Four important strikes that you (probably) don’t know about
Australian history is riddled with strikes. Here are four that don’t get talked about as often as they should.
Rockchoppers’ strike, 1908
Beneath Sydney lie 27,000 kilometres of sewage and water pipes keeping the metropolis from descending into a pigsty. Few know about the hundreds of workers who hewed the sandstone to build this labyrinthine network. Even fewer know about the heroic struggle they undertook to tame Sydney’s underground concrete jungle.
The dangerous nature of this work meant it attracted only the tough and the desperate. Cutting into the sandstone produced a fine—and deadly—dust that caused silicosis. Explosives produced toxic fumes that caused crippling headaches. Most workers were drawn from the poor Irish community. The morality of the employers was summed up by a contractor’s evidence to a 1901 board of inquiry: “A contractor does not take a job to slaughter men but at the same time he has to make a living like other people”.
In 1908, the Rockchoppers Union formed and quickly recruited almost all 500 people working in the sewage network. A series of strikes on individual jobs followed as the rockchoppers pushed for higher pay, shorter hours and, most importantly, workers’ control over workplace conditions. In October, this erupted into a general strike in the sewers. The Water Board quickly moved to prosecute the strikers under new anti-union legislation.
The rockchoppers felt they had nothing to lose. When strike leaders were hauled before the arbitration court, hundreds of sewer workers surrounded the courthouse shouting, “You’ll have to jail the lot of us!” and then marched to the prison to cheer on their comrades.
Many were influenced by revolutionary syndicalism, which championed independent working-class activity. Labor politicians were banned from speaking at strike meetings, although independent socialists like Harry Holland were welcomed. The workers requested solidarity from other unions but were deeply suspicious of attempts by the NSW Labor Council to take over and moderate their struggle.
After three weeks, the Water Board surrendered to all their demands. The most astonishing victory was securing the six-hour day, the first of its kind in the country and perhaps the world.
The Balmain ironworkers’ strike, 1945
Left-wing accounts of strikes in Australia often look favourably on the Communist Party, which was the major force in the unions outside of the Labor Party for much of the twentieth century.
The Balmain ironworkers’ strike of 1945 shows a different side to the Communists. It took place during the Second World War, which the Communists strongly backed. It was largely a revolt against the Communists’ bureaucratic control over the ironworkers and their attempts to service the war effort by limiting strikes.
While strident anti-war sentiment was isolated, there was a widespread feeling amongst workers that the war effort shouldn’t lead to lower living standards. When the Soviet Union entered the war in June 1941, the Communist Party campaigned to convince workers that more sacrifices must be made to support the war against fascism. For a period, working-class sentiment converged with the Communist Party’s position due to the rapid advance of the Japanese imperial forces. By 1943, however, the Japanese offensive was declining, and war fatigue amongst workers was setting in.
These issues came to a head in Sydney’s Balmain. The Balmain branch of the Federated Ironworkers’ Association of Australia (FIA) was the only one not controlled by the Communists. It organised a motley crew of Old Balmainers, including Labor left socialists, supporters of the ousted Labor Premier Jack Lang, syndicalists and a few Trotskyists. Throughout the war, tensions built up between the Communist leaders of the national Ironworkers and the Balmain branch.
An unofficial strike of Sydney metalworkers kicked off 1943 when the New Year’s Day public holiday was cancelled. The strike was condemned by the Communists. “[A] day’s production has been lost and the trade union movement has been held up to ridicule for lack of discipline”, argued the Ironworker. “[N]o gain of any form whatsoever will flow from this stoppage.” Much criticism focussed on the Trotskyist Nick Origlass, who had been elected a delegate for the Mort’s Dock boiler shop.
Further stoppages followed the New Years’ Day strike. Eventually, the federal leadership of the Ironworkers moved to remove the Balmain branch leaders after accusing them of financial irregularities. Hundreds of rank-and-file workers rallied around the local leadership at mass meetings. The Communists won a narrow victory in the branch elections of 1943, although they were accused of stuffing ballots.
With the old Balmain leadership deposed, opposition to the Communists was organised by a small band of Trotskyist agitators led by Origlass, who built a base of support in the metal shops at Mort’s Dock and on Cockatoo Island.
In March 1945, Origlass was removed from his position as delegate. At a mass meeting to elect new delegates, no-one in the boiler shop nominated, in solidarity with him. The union leaders appointed three new delegates, and the boiler shop workers announced they would stop work unless Origlass was returned. Within two days, most of the ironworkers at Mort’s Dock were on strike. The next union meeting ended in uproar when the chair and 100 supporters of the Communists walked out, declaring the meeting void. Five hundred ironworkers stayed and supported a motion to expand the strike.
By April, almost 3,000 ironworkers were out on a strike that would last six weeks. By the time the strike ended, not only was Origlass reinstated, but the Communists abandoned Balmain, leaving the opposition in control over the local branch for years to come.
Read more: “The Balmain ironworkers’ strike of 1945”, Daphne Gollan, Labor history journal.
