had such a major social impact on Australian society, drawing in another 200,000 women into the workforce and into previously male-only jobs, it meant changes had to be made to pay and conditions. The government and employers were forced to increase women's wages, effectively ending the 54 percent female wage level that had lasted since 1919.

The government then set up the Women's Employment Board (WEB), to manage women's employment during the war. The WEB was instructed by the Curtin Labor government (despite Curtin's earlier promises of equal pay) that it was "not an equal pay board," that it must set a range of wage rates for women between 60-90 percent of the male rate and enforce it.

Nonetheless, 100 percent was won in some cases, especially with the support of the unions in manufacturing, tramways conductors and munitions. Despite the limitations, the WEB rate did raise the benchmark, and expectations, and it meant that after the war, while wages were often cut, there was resistance and in 1950 the female wage level was set at 75 percent.

However it was industrial action that was crucial to winning equal pay, or maintaining the war wage levels. For example, on 10April 1951, women at Rheem in Brisbane went on strike after the management wanted to slash the pay rate to 75 percent for all women workers. After holding out for three months, the dispute was settled and the women were offered 87.5 percent, equivalent to 90 percent of the male rate when the strike started.

During the same year, women employed at Swift Meatworks were also successful in their strike. A court decision awarded them 75 percent of male rates, which the company had tried to cut to 66 percent.

During the 1950s in Victoria there were equal pay rallies in 1955 and1957, plus a petition that collected 40,000 signatures in 1956 and the Roy Morgan Gallop Poll of June 6 1956, which showed that public opinion was in favour of equal pay. Despite this, Liberal Premier Bolte refused point blank to legislate to give women public servants the same salary as men.

The first Australian equal pay legislation which stated that workers, regardless of gender, were to be paid equally for performing work of the same or like nature and of equal value, was the NSW Female Rates (Amendment) Act of 1958.

The 1960s, a decade of protest, saw both the rise of the Women's Liberation Movement and a renewed push for equal pay from the unions. And in June 1969, the Meatworkers Union and the federal public servants, via the ACTU, put a claim into the Arbitration Commission for a national equal pay decision.

Zelda D'Aprano, then with the Meatworkers Union describes what happened:

"The case presented was not equal pay for equal work, but for doing away with the differential in salaries." Sitting in the Commission Zelda writes: "I found the need to sit there silent almost beyond my control, and was incensed with the entire set up. When the decision of this case was presented everyone was shocked, for it had nothing to do with the evidence or case presented."