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In 1974, Inco started hiring women for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Cathy Mulroy, then 19, was the second woman in line for a job. Now, she’s written a book about her experiences.
Mulroy worked on the anode casting wheel in the copper refinery. Her job was to empty the molten metal arriving in hot cars from the smelter, into the furnace. It was hot, grimy work, but for Mulroy, the labour wasn’t the difficult part of her experience.
“Over the years, I was kind of a person who believed in people’s rights,” she says. “I was never quiet. So right off the bat, I started getting into trouble.”
Inco was a male-dominated company, and Mulroy says it was clear that many didn’t want women there. “I started getting grievances for silly things like taking a 15-minute coffee break five minutes too early. You know, just harassment, plain harassment.”
At the time, three women worked with the anodes, but Mulroy says they all worked different shifts and were never able to interact. Sometimes she’d be promoted or moved departments but would be sent back to the anodes after every lay off or cut back.
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