"Lady Cassidy's war": gender and class in the Duly and Hansford strike, Marrickville, N.S.W., 1943

In mid-1943 munitions workers went on strike at the Duly and Hansford factory in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville. Most of the employees were working class women conscripted by the Manpower Commission. Their wages were set by the Women's Employment Board largely on the basis of union strength within the enterprise. Exploitative working conditions had led to increasing political consciousness and class solidarity among the women workers who went on strike when ten middle class volunteers, led by Gwen Cassidy, undermined their cause by refusing to join a union. Through her employee "voluntarism" Cassidy's conservative industrial activism during the strike revealed important cleavages of class and gender, as she and the factory owners shared in an anti-worker's rights, anti-union and anti-Labour political campaign.