wharfies strike ww2

All this is crucial to an understanding of Australian politics and why the Curtin government failed to stop the secret war waged by traitors against our armed forces. These events are unique to Australia. Had martial law prevailed on the wharf, the wharfies would have received short shrift. To get around government repression, workers used a hidden radio transmitter to transmit pro-strike messages, and circulated banned pamphlets. But the Curtin government was too weak to prevent the injury, capture and death of significant numbers of servicemen—the direct consequences of this treachery. The Auckland union had beauty parades at its annual picnic, but for both women and men. Monks, dated 1995, 50 years after the event and 20 years ago. The dispute between the government and the workers came to a head on February 15, 1951, when, after weeks of negotiations for a salary raise (due to the rising cost of living), dock employers locked out their workers. When the industrial commission ordered everybody back to work, they laughed. After a few days their task was to unload war materials ships because the Australian wharfies were on strike. They went back only when the Soviet embassy intervened. Part of the 1945-46 strike wave in the United States during the U.S. demobilization after World War II and the abolition of National War Labor Board restrictions, which contributed to the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act restricting union activities and strike actions. What is extraordinary is that until this book, there has been no serious attempt to publish the true story of this evil campaign against our armed forces. But Hitler had other plans. was Colebatch’s “tribute to his father”, Sir Harry (Hal) Gibson Pateshall Colebatch (1872-1953), the short-term (one-month) 12. th Even with all the resources of the nation under its control a government can still fail in its duty to defend the nation. He suffered terribly because of his inability to act to protect the armed forces in a way that Churchill, Roosevelt or indeed Menzies would have.) Wharfies strike over pay and safety. But that was never to be. The Left reversed its opposition to the war with Nazi Germany. An at least 15% wage increase, and the end to overtime work. Some of his own men.”. There was no wharfies strike that day. The waterside workers were eventually persuaded to go back to work. One of the most obscene acts occurred in October, 1945, at the end of the war, after Australian soldiers were released from Japanese prison camps. Six days later, Prime Minister Sidney Holland declared a state of emergency, and expanded the police’s ability to crack down on the strike. They just attached the lifting cranes to the planes without unbolting the planes from the decks. In May 1943 Sydney wharfies went on strike because they were required to work with 6-man rather than 8-man crews in the hold. Perth lawyer Hal Colebatch has done the nation a service with his groundbreaking book, Australia's Secret War, telling the untold story of union bastardry during World War 2. As the Americans and Australians were attempting to move urgently-required equipment to the troops, the Sydney waterfront went on strike. Nor did they fail to notice that when the soldiers themselves loaded a ship, they did it far more efficiently than the waterside workers. In World War II, according to official statistics, ... Do you remember the wharfies’ strike when you blokes unloaded the coal boat? None of this demands much artistry by Colebatch. During World War II, the New Zealand government played a much larger role in peoples’ lives than it ever had before. He does not reveal who this Monks might be, but there was no soldier or POW of that name in WWII. They left the accompanying notes from mothers and children for the soldiers to contemplate. Milne Bay in Papua New Guinea was a crucial 1942 battle. The 1913 Great Strike was sparked off by two relatively small strikes. Above all, both were violently opposed to democracy. Ports of Auckland sacks striking wharfies, outsources stevedoring ... LOL mI think you are looking at films pre-ww2...mostly these days its containers and forklifts...dangerous comes from they act like maniacs and are way to casual about safety of others ... Afterall the Union officials are on full pay while the wharfies on strike aren't. 2 The vast majority of goods that came in or out of New Zealand did so on a ship, and were loaded and unloaded by watersiders (watersiders and wharfies were the local terms for those who worked on the waterfront, rather than dockers or longshoremen). The protests influenced organized labor for many years in the future, and the 1981 protests against the Springbok rugby tour were influenced by this campaign (see "New Zealand Anti-Springbok Rugby Tour Protests, 1981") (2). Wellington at war—the 1913 Strike Spare a thought for Wellington wharfie R. Lloyd, killed on the job in September 1913 when, in the dry, unemotive language of the official record, “a derrick fell on him; no blame attachable to anyone”. It seems likely that Curtin remained extremely conscious of the First World