Alumnae of the Anna Stewart Program joined a celebration to mark four decades of the affirmative action program on 1 August, following Women’s Conference earlier in the day.
Former federation president and Anna Stewart participant Maree O’Halloran said the Anna Stewart Program provided her with:
- opportunity
- hope and excitement
- understanding of power —“We as individuals have very little power. Collectively we have power.”
She recalled that prior to becoming an Anna Stewart Officer, when she first got up to speak at Federation Council she was out of order and had to sit down.
“I loved the vigorous debate but I obviously needed a bit of help before I was going to get on my feet at Council again and it was women who said to me, ‘Maree, why don’t you go and do some Trade Union Training — go into the Anna Stewart Program?’”
Maree said that by participating in the program, “I got to understand the connections between what we do in the union and what happens in schools and TAFE…I got to listen to the phone calls with the [professional support] officers, I got to go out with Organisers to schools and I got to go to the Industrial Relations Commission. I was allowed to go to a meeting by myself and bring back information to the to the union officers for development of policy.”
“The Anna Stewart Program certainly led me to be brave enough to give a speech in public and stand for election,” she also said.
“Thank you to all the women on whose shoulders I stood — and I look forward to the future of our great union,” she concluded.
Former women’s coordinator (1980–85) Darelle Duncan outlined the genesis of the program — 1985 August Council meeting determined that during the 1986–88 triennium, one women member per term would be employed to gain experience in various sections of the union and it would be Women’s Action Groups in Associations that would have the power to nominate candidates.
The program was named after Anna Stewart, who made a mark in the working class trade union movement before she died aged 36. Victorian Trades Hall had already established a ‘living’ program in her memory.
Federation General Secretary Maxine Sharkey explained that in the Federated Furnishing Trades Society of Australia — a union predominantly of men — she moved the first motion for unpaid maternity leave in Australia.
“She assisted the ACTU at the time with the maternity leave test case, giving working women the right to 52 weeks of unpaid maternity leave,” Ms Sharkey said.
“So, I guess what I wanted to say was: You don’t have to have longevity. You just have to have a commitment. You don’t have to have privilege. You don’t even really need to have secure employment to make a change, to make a difference, all you need is to have a commitment and a group of people.”
“Most of the campaigns that this union, or any union, has eventually gone on to win has started around a table. Why not around a table here today?”