Rubber workers’ strike, 1969
The jailing of tramway union leader Clarrie O’Shea in May 1969 triggered the largest general strike in postwar Australia. It was a watershed moment that broke the anti-union penal powers and initiated a new strike wave that involved increasing numbers of low-paid and poorly unionised workers.
In October 1969, strikes organised by such workers rocked the rubber industry in South Australia. More than 1,000 workers struck for three weeks in defiance of their employers and the manoeuvres of right-wing trade union leaders.
These workers were mainly migrants, mostly Greeks, and hundreds were women. A change in the way that wage increases for highly unionised workers flowed on to low-paid workers meant that they were falling far behind. In October 1969, a workplace meeting launched a strike for higher wages. In response, the rubber bosses refused to negotiate with the Miscellaneous Workers’ Union (MWU). Instead, they told the workers to talk to the Chamber of Manufactures.
“At the second strike meeting a call was made for a march of protest to the Chamber of Manufactures”, reported Tribune, the Communist Party’s newspaper. “Almost to a man [and woman] the workers responded and marched fifteen abreast to the Pirie Street Chamber premises.” Once there, the workers invaded the building and sat in the board room’s red leather chairs waiting for the bosses’ negotiators to arrive—they never did.
Striking workers, police and scabs regularly confronted one another on picket lines outside the rubber factories. “A driver was told to drive over the bastards”, reported Tribune. The bosses threatened to shut down workplaces across the state, leaving thousands without work. Maintenance crews at Rubber Mills then walked out in solidarity. Notably, migrant workers at Ford Broadmeadows in Victoria, who would stage their own strike in 1973, walked off the job in support of the rubber strike.
At this point, the local Trades and Labour Council—controlled by right-wing unions—moved to take control of the dispute. They organised a meeting in which the MWU had the same number of representatives as smaller right-wing unions and pressured the workers to end their strike and wait for a court ruling.
Rank-and-file rubber workers resisted this takeover, the Greek workers playing an important role. Many of them were connected to Platon, a Greek workers club led by migrant Communists. Platon had created a εργατική επιτροπή (industrial committee) in 1969 that played a key role in encouraging the strike in the first place. Nick Robakis, one of the strike organisers and a local MWU leader, was a Platon member.
Under the influence of these activists, a stormy strike meeting rejected the Labour Council proposal to return to work by 300 votes to 283. However, the pressure from the bosses, the courts and the Labour Council continued to build. A few days later, another strike meeting reluctantly voted to end the strike.
Despite only a partial win on their demands, the strike left an important legacy. For years afterwards, the rubber industry in South Australia was rocked by protests and strikes led by the workers—men and women, migrants and Australian born—who went through the struggle of 1969.
Read more: “Profile of a strike” by Hal Alexander, Tribune, December 1969
Warilla teachers’ strike, 1976
It wasn’t just low-paid migrant workers moving into struggle in the wake of the Clarrie O’Shea strike. There was also a growing movement amongst white-collar workers, many of whom previously considered themselves professionals.
In October 1968, the first ever state-wide strike of NSW teachers took place. Eighty percent of teachers took part, and more than 10,000 attended a mass meeting. This opened the space for strike action at particular schools, the most important of which was the Warilla teachers strike of 1976.
This remains the longest teachers strike in Australian history, lasting 28 days. Warilla High School in the steel town of Wollongong educated many children from poor working-class families. The strike began when the Department of Education transferred a science teacher out of the school and refused to provide funding for a replacement. Seventy-five of the 77 staff walked out in protest on 10 February.
The strike quickly raised the wider issue of inadequate staffing for schools in working-class areas, winning community support. At the time, the NSW South Coast was a radical hub. A left-wing rank-and-file group had won the local union leadership of the BHP steelworks and organised large strikes throughout the 1960s and ’70s. Eighteen thousand steelworkers had launched a strike just days before Warilla. Left-wing activists were influential amongst the dockworkers in Port Kembla and the Illawarra coalminers. The South Coast Labour Council was known for supporting left-wing currents in the region’s trade unions.
On 17 February, a mass meeting of 400 parents and students unanimously endorsed the strike, after a left-wing opposition overthrew the local P&C branch leadership. A series of sympathy strikes by students broke out at the Warrawong, Port Kembla and Berkeley high schools. On 25 February, 300 school students marched through the streets of Wollongong. The cleaners at Warilla high walked out on strike. The waterside workers at Port Kembla held a stop-work to hear from the striking teachers and discussed a sympathy strike. High school teachers in Sydney began a series of rolling solidarity strikes.
At this point, some of the Warilla teachers were drifting back to work, but 40 voted to continue the strike. Victory came when members of the Firemen and Deckhand’s Union walked off the job, shutting down tugboats at Port Kembla. “Driving down Mt Ousley that night”, recalled South Coast teacher Jim Bradley in an interview with Illawarra Unity, “looking at those boats tied up off the Illawarra coast, we stopped the car and screamed in delight and knew we were close to winning”. The Education Department rapidly gave in to most of the strike’s demands.
Read more: “The Warilla High School Strike—a veritable class struggle” by Anthony Ashbolt, Illawarra Unity, July 2006.