War split in the Labor Party over conscription, which led to the Labor leader W.M. 2011. By late May, strike-breaking wharfies had created their own union and filled the jobs the striking wharfies had vacated three months before. The Curtin government was an uneasy coalition between those who, like Curtin, genuinely wanted to win the war, and a powerful left wing intent on undermining that effort. On April 30, striking coal miners likely bore the responsibility for a bridge demolition. In November 1938, Port Kembla wharfies refuse to load pig iron on to the Dalfram, a boat bound for Japan. How many soldiers died as a result of this treachery? The presence of uranium created havoc on the docks. Page 4 – The 1913 strike in Wellington. Both the rapprochement between Moscow and Berlin, and Hitler’s betrayal of Stalin, had immediate domestic effect in Australia. by Hal G.P. There was the deliberate destruction by wharfies of vehicles and equipment, theft of food being loaded for soldiers, snap strikes, go-slows, demands for “danger money” for loading biscuits. Santamaria. Their agenda was to maintain and increase their political and trade union power in Australia. The Maritime Union of Australia was a union which covered waterside workers, seafarers, port workers, professional divers, and office workers associated with Australian ports. Unlike Britain, Australia was not governed during the war by a national government, a broad coalition of parties. The 75th anniversary of Victory-over-Japan Day, celebrated in August, marked the end of World War II. In the meantime, strikes on the Darwin waterfront had become so frequent that the Americans demanded that soldiers load the ships. Greed and corruption was rife. The strike became a deeply divisive issue in the labor history of New Zealand. Mr. Collins Could you provide me with links to those letters? While a court ruling in 1951 rolled back these changes for some workers, the ruling did not include wharfies. As a coalition partner, Menzies would have put steel into the heart of the government. They seemed to believe that by extracting the maximum advantage for waterside workers, miners and others in protected industries, they would further that agenda. As a vicious act of revenge, the wharfies wrecked four P-38 fighter planes. One is why such a grand coalition, clearly in the national interest, was so vehemently rejected by the Labor Party. Curtin did not wish to see a repeat, with the Left walking out of the party and the Right joining Menzies. The military started performing the wharfies’ work on the 27th. The differing ideologies and significant egos of leaders within unions prevented a united labor policy. Hughes crossing the floor. When an American officer said he would load the ships with his own men and also, for good measure, throw the waterside workers into the harbour, work reluctantly recommenced. Hitler moved against the USSR in 1941, seizing most of Eastern Europe including lands formerly controlled by Stalian. They even closed the military and naval colleges at Duntroon and Jervis Bay. Jock Barnes received a two-month jail sentence for defaming a police constable. One of the most obscene acts occurred in October, 1945, at the end of the war, after Australian soldiers were released from Japanese prison camps. Then there were the coal strikes which pushed down coal production between … At least as late as October 1945, after the end of the war, strikes meant troops in New Guinea and the islands were on starvation rations. After the end of the war, the government also increasingly branded the labor movement as communist in a series of high profile incidents, leading to increased tension between the two sides. In one incident on June 1, police attacked a march of 1,000 protesters in Auckland, seriously injuring around 20. Even its categorization is contentious. A bridge was blown up, most likely by striking coal miners, but no one was hurt. They certainly have some explaining to do. The battle of Milne Bay had just finished, Darwin and Broome were being bombed, The Americans were in a bloody fight at Guadalcanal and the 21st Brigade with the 39th Battalion was desperately defending Port Moresby from the Japanese and the 2/1st were on their way to help.) To understand Ward’s extreme ideological position, Hal Colebatch reminds us that the historian Ross Fitzgerald concluded that Ward had actually coined the pejorative epithet, “five-bob-a-day murderers”. You can imagine what we would have done to the wharfies had we been given the chance—the Japs would have been second priority. Sometimes we would invade the docks, and the wharfies would use our presence to stop work on the basis of the safety risk we posed, which would hold up loads of cargo for at least a day. This hold was eventually broken in the 1950s by the Catholic-inspired anti-communist industrial groups movement led by B.A. (However, it is important to add that Curtin, although naive, was essentially a good and indeed noble man. AAP December 27, 2010 2:53pm. In solidarity with their fellow workers, several different types of industrial workers also went on strike, meaning