Surviving the belt shop blues: Women miners and critical acts

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Abstract
As concept, policy and practice, affirmative action in Australia has continued to be the subject of political dissension. Currently, Liberal Party policy promises to dismantle the Affirmative Action Agency, while the Labor Government has recently added contract compliance guidelines to the 1986 Act Effective analysis of this institution requires that the political contingencies of policy‐framing and implementation be related to the micropolitics of the workplace. This article begins such an analysis. I argue that the current shape of the legislation enforces its projection as a top‐down ‘policy of persuasion’, a move which reflects and enhances the rhetoric and practices that serve relative advantages to men. Nevertheless, my critique of a ‘best practice’ organisation suggests something more: a dissonance between their expectations and their hostile reception in the workplace can prompt women to mobilise against the imposition of that advantage.

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