Another Australian ghost town (1965)

From the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Geoffrey Blainey briefly traces out the history till 1959 of the lead, silver and copper mines of Mount Isa in his book, Mines of the Spinifex. These are located in the north west of tropical Queensland. Blainey outlines the incredible number and forms of hazards that had to be faced and subdued before the mines could be opened and operated. Among these were swarms of flies, red choking dust, persistent high temperatures, scurvy, malaria and thirst. Also, hostile Aborigines, apparently fearing for their own tribal future, never hesitated to spear or club to death all surveyors and prospectors they could. Isolation, and therefore transportation, was and still is a large factor in end costs. Westwards from Townsville, its nearest port, Mount Isa lies 600 miles across plains of red dust and prickly spinifex.

Yet so promising were the chances of fortunes to be made from mining in this savage, desolate waste land that investors Australian, English, Russian and now predominately American were persuaded to advance capital to develop the mines and reduce the environment to conditions of European habitation and modern industry. Dams were built large enough to impound tropical rains and supply the needs of both town and mines for years ahead. Even the dread of medical isolation was removed with the advent of the John Flynn Flying Doctor Service. 

Capital, superb as it is in solving these massive problems of nature, must always falter and fail when confronting social problems peculiarly of its own creation. Indeed, as wild nature is tamed, in like proportion there emerges the destructive force of the class war which is an impediment to wealth production just as much as wild nature. That wary London publication. The Economist of July 9th, 1927 (writes Blainey) “prophetically warned investors that (a) metal prices could easily fall and that (b) labour conditions in Australia were onerous and (c) that the cost of equipping the mine could far outstrip the estimates,” (Mount Isa paid outfits first net profits in 1936-37 — after 13 years of sporadic operations). “It admitted that Mount Isa might become great.” Mount Isa became the largest single industry in the State, employing over four thousand workers and each week paying out £100,000 wages and "earning” over one million pounds revenue.

Commodity prices, (rising or falling), and labour problems: how these two factors have repeatedly flawed and fractured the apparently smooth and polished surface of modern society everywhere.

The first Mount Isa strike was in protest over the high price of beer. The next, 1933, closed down the mine for months. Prophetically, the miners would not return to work unless two of their sacked mates were re-employed. The prophesy of the Economist re-appears and rapidly assumes a more substantial form from December, 1963 onwards.

It was then that, theoretically, the present Mount Isa dispute began, when the Australian Workers Union (A.W.U.) representing the Mount Isa miners lodged claims for £4 per week pay rise and improved conditions. In April 1964 these were refused on the legal quibble that the £4 per week was a bonus and not a wage claim. To the mineowners, either way, the claim clearly represented an encroachment on their profit. And this is something the investors seek to avoid, even if straining of legal subtleties and cynical evasions do insult the intelligence of the workers. After another four months of apparent deliberations, in August 1964 the miners decided to ban contract labour and to revert to day wages, and to stay this way until their claims were granted. This continued for four more months, during which time the weekly wage was less than half contract rates and mine production had fallen steeply.

This was a period of fermentation. The employers declared that the contract ban by miners was a strike. Branch unions defied parent bodies. Local labour leaders emerged, more representative and knowledgeable of local affairs and tempers. Then the combustible element of victimisation was cast into this tropical furnace of class war. The popular and able leader of the contract banning miners, Pat Mackie, was sacked by the company for attending union affairs during working hours Mackie’s objection to dismissal was legally over-ruled. A few days later he was expelled by the A.W.U. (This seems to be always the weakness of the One Big Union ideal—the parent body upon formation begins again to disintegrate into hostile local factions, at odds both among themselves and against the central union authority. At Mount Isa this became very much in evidence.)

On December 10th the Queensland Government declared the area to be under Emergency Regulations and moved in extra policemen. The Mount Isa miners were ordered to resume contract work and the penalties for refusing can be One Hundred Pounds fine or six months in jail or both; in addition daily penalties can be imposed. Thus, if refusal continues for 50 days, each miner who holds out could be jailed for 25 years, be fined five thousand pounds, or both.