that more than 20,000 workers were striking in a country of only 2 million people. When the Americans inspected watersiders’ bags in Brisbane, they recovered a large number of cigarettes intended for the American troops. Why has the academy refused to let in daylight on this dark side of our wartime government? As a vicious act of revenge, the wharfies wrecked four P-38 fighter planes. When it became obvious that Hitler would not be stopped, Menzies was the first to react with strength, risking his future political career. Colebatch’s book is replete with evidence of similar crimes which were left not only unpunished but unprosecuted. In writing this book Hal Colebatch has performed a singular service not only to honour the memory of those Australians who fought in the Second World War, but as a warning to this and future generations to ensure that governments pay attention to and fulfil their primary duty to the nation: defending Australia and protecting its soldiers, sailors, airmen and nurses from both foreign and domestic enemies. The communists were little interested in the success of Australian military operations or indeed those of the United States, at least in the Pacific. The waterside workers were eventually persuaded to go back to work. Aside from days lost, there was reported pilfering/theft of food and essential parts going overseas for war equipment, go … Of those democracies who fought from the beginning to the end of the Second World War—almost all from the British Empire—there is no other example of such a long campaign of treachery and of its toleration by the government. There were well over one million days lost in coal-mining strikes in 1940, which had a disastrous impact on electricity supplies. It is a courageous action, joining worldwide work stoppages to stop the flow ofiron and other war supplies to Japan in the years leading up to World War II. But the waterside workers were to have their revenge. In Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II, Hal Colebatch reveals what was no doubt obvious to those brave Australian servicemen who were most affected: there were in Australia, from 1939 until 1945, powerful forces undermining our war effort. In any event, the fact that Japan had attacked Australian territory and treated Australian POWs with appalling brutality did not to stop the communist unions from undermining the war effort or Eddie Ward’s Left faction in the Labor caucus continuing to protect them and vehemently opposing the deployment of conscripts beyond our borders. A strike followed, but the Americans would not agree to abandon the inspections. The man recounts an incident where their ship or unit was supposedly impeded by industrial action and Colebatch comments on how outrageous this all was. Official records show there were 4123 strikes in Australia, with 3662 in NSW resulting in 5,824,439 working days lost directly through strikes. Menzies proposed such a grand coalition both when he was in power early in the war and later when he was in opposition, but Labor always refused. Despite the support for the strikers, there was also significant opposition to the strike. Wharfies’ teams from one port city would travel to other port cities to compete with each other as well as participating in local sports competitions. I’m glad Mr Colebatch has thrown some light on this little covered but long harbored story of betrayal but I fear that even the merest slip up in research on one subject could render the whole story tainted with the accusation of being based on rumour and hearsay. Despite the ban, workers received significant aid from sympathetic supporters. Curtin’s successor, Ben Chifley, blamed Curtin’s premature death in 1945 on Eddie Ward and, unsurprisingly, the strikers. Australia’s Secret War: How Unionists Sabotaged Our Troops in World War II Only the academy can answer. It should have declared martial law and ordered the waterside workers to do their duty. Only 8% of unionized workers went on strike, and the Federation of Labor called on the wharfies to dismiss their “Communist-dominated misleaders”. It was affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade … Curtin’s close friend, West Australian Labor Premier Philip Collier, later confirmed that Curtin was shocked and hurt by the unions. Page 5 – The 1913 strike in Auckland. 1950 General strike against Leopold III of Belgium: nationwide Belgium The following is a list of specific strikes (workers refusing to work in an attempt to change their conditions in a particular industry or an individual workplace, or in solidarity with those in another particular workplace) and general strikes (widespread refusal of workers to work in an organized political campaign on a broader national or international level). Coal companies had used the bridge for transporting coal, and as a result, the supply of coal to the rest of New Zealand was severely disrupted. The absence of the conservatives in a national government did not mean that the Labor government was united. The government suspended freedom of speech, association, and press. In response, the locked out workers began to