Norma Disher

Norma Disher

N/A

Most Known for...

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The Hungry Miles 1954

The Hungry Miles is a documentary made by the Waterside Workers Federation Film Unit. It documents industrial relations on the waterfront since the 1930s and includes dramatised scenes of working conditions during the Depression. It also recounts the background to the Federal Governments 1954 amendments to the Stevedoring Industry Act, which proposed to give shipowners the right to directly recruit wharf labour and bypass the union; shows workers demonstrating; contrasts the gap between industry and workers in the division of profits; and evokes the spirit of the Eureka Stockade in portraying the solidarity amongst waterside workers.
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Pensions for Veterans 1953

Film made in support of a campaign by the Waterside Workers Federation seeking pensions for older waterside workers. It depicts the hardships veterans, particularly older workers as well as some of the health and economic issues they endure. Shows a delegation of older workers, led by the WWF's Jim Healy and Tom Nelson boarding a bus in Sydney and travelling to Canberra, where they gather outside Parliament House. Climaxes with a mass meeting of waterside workers at Leichhardt Stadium and concludes with a group of elderly wharfies walking along the Sydney docks.
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Four's a Crowd N/A

A comedy portraying four unpopular and undesirable types of waterfront worker - Glass-arm Harry (a shirker), Tiddly Pete (a drunk), Nick-away Ned (a believer in 'shorter' working hours) and Ron the Roaster (a know it all and loud mouth). All played with great comic effect by Jock Levy. Shot on the wharves at Walsh Bay, Sydney with the aim of educating workers that this type of behaviour damages the union and provides bosses and the media with an excuse to make baseless generalisations about all waterfront workers.