All this, naturally, resulted in fanning the live coals of class war. There was a quickening of union activities. More meetings, more defiance and still more Emergency Regulations and conferences. Then on December 24th, the original legal quibble of April was suddenly set aside and a £3 increase was granted. By mid-January 1965, improved conditions and contract rates were also agreed upon.

Marx, in Capital Vol. 1, Chapter VI informs us that, as distinct from other commodities, “ . . . there enters into the determination of the value of labour power a historical and moral element." (See footnote) “Moral” considerations, so dear to the hearts of our masters, now proved to be the major hindrance to immediate settlement of the Mount Isa dispute when they revealed a leaning towards working class interests. The original dispute in the material and economic sense has ended. But others took its place. These were over the re-employment of Pat Mackie by the mining company and the company recognition of the Mount Isa T. & L. C. as a future negotiating body for Mount Isa employees. With both of these Union requests the company refused to comply. And so the dispute became a strike, on the issues of victimisation and union representation, with all their implications.

While these issues were still smouldering, the Queensland Government inflamed the entire Labour Movement of Australia by yet another Emergency Proclamation which transformed Queensland into a Police State. Meetings of protest were being organised all over Australia together with pledges of moral and financial support: indeed as noted by an Age leader:

The Queensland Government in its desperate effort to check the disastrous Mount Isa strike, seems to have injected more fuel into a highly inflammable situation, which now threatens to explode into a State-wide and perhaps a Nation-wide industrial upheaval.

Not entirely surprising was the news that all the Emergency Police powers had been suspended. Premier Nicklin contrary to his earlier declared purpose for invoking these powers (“gangsterism strong-arm tactics etc., among the miners") suddenly revoked them. However, these Regulations in practice and intent were still less savage than those put into operation by the Federal Labour Government during the 1949 strike which “ . . . included freezing of union funds to prevent sustenance payments to workers, the forbidding of credit to the strikers and the use of troops to mine coal and transport it." (Herald 10.2.65)

Through February the miners firmly continued the strike, while the mining company and Arbitration Commission issue orders and counter order on the closing or non-closing down of the mine. Meanwhile hundreds of miners and their families, each week, moved outwards from this strike-bound and blighted Central Queensland Township, seeking employment elsewhere. From the other side of the world came this clear comprehending and candid appraisal of Australian affairs:

The strike is more than a local labour dispute. It is contributing to a sharp rise in world copper prices which had been falling this month.

It is infecting the whole of the Australian labour relations. The elements of legal compulsion that once seemed to be such an admirable feature of the Australian arbitration system has not been able to cope with the refactory labour force in a low-wage area like Queensland at a time of generally full employment, (The Times 10.2.65.).

Finally, Prime Minister Menzies, returning from overseas, said “ . . . its terrible that the Mount Isa works could be snuffed out by a curious character, (Pat Mackie, who by the way volunteered to withdraw from Mount Isa once the Miners’ pay and other demands were settled), who is not even an Australian.” Just how irrelevant can a person be? As though the nationality of the victimisation issue is of importance, any more than is the issue as to whether these mines are owned and controlled by Australian or “Foreign’’ capital.

Mr. Calwell, leader of the Aus. L.P., on this point declares: “What is needed above all in this Mount Isa situation is compassion for the people of Mount Isa, compassion for the families of the miners and of the shop-keepers, compassion for the men (i.e. the international investigators), who have planned great schemes of expansion only to see them frustrated . . . The dignity of the Labour movement is expressed when it takes full responsibility for everything it does.” (Age 23.2.65.)

Yet only four days earlier he supported the use of Australian troops in Borneo, indicating thereby a direct denial of compassion for “ the people, the families of peasants and soldiers, shopkeepers etc.,” on both sides who suffer the horrors of S.E. Asia warfare. Both the open class war of Mount Isa and the war in the jungles of Asia are but two warring aspects with a common origin.

Where now is the dignity of the Australian Labour Movement?

Peter Furey.

