Welding Bay carpark The factory on Arthurton Road

The factory on Arthurton Road was purpose-built in 1926 and operating as the Purnell Shoe Company by the 1970s

A green exit sign holds its position above the door frame

extracting blue metal aggregate under a succession of operators

Molten slag spills from a ladle at Port Kembla Steelworks

its tracks rusted silent and the weeds long since claiming the margins where visitors once waited

Welding Bay carpark The factory on Arthurton RoadThe welding bay at the former Melbourne Glass Bottle Works at Spotswood sits idle, tools left in place where they were last set down, every surface filmed with dust and marked by rust. This was the maintenance side of a factory that at its peak employed 139 maintenance workers alone, a workforce large enough that their 19 week lockout in 1996 became a defining moment in Victorian industrial history. Part of the O I Glass series.