The AWU Woman on the $10 Note

In 2017, the Coalition Government put AWU veteran and pioneer feminist Mary Gilmore on one side of the nation’s $10 bank note. Have a look in your wallet or purse right now! Mary edited the Women’s Section of The Worker newspaper in every issue put out by the Union from 1908 to 1931 (aged 43 through to 66).

She was born near Goulburn in August 1865 (the federal parliamentary seat based on Goulburn is now called the Division of Gilmore) but spent most of her working life – including with the AWU – in Sydney.

As early as 1909, she did her best to persuade His Honour HB Higgins at the CCCA Arbitration Court that his 1907 “Harvester Judgement”, establishing a minimum living wage for the working man, (the family breadwinner) should be broadened.

In Professor Marilyn Lake’s words, “Gilmore objected to this logic, suggesting that the ‘individual’, not the ‘family’, should be the basis for the living wage…While Gilmore was full of praise for his ‘amazing’ Harvester judgement, which prioritised human need, she asked why the living wage could not be paid to every worker as an individual.”

This argument is logically and morally strong, but Mary Gilmore and the AWU were some 60 years ahead of their time. Higgins refused to shift from his “male worker head of the family” approach. Consequently, women workers in the early 20th century earned on average 60% of the equivalent men’s rate.

The Curtin Labor Government in 1943 increased women’s wages to 75%, in recognition of the heavy lifting women workers were doing in the war years, filling thousands of AWU jobs in explosives, munitions and heavy engineering while men were serving.

It took until the 1960’s for the ACTU – led by Bob Hawke – to argue successfully in the National Wage Cases of 1969 (85%) and 1972 (100%) that the female rate be brought up to the male.

The 1974 Wage Case finally abandoned the 1907 Harvester concept of a “family” wage and replaced it with a living wage for the individual worker.

But while equal pay for the sexes in Australia was officially delivered in 1972, even today, gender differences in wage rates between different occupations and industries remain a problem for Australia’s women workers.

After retiring from The Worker in 1931, Mary continued to be socially and politically active, and she was made a Dame in 1937.

In 1956, the ACTU created an ACTU Gilmore Award for Progressive Journalism – since 1985, it has been awarded as specifically a poetry prize and is known as the Mary Gilmore Award. She continued writing in her “retirement” through to her death in December 1962 at the ripe old age of 97.

In June 1940, at the start of the Second World War, Mary had published in the Australian Women’s Weekly probably the most famous poem in Australian history (after “Waltzing Matilda”), “No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest”.

Its last verse is almost a hymn to the AWU men and women who built a new Australia in the outback:

“We are the sons of Australia,
Of the men who fashioned the land;
We are the sons of the women
Who walked with them hand in hand;
And we swear by the dead who bore us,
By the heroes who blazed the trail,
No foe shall gather our harvest,
Or sit on our stockyard rail.”

While she passed away in Sydney, she chose to be buried in outback Cloncurry, Queensland – where she’d met and worked with AWU members fifty years before.

Mary was accorded a state funeral – the first for a writer since fellow unionist Henry Lawson in 1922. In every way, Mary Gilmore is an AWU hero of the Labour Movement.

Written by David Cragg, AWU Life Member

Remembering David Cragg

David Cragg, a pillar of the Victorian trade union movement, AWU historian and committed unionist, sadly passed away in March 2025.

David’s journey with the union began at BHP Steel, where he joined the FIA and was elected a rank-and-file organiser in 1986. From 1991 to 2009, David worked at the FIA, FIMEE and then AWU Victorian Branch between 1991 and 2009 as administrator, organiser and WorkCover officer. He was also a member of the Victorian Branch Executive between 2000-2012.

In 2009, David was elected Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, a position he held until his retirement in 2018.

In retirement David continued to serve the AWU and the Victorian union movement on a number of committees until his passing. David was awarded Life Membership in 2023 in recognition of his lifelong dedication to the AWU.

David was also an avid historian, chronicling the AWU’s history with careful detail. His institutional memory and keen understanding of the AWU’s early years proved invaluable to the Victorian Branch.

Before his passing, David wrote a number of articles of our union’s history, which the AWU included in this issue of The Worker. We look forward to sharing more in future issues.

David woked to inspire the next generation of unionists, and ensure we continue to learn the hard-fought lessons of the past. We will never forget the enduring mark he left on our great union and are proud to share his work with AWU members. Vale, David.