On the Spot at Con-Mech (1973)

From the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nor entirely satisfied with the mass media’s reporting on the Con-Mech dispute, I went along to find out for myself. As I arrived outside the Sheerwater factory, I saw a group of four or five men on the pavement. Among them I recognised Lindsey Greig, who is one of the two shop stewards. He is 21. A graduate of Warwick University, he joined Con-Mech this summer. From the company’s point of view he is a “trouble maker” and had “spent much of his working time soliciting membership for the AUEW”. The other shop steward, Ron Connor, an ex-miner from Co. Durham, has experience of trade union membership, but is also young.

Con-Mech is a small factory-cum-office on Sheerwater GLC estate outside Woking, Surrey. The Group make bread slicers and parts for bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery. According to a circular issued by Mr. Robert Dilley, the company’s chairman, on September 28th, there are 67 people employed of which he claims 51 are “eligible to join a Union” — any union. I asked him over the phone if this figure included staff workers, typists, etc., but he emphatically denied this. However the workers and the AUEW who have checked the branch’s books, assert that the total number of shopfloor workers eligible to join the AUEW was only 31. Indeed I would think that this is the correct figure, as Dilley’s 51 could only have got in with dangerous overcrowding. It is a small factory.

Before September 19th the union had only four members, of whom Ron Connor was one. At the branch meeting 22 Con-Mech workers including Greig became union members. Next day the union members elected Greig and Connor as their shop stewards and decided to apply for a meeting between the District Secretary Geoff Hardy (a member of the Communist Party) and the Company to discuss recognition, etc. The shop stewards’ account of how this application was met is indicative of the employer’s attitude:

Our first discussion with the Management was brief and to the point. We were told that under no circumstances would they afford recognition, and that the two elected Shop Stewards could “pick up their cards” on the way out. (Undated leaflet issued in the name of Ron Connor as Secretary of the Strike Committee.)

It seems that on every point at issue there are two different and mutually contradictory stories. How many shop-floor workers were eligible for the AUEW? Dilley says 51, the union only 31. How many came out on strike? Dilley says only 20, the union 26. How many are still out on strike now (Oct. 26)? Dilley says only 9 — the rest, he says, are either back at work or else have collected their cards and got jobs elsewhere. But the union say they are paying strike pay to 16 men on their books. Were the shop stewards sacked? Not according to Dilley, but it is hard to see why, immediately after their interview with him, there was a mass walkout and decision "to withdraw labour until such time as not only the two stewards were reinstated, but the Company conceded recognition”.

On September 28 Dilley took the case to the National Industrial Relations Court under Sir John Donaldson on the grounds that the strike constituted an "unfair” industrial practice because there had been no seven days’ notice. At which stage the question ceases to be a relatively simple one of an industrial stoppage over a recognition issue, but becomes bedevilled by the AUEW’s stoic masochism and boycott of the NIRC (surely they could have countered Dilley by putting their case on reinstatement of the shop stewards and recognition?), but also by the Labour and TUC opposition to the Industrial Relations Act and NIRC.

At which point I’ll get back to those pavement pickets. Their main motive for being out was nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Act and party political matters. What they wanted was union recognition, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, a means of compelling management to do something about unsatisfactory conditions. I was told of safety hazards on some of the machines, of poor ventilation, of the shopfloor being cluttered and dirty. I heard that rates of pay were arbitrarily and unfairly fixed — the longer you stayed the less you got in relation to blokes who had just come in on "outside” rates of pay. For instance, Lindsey Greig, a young newcomer, got a lot more than an older, better and more experienced worker.

Another factor was the high speed arrival and departure of shopfloor workers. There would be seven or eight new ones every Monday, and of these hardly a couple would still be in the place on Friday. There was a tendency to take young workers, including students, and there was a high proportion of immigrant workers — Italians and Pakistanis came to nearly half the workforce. In the event, the Pakistanis have mostly stuck with the union so far, but the Italians went back in.

In the absence of a union, inexperienced, young or immigrant workers are least likely to be aware of safety hazards in operating the machines, and in case of accident are unlikely to be aware of their legal rights on compensation; also they might not be in a position to press any claim. Is this why Dilley is so opposed to recognition of the union? Is he afraid that someone might report him for empty firebuckets? Or get him to modify some of his plant, e.g. the monstrous machine outside in his backyard which chops up metal into different lengths and which the operator can only switch on or off when inside the building? Or to give up some of his old-fashioned habits, like sacking people at the drop of a hat?

