I’ve been scouring the Broadsheet archive for an unrelated project, and among other things this article caught my eye as something that should gain a new audience it may not otherwise have if I left it be. While the other project (more on that in the future) may not wind up utilizing anything from Broadsheet, the deep dive has been turning up plenty of interesting material which might live again here at some point soon. At any rate, this one stuck out to me as soon as I saw it because I lived in Mosgiel for a few years as a teenager. I wasn’t there for terribly long, but it was nevertheless a place I lived and have a connection with to this day. I found this report on the living conditions of women in a regional town undergoing the dreaded process of “restructuring” with all the job losses, decline in living standards, lost pay, anxiety, and desperation that comes with it both a snapshot of its time and depressingly relevant today. On a variety of fronts, from the plight of regional towns undergoing deindustrialization to the fickle nature of gains made in social struggle to the ever shifting structure of the family and reproductive labour, I think this is a piece needed to understand its time and where we are today. So, without delay…

Mosgiel – women ‘restructured’ (Broadsheet #90, June 1981)

Throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, large numbers of women are being laid off from their jobs in the manufacturing sector. This is particularly the case in the clothing and textile industry, which has come under fire from the government’s industry restructuring scheme. This programme (theoretically aimed at stream-lining and “improving” industrial production) has largely ignored the impact of the massive job loss associated with this planned change. Consequently, very little publicity has been given to discussion of why such large numbers of women should be forced out of their jobs and what effect this redundancy has on the women workers and their households.
Once again woman has been made invisible — our marginality has been assured by a society that believes that “a woman’s place is in the home”.
The New Zealand Working Women’s Council (WWC) has become increasingly disturbed at the massive redundancies that women are experiencing in the workforce, and the high incidence of unemployment associated with this. In December 1980 the WWC commissioned a study to be carried out on the effects of the collapse and takeover of Mosgiel Ltd — to look at the women who lost their jobs in this company — the largest textile and woolen mills in New Zealand.
The study revealed that women suffered particularly high job loss. Even though women workers made up 50% of the Mosgiel Ltd workforce — they accounted for 63% of those made redundant. While women experienced a far higher redundancy rate than men, they also have largely been unable to find new jobs. In one of Mosgiel’s knitwear factories, 65% of the women workers who lost their jobs are still unemployed.
These disturbing figures of high unemployment among women workers in the Dunedin area are similar to those reported in other regions of the country. In the Auckland region, for instance, the Woolen Mills industrial union of workers report that 300 knitwear workers — all of whom are women — lost their jobs recently, and that in the overall industry in New Zealand there has been a loss of 4,000 jobs over the last three years.

The general situation facing these women was summarized by union secretary, Mr. F.R. Jackson when he
stated:
“The majority of the workers are married
women who when they are made redundant have
to return to their homes as they can’t get jobs or
the dole”.
A similar situation occurred with the closure of the Kaiapoi Woolen Mills near Christchurch. Here a study by Ross Winsome has shown that women workers are greatly effected by such closures with large numbers becoming unemployed. Winsome reported that among full-time workers, those unable to get new jobs were all women, and among the part-time workers all of whom were women, the majority haven’t found work.
With such high numbers of women being made redundant and then unable to find new jobs, what is happening to these women?
Women made redundant have found that they are grappling with a wide range of difficulties and problems, the key ones resulting from the considerable drop in their standard of living with the loss of wages. Financial difficulties are particularly acute for those women who have a young family, or are widowed, separated or divorced and do not have another source of income for support.

The following case studies gathered in the Working Women’s Council project at Mosgiel Ltd, illustrate the situations that many of these women now face as unemployed workers.
Cathy is married with a young two-and-a-half-year old child and is expecting another baby in February. Until she was made redundant in September she worked full-time and would bring home an average of $138 including bonus, per week. Her husband brings home $230-$250 a fortnight. On their two wages they could cover all their living expenses and bank $40. With Cathy’s loss of job their income has shrunk over 50% so that the family must now survive on $ 115-$ 125 per week plus family benefit and draw on their small savings. As she commented “my husband’s wage is all spent on weekly living and we have nothing left over for power, telephone, insurance, clothes or going out.” Cathy itemized how she budgeted their money each week from this one income.

Food 20
Husband’s work food 10
Rent 25
Petrol 12
Hire Purchase (Washing machine, lawn mower) 40
Cigarettes 8
Cat and dog 12
$127 per week

When she was made redundant she invested her modest redundancy payment “But I wish now that I hadn’t as my bank account’s gone down to nothing. So I’m wondering whether to take it out and use it.” Cathy and her family find it extremely difficult trying to live on this low income. They can’t afford money for clothes, entertainment, weekly bills, and have had to cut back on all purchases, particularly food. It is very difficult for a family to try and survive on $20 per week for food. “It worries me living off one wage. It’s not much fun. You are limited in what you can do all the time”.
After the birth of her second child in February, Cathy plans to find another job. “I would like evening work so I can be home with the children but will settle for anything — perhaps cleaning or waitressing.” The chances of finding such work are remote indeed. For instance, many cleaning jobs advertised in the Otago Daily Times in January have had over one hundred applicants.
For women on their own, the hardships are even greater. Many of them found their incomes dropped by over $100 per week when they lost their jobs, couldn’t find alternative work, and had to rely on a modest benefit.
Jan, who is separated, has two sons living at home, one unemployed (18 years) and the other an apprentice (20 years). She registered as unemployed with the Department of Labour and receives $52.78 per week (January) — a drop of $80 to $90 per week from her average take home wage and bonus of $140 at Mosgiel Ltd. Although her sons contribute $30 board, Jan finds that she can only just cover the cost of food. Until recently she used her redundancy money to cover bills and expenses but that has now all gone. (Like many other workers she also lost shares — 1600). “I can just manage food — but not the bills. The bills will come for the telephone, electricity, coal, DIC account, Smith and Brown account and TV rental. I don’t know how I’ll manage once the bills start coming in. There is nothing left for clothes and entertainment.”
These women face a horrifying situation of not knowing how they are going to find the money to cope with these financial difficulties — as jobs seem impossible to get and government assistance does not cover the cost of living.
For many of the married women who were made redundant and haven’t been able to find employment, the last few months have also been difficult. Their households have had to rely solely on their husbands’ earnings, which has meant a reduction in income of $100 to $200 per week (net). This has posed considerable problems for these families as frequently both their wages were required for reasonable household expenses and daily living.

