Zelda D'Aprano has spent much of her life as a working-class crusader for women's rights. A series of factory jobs after leaving school introduced her to the harsh inequities of women's working lives. Joining the Communist Party, she worked as a dental nurse, devoting 15 years to union activism on behalf of hospital workers. In 1969 she went to work for the Meatworkers’ Union, just as the meat industry was being used as a test case for equal pay for women workers. When the case failed, D'Aprano took direct action, chaining herself to the doors of the Arbitration Court.

(1997, 27 mins) A Film Australia National Interest Program.

© National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.