The first sentence of Dilley’s circular of September 28th claims: “For twenty-five years the employees and the management have enjoyed excellent labour relations.” The men totally disagree, and they point out that last November there was a stoppage lasting several hours over pay and conditions, which ended when another director conceded a pay increase. In the next sentence, we read: “the conditions of employment have always been superior to those laid down by any Union”. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: there would be little cause for men to stay out on strike with only £6 strike pay for weeks on end and still remain resolved to force union recognition if conditions were as "superior” as Dilley alleges. The men however know very well how badly their conditions and rates of pay compare with other factories in the area, whose workers are solidly supporting them (e.g. in such practical ways as laying on hot tea twice a day, or getting statements photo-copied for the pickets to hand out, not to mention helping out with picket duty).

The employer seems an awful ass, dogmatic and intransigent, characteristically the type who has been using NIRC. The Union leaders seemed at times to have had a stronger eye on making party policy propaganda for the Labour Party than with the immediate interests of their members on strike. But the strikers themselves have shown commendable solidarity and stamina — qualities which, added to socialist understanding, will overthrow capitalism and establish Socialism.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

By the look of this obituary for Lindsay Greig from 2015, he would have been a member of the International Socialists group (now known as the SWP) at the time of the dispute. In fact, the strike at Con-Mech is mentioned in the obituary.

Philanthropy and Profits. (1907)

From the March 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The real nature of the pretendedly disinterested benevolence of some large employers is at times laid bare even in the journals of the enemy; and capitalist “philanthropy” is then found to have a very material basis. The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle has, for example, after a visit to Essen, the following to say regarding the famous firm of Krupp :—

“Krupps are honourably known for the patriarchal benevolence which they display towards their workpeople Their model dwellings, their sick-clubs, their co-operative stores, and a great variety of other institutions to alleviate the lot of their workers, have often been described, and always in terms of adulation. For my part, I carried away a different impression. I felt that all the mature thought bestowed by the famous firm on their benevolent institutions was the result of sound business principles, tinctured by despotism, rather than the manifestation of any special leanings towards philanthropy. This is the opinion of a large body of their own employees who regard the many admirably-conducted institutions as so many chains binding the men to the firm. The chains are covered with cotton wool, but that does not impair their strength ; it only makes them less galling. A concern like Krupp’s could not afford to have a large body of their workmen disaffected ; a strike could have most disastrous consequences.

“With my Socialist friend I visited several of the model dwelling-houses, and found much to admire, but a good deal also to criticise. Rents on the whole were high, and I found a far larger proportion of the tenements than I had expected anything but comfortable. Indeed, in too many cases the dwellings looked gloomy, forbidding, and absolutely devoid of homeliness and comfort. The colonies known as Schederhof and Nordhof were dreary and squalid in the extreme. An incessant guard, moreover, is kept over the men that they do not live a life outside the works which is displeasing to their employers. Their political activities, for example, are very narrowly scrutinised. Every workman on entering Krupp’s employ must sign a document of portentous length, in which his work and his play are both regulated. He must, for example, sign that he will not attach himself to any political organisation which has as its object the upheaval of existing social or political institutions. As Socialism in the eyes of Krupp is synonymous with revolution, this means that any workman known as a Socialist is summarily dismissed.”

There'll be another one along in a minute (1995)

From the June 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Chelmsford 105

At the end of March a demonstration, addressed by Bill Morris of the TGWU and John Monks, the TUC General Secretary, was held to protest at the plight of the Chelmsford bus drivers who last November were subject to the despicable but predictable anti-working-class action by the now private bus company, Eastern National, owned by the Badgerline Group of Companies. One hundred and five of them were sacked. The drivers had been using normal industrial procedures to support their grievances, these were soon exhausted and a ballot was held which gave a 74 percent majority vote in favour of strike action. The drivers were warned by the management that if they proceeded with their strike they would all be sacked. This was apparently written into their contract of employment. They went ahead with the strike with the full support of the union—and were sacked.

