‘”You have us riled up!”: Women’s role in a 2001 miners’ strike’,

Abstract

In April 2001, in the small Queensland town of Coaltown, a group of women found themselves standing on the road, jeering and cheering at cars passing by in the 4am cold on the way to the mine, as their husbands fought a bitter battle with the company around the issue of twelve hour shifts and the massive introduction of contract labour. This paper examines this dispute and argues that the women associated with this dispute mine actively and independently fought back against the mine management around these industrial issues that keenly affected their lives. They used their organisations to support their men but also to create a genuine female response to the industrial disputes. Our multi-media story is illustrated with a short film.