 Also in 1940 she was elected to the executive of the Hotel, Club, Restaurant, Caterers, Tea Rooms and Boarding House Employees' Union of New South Wales (HCRU), becoming assistant secretary in 1941 and secretary in 1945.She was one of the first women elected to the secretaryship of a union and radicalised the HCRU during her tenure, requiring larger hotels to provide female cooks with equal pay and instituting the five-day working week, sick leave and weekend penalty rates.Under her leadership, the HCRU supported the 1946 boycott of Dutch ships in support of Indonesian independence and the 1949 miners' strike, and opposed nuclear testing on Aboriginal land at Maralinga, the 1950 Communist Party dissolution bill and the Korean War.