The TGWU bulletin, circulated in the Chelmsford local papers, rightly points out that the fight for reinstatement is fast becoming a historic dispute, and that it has highlighted the class bias of our laws which allows management to sack workers for taking a few hours perfectly legal industrial action.

We have seen many times the type of anti-working-class action practised here by Eastern National. Even before strike action was taken the bus company had organised advertisements for new drivers in the local press and made arrangements for the transfer of drivers from other Badgerline companies in other parts of the country, at great expense to the company. It is blatantly obvious that their aim was to destroy all effective organised union activity in order to impose worse conditions of employment on all Badgerline workers.

Some of the “Chelmsford 105”, as they have been called, have set up a rival bus company with the assistance of the TGWU and are operating alongside the larger bus company’s buses offering a free service. The aim is to disrupt the Eastern National service as much as possible by eventually matching their service bus-for-bus and hitting them where it hurts the most—financially.

The chance of this having the required effect and getting Eastern National to decide to reinstate the sacked drivers is very slim. So what is the logical outcome for this reasonably successful new bus service if not to convert a free service into a commercially-run concern?

We would then have competition between two business organisations both clambering for a share of a limited market Even now we have competition between union members in both organisations, both fighting for their own interests.

The drivers, who were very unfairly dismissed (but legally correct in the eyes of the law) arc obviously very critical of the methods adopted by the managing director of Badgerline, Mr Orbell. But if in the day-to-day running of any new rival bus company it became necessary to cut costs and increase productivity to retain the correct profit margin, how would the new management cope with this type of problem? Would they not have to make the same sort of decisions as the bigger bus company?

The new management may say: we would certainly not run our company the same way as Eastern National, we would be much more interested in the welfare of the employees. In other words, they would be "good" capitalists. This might even happen for a brief while, but what would happen when the competition hots up or another recession bites into the profits? The new management would have to do all that is in their power to preserve the profits of the company—it is the only way it can operate, if it wants to survive. This is the basis of the capitalist system.

Continuous quest for profit

This continuous quest for profit drives all business organisations to the most despicable anti-working-class tactics. This drive for profit is what makes people compete; business against business plying for the same trade, worker against worker fighting for the opportunity to be employed. All the good intentions in the world will not make the capitalist system operate in the interest of all the people

We need to understand how the capitalist system works against our interests and that the only way to achieve a life where we are able to contribute our energy, skills and talents and share the wealth of the world, is to replace the system of competition we are presently forced to suffer. We need to totally adjust our way of life, and establish socialism and do away forever with competition and concentrate on a life of co-operation. We can do this by running society, exactly as we all do now, but in the interest of us all and not the few fortunate enough to own it.

Allan Goldsmith

The New Zealand docks dispute (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

For five months since the 17th of February, 1951, New Zealand was in the throes of one of the longest and bitterest Trade Union struggles in its history. The struggle commenced with the lock-out of the Waterside Workers (Dockers) and the imposing of the “Waterfront Strike Emergency Regulations” and their amendments, 1951.

The miners, the Wellington freezing workers, the New Zealand Federated Seamen’s Union struck as a protest against the Emergency Regulations. The miners, freezing workers and the federated seamen had no wage dispute and they ignored the advice of their Union National Officers to remain at work.

On February 8th the employers of waterfront labour offered 4½d. an hour wage rise following the Arbitration Court award of a 15 per cent increase. On February 10th watersiders at Wellington and at New Plymouth ceased working overtime as a protest against the employers’ offer. The workers claimed that 4½d an hour was only 9 per cent increase in a forty-hour week and that their ability to work overtime had been included when the wage rise was computed. The employers argued that the rise offered was exactly in line with the 15 per cent Arbitration Court award.

The employers began dismissing men on the 15th of February for refusing to work overtime. Workers alleged that they had been locked out and stated that they were willing to work the forty-hour week. Employers replied that refusal to work overtime was a breach of the agreement.