Beth and her husband both worked for Mosgiel Ltd. Beth was made redundant in September 1980 and her husband who works at the Roslyn factory will probably be faced with redundancy later in the year. Between them they lost 1800 shares in the collapse. While her husband continues to earn $150 per week, Beth is now without a job and her wages of $135-$140 per week. They are unable to save now and find this particularly disturbing as “preparing for when we retire has been cut from under us” . As was often stated by the women again and again in the interviews, “we have lost a way of life.”
Closely related to the loss of work and the economic problems, worries and anxieties that have emerged, is the issue of social and psychological well-being.
The majority of these women have been active in the workforce for most of their lives except for a short period of child rearing when their children were young. So the loss of a job and the lack of possibility of any other work at this time suddenly looms large for these women who frequently commented on the loneliness and boredom of the now “long” hours and days of isolation at home. In response to this many of them are feeling depressed, tearful and anxious, and as they can’t get work, they are increasingly distressed about how to cope.
“I found it very difficult to start with and used to worry myself sick at night wondering how I’d manage.”
The fear and worry of not having enough money to “manage on” was shared by many women and is closely linked to their feelings of depression, powerlessness and isolation.
“I want to be doing something. I can’t sit at home — you feel so useless. Before, life was so organised — now it’s useless. I feel bored — day in, day out. I’ve been feeling depressed it’s just-awful. Since I’ve knocked off work, I’ve gone to the pack. I can’t sleep, I’m on sleeping tablets, it’s just horrible. I start crying and can’t stop — it’s the uncertainty of it all.”
These feelings were echoed again and again as was the growing anxiety at facing a cold grey winter unemployed.

In some situations, particularly where women were on their own (for example, widowed, separated or divorced), these worries, anxieties and problems have resulted in severe emotional and psychological ill health and distress, and have lead to some of them seeking medical assistance.
“I feel very depressed, life is so empty now. Every time I go to the shops I wonder how I will cope . . . You lose contact with everyone from work.”
Florence who made these remarks also spoke at length about how she now gets headaches and feels very weepy. She was going to the doctor next day — she knew that she’d be told that the only way to get better was by going back to work — but she hoped she’d get some medication to help anyway. The doctor did in fact say that — but as Florence said ‘‘It’s easier said than done to get a job in Dunedin now.”
For many of the married women, the feelings of depression, loneliness and isolation that were widely expressed related also to their loss of economic independence as women, with their sudden reliance on their husbands for financial support. Many expressed similar feelings to Pam who commented:
“It’s a knockback losing your independence when you’ve always earned.”
A lot of women talked at length about these difficulties of dependence and how their husbands couldn’t understand why they felt distressed over it, and thought they were worrying over nothing.
Ann, for example, after three months of unemployment decided that she had to sell her little car, as the money was needed.
“It was eating up my money. It was hard. I’d bought it with my own money, maintained it myself, and the knowledge that I’d never have another one of my own is hard. It was all mine — the only thing that I’d ever had — everything else was a joint thing whereas the car was mine from my wages. My husband couldn’t understand what I was going on about.”
This widespread desire amongst the women for economic independence was very aptly shown by Enid. When she was made redundant after 35 years at Mosgiel, she had a gap between the time when her job finished and her superannuation commenced. She didn’t ask for her husband’s pension to be increased to cover her for this period “ as I didn’t want to be dependent on him as I’ve worked all my life.”
Even though in the majority of the households, women were providing at least half of the income, and in many cases where they were on their own, they were the sole provider, there is little realization by their husbands or society in general of the distress and hardship that results when a woman is suddenly forced into a situation where she loses this financial independence and is reliant on her husband of a benefit for support. This was particularly evident in situations where the husband and wife have separate bank accounts — the unemployed married women must now ask their husbands for money.
“In this whole situation it’s been really hard for women”.
To be in a situation of unemployment with the many financial difficulties that arise from this, many of the women have thus found themselves socially and emotionally distressed and are uncertain how to cope in these circumstances. The majority of these women have been in the paid workforce for a considerable period of their lives, with their average length of employment being 19 years.

The importance of earning a living which was often half or more of their total household income, was stressed by many of the women, who in many cases have also managed to combine this work with raising a family. There was little evidence to support the view that women work for “ extras” . They were working to support themselves and their families in the same way as men do.
Redundancy and unemployment is having a devastating effect on the lives of many women in New Zealand. This study provided examples from the textile and woolen industry, but the same situation is found in many manufacturing sectors particularly in the area of assembly work e.g. electronics which has an assembly workforce made up of 70% women workers.
Women are becoming increasingly disturbed and angry over these events Many of the women made redundant at Mosgiel voiced the opinion that men were getting jobs quicker than women. They commented that no-one seemed to be worried about what was happening to women.
“We are just expected to disappear back into the woodwork.”
At the moment few people in New Zealand are aware of working women’s anger, distress and frustration over these issues. Perhaps what is needed is Beth’s suggestion:
“We all need to go on strike. All women in New Zealand should withdraw their services . . . then we’d sure get some action.”