On February 19th the Government issued an ultimatum calling on the watersiders to resume normal work including overtime and to place their wage claim before the Waterfront Authority, failing that, the Waterfront Commission would be suspended. The same day, the waterside workers saw displayed on the engagement boards a notice to the effect that if they were not prepared to work overtime they were not to lift their discs (sign on for work). Meetings of watersiders at all ports on that day rejected the Government ultimatum.

The workers claimed that the position was an “open lock-out by the employers” and a “calculated attack” on Trade Unionism and the forty-hour week. The Prime Minister of New Zealand declared a state of emergency on February 22nd.

The Government issued sweeping emergency regulations on February 23rd, giving power to suspend all awards, use members of the armed forces on the waterfront, extend the powers of the police, deal with any person who incited or aided the continuance of the dispute, place all union funds in the hands of the receiver, etc. A Waterfront Strike Notice was issued ordering all watersiders back to work on Monday, February 26th, or to suffer a “declared strike” under the regulations.

On that Monday, meetings of watersiders in all ports rejected this ultimatum. The following day the Government ordered servicemen on to the waterfront at Wellington and Auckland, and the New Zealand coast seamen walked off all ships being worked by servicemen. Some Wellington Harbour Board employees were suspended for refusing to assist the servicemen, and meetings of seamen, drivers and others were held everywhere.

The Trade Union Congress called on the Government to resign. The Federation of Labour affiliations recommended the calling of a compulsory conference between the disputing parties. Over a thousand workers employed on hydro-electric plants at Waikato ceased work. All Waikato underground mines and some West coast mines were idle. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants instructed all branches not to handle any material on the waterfront that was normally handled by the watersiders. Freezing workers at Ngahauranga, the Gear Meat Workers at Petone and at several other centres stopped work. The Golden Bay Cement Works closed down.

The Government de-registered the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union on February 28th, and the Parliamentary Labour Party called on the Government to arrange a compulsory conference between the parties.

On March 1st receivers moved into the Waterside Workers’ Union offices throughout the country. Bank accounts amounting to £20,000 were taken over. The Federation of Labour announced that it had done “everything that it could be expected to do within reason”, the Union could only blame itself for its position.

On March 5th all mines in the Greymouth district had come to a standstill. The Wellington Drivers’ Union took a ballot and decided not to work with the troops at the waterfront.

By April 10th the Government had used everything in the bag to force the watersiders back to work. Emergency Regulations, all the Anti-Trade Union legislation brought down by the Labour Government with a few embellishments by the present Nationalist Government. It was made an offence to discuss the Emergency Regulations at any meeting, even the leader of the opposition was refused permission to do so. But the watersiders, the miners, the freezing workers and the seamen stood firm.

On two occasions members of the Watersiders’ Union were sent cards to sign if they wished to return to work under the new conditions and as members of new Unions that had been registered, but very few took advantage of the offer. The majority showed remarkable determination to preserve their Union and to support their elected representatives. The Government refused to negotiate on any grounds that would enable the old Union to return on a National basis or to negotiate with any deputation that included the old Union’s president and secretary, H. Barnes and T. Hill. If the workers had been prepared to sacrifice these two, a settlement might have been brought about. These two men were branded as the trouble makers and the old Communist bogey was thrashed until it became a joke. It was a Communist plan, cried the Government, and the watersiders were dupes. Seventy-five per cent of the members of the old Union were ex-servicemen from the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars and it is ironical that these men, who supposedly went away to destroy the Nazi monster in the last war, should return to face another one with similar earmarks as soon as they demanded a little more of the wealth that the working class produces, in order to maintain their already miserable living standard, or a little of the “new order” that they were promised whilst they were fighting their masters’ enemies. They have the new order, but it is worse than the old one. Socialists have maintained through both wars that the common enemy of the workers in every land is Capitalism and not their fellow workers of a different nationality.

Throughout the struggle the Parliamentary Labour Party in New Zealand sat on the fence, and the Labour politicians were subtle as usual.. At first they made no complaint against the Emergency Regulations or anti-Trade-Union regulations which their own party had used when it was the Government. Mr. Nash, the leader of the Opposition, said at a meeting in Hamilton that “he was in favour of applying regulations in any easy and not in a rigorous way as long as this did not tend to prolong the strike”, and that the Labour Party “would have had no hesitation in using its powers to ensure that essential supplies were delivered to hospitals and homes”. He said that he did not like to see freedom of speech curtailed or officials given the right to open private correspondence. Neither could he agree to the clause in the regulation which made it an offence to give food to assist watersiders’ wives and children. (Evening Post, Wellington, 30.3.1951.)

The Labour politicians claimed that they were neither for nor against the locked-out and striking Unions, but with the unflagging determination of these Unions to continue the struggle, the Labour men took the opportunity to get in and reap the spoils of the workers’ fight. The Import Supply Bill was debated in the House of Representatives, 26.6.1951, and the Labour Party politicians used the chance to debate the industrial situation generally. They expressed concern at the state of the country, urged a settlement of the strife and, with an eye to the future, they put in a good case for themselves.

The Government speaker, in reply, quoted from a pamphlet entitled “Statements concerning recent disputes affecting waterfront work” issued by the Minister of Labour in the past Labour Government. Therein the cause of the waterfront disputes was attributed to the attitude of “Barnes and Hill” on the various waterfront Commissions, and to the machinations of the Communists. This dispute gives the Labour Party a good weapon with which to fight the next election. It will be able to adopt the attitude of “we told you so” and to blame the Nationalist Government for all the workers’ problems.

The Federation of Labour played a vile part in the dispute, giving the Nationalist Government every aid to crush the watersiders and their allies. Even the Labour Party had to snub them. Thus is demonstrated the futility of compulsory unionism to the workers.

When the National Government brought in its Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, there was in it a threat to compulsory unionism. The officials of the Federation of Labour immediately dashed to the rescue and convinced Mr. Holland of the value of compulsory unionism, pointing out that “the Federation has yet to find any sections of the employers who object to its continuance” (Southern Cross, 3.11.1950). Without compulsory unionism the officials would lose their mainstay and the power they wield. They have now proved its value to the Government. Lack of knowledge and apathy of the members is of great assistance to these leaders of the Federation, as it is to all leaders.

The promise of support from the railwaymen seems to have been lost in transit and the strikers have rather a poor opinion of their brothers on the railways who failed to comply with the resolve “not to handle any material on the waterfront normally handled by watersiders”.

The Government precipitated this struggle at a bad time for the employing class in New Zealand. It was at the height of the exporting season, thereby costing them an immense sum. The determination of the men, the active part played by the young members who were getting their first taste of such a struggle, and the support of wives who went out to work to help their menfolk continue the fight, are deserving of the applause of workers everywhere.

On July 11th the seamen, cooks and stewards who had been on strike in sympathy with the watersiders, returned to work and the National Council of the Waterside Workers’ Union recommended branches in all ports to return to work. The New Zealand Government is to seek an early dissolution of Parliament to test public opinion on its handling of the dispute. The leader of the opposition has charged the Government with fascism, dictatorship, opening mails, tapping telephones, suppression of free speech and freedom of assembly and other actions foreign to democratic government. This is denied by the Prime Minister (Manchester Guardian, 12.7.1951).

The outstanding lesson to be learned from this working-class struggle in New Zealand is that working conditions bitterly fought for and won through struggle on the industrial battlefield over the years can be wiped out, comparatively speaking, in a few minutes by those who control the political machinery. The political weapon is the dominant one and whilst it remains in the hands of the capitalist class no amount of struggle will free the workers from the yoke of capital. The same determined and heroic effort as our New Zealand fellow workers have recently waged, if directed towards gaining control of the political machine with a view to ending the wages system would solve all their economic problems. If only they would raise the cry, “Abolish the wages system” instead of making a modest demand for a tiny wage increase, then they would be heading towards a system free from lock-outs, strikes, poverty, atomic wars, ill housing, dictatorship, over-work and the host of other evils which beset them.

(This account of the recent New Zealand struggle has been compiled from information and material supplied by Comrade R. Everson of the Socialist Party of New Zealand.)

Overseas Secretary, SPGB