strike. The book also relates how this campaign was preceded by another serious dereliction of duty by the federal government. The left wing was close to the Communist Party and probably contained some communists, although this was formally forbidden. As a result, a National Service Bureau was established to recruit strike-breaking wharf labour from farms and country towns. The police would of course miraculously turn up, and so then the wharfies would refuse to walk through police lines. So the neutrality of the Soviets towards Japan may well explain the ambivalent attitude of the communist-controlled unions to the war against Japan. The government refused. Little discussed today, and probably not touched on at all in the national curriculum, is the fact that communists and their left-wing allies in the Labor Party controlled crucial parts of the trade union movement. As a result, a National Service Bureau was established to recruit strike-breaking wharf labour from farms and country towns. Subsequently the Americans dropped stun grenades into the holds to quieten them. There is no doubt that the communist waterside workers there can be held directly responsible for the scale of the resultant carnage when the Japanese bombed the city. He was reported to have been sometimes so upset that he left the caucus in tears. A gift of ships from the British government was rejected. Because the strike threatened their livelihoods, rural men were keen to volunteer as special constables. Though they have since been largely suppressed or glossed over by pro-Labor historians and writers, these episodes were not apparently considered shameful by all watersiders and other strikers but on the contrary have been recounted by some as matters of pride. The government owes this not only to those who fought and died in the Second World War, but also to present and future generations who have reasonable expectations that a government will attend to its core duties. 31 Mar. The only possible conclusion from this book is that the wartime Curtin government failed adequately to protect those who volunteered and even those they had conscripted to fight for and at times to die for their country. Colebatch gives his only source for this nonsense as a letter from one W.S. In the General Strike of 1917 wharfies and thousands of other unionists in several states struck in support of striking NSW railway and tramway workers. The following year, the militant Waterside Workers’ Union, plus other hard-line unions, split off from the Federation of Labor, which was allied with the Labour Party, to form the Trade Union Congress, led by the fiery Jock Barnes. During and after the war, the Australian communists acted as the puppets of the Soviet Union led by the megalomaniac dictator Joseph Stalin. Colebatch The defeat of militant unionism by the government meant that the more moderate Federation of Labor gained power within the union movement, and the Waterside Workers’ Union and the Trade Union Congress were marginalized. Stalin and his communists were in many ways similar to Hitler and the Nazis. Read Quadrant online or as a printed magazine Starting at $68.00 a year. There was the deliberate destruction by wharfies of vehicles and equipment, theft of food being loaded for soldiers, snap strikes, go-slows, demands for “danger money” for loading biscuits. Historian Glenn Mitchell said the strike action had not been directed at the Japanese, and would have occurred irrespective of where the pig iron was headed But other incidents could be – and should have been – either verified or dismissed. They just attached the lifting cranes to … After experiencing the treachery of waterside workers at Townsville, one trooper declared that “waterside workers were responsible for more hardships, shortages and deaths than the Japs”. But when the British aircraft-carrier HMS Speaker brought them into Sydney Harbour, the wharfies went on strike. What the wharfies did to Australian troops - and their nation's war effort - between 1939 and 1945 is nothing short of an abomination. The result of this dereliction of duty by the government meant that the port of Darwin was filled with ships waiting to be loaded when the Japanese attacked. What the wharfies did to Australian troops - and their nations war effort - between 1939 and 1945 is nothing short of an abomination. (The wharfies had no case because the country was at war. They were able to maintain their anonymity within their union, and after the war, to profit from the peace which they had so diligently tried to thwart. Between February and July of 1951, up to 22,000 waterfront workers (wharfies) in New Zealand struck for better pay and shorter workings hours. But when the British aircraft-carrier HMS Speaker brought them into Sydney Harbour, the wharfies went on strike. They were half dead, starving and desperate for home. No one was hurt. "The 1951 Waterfront Dispute." [25] Labour versus workers – WW2 The answer is obvious, and Hal Colebatch’s compendium of evidence corroborates this. Between February and July of 1951, up to 22,000 waterfront workers (wharfies) in New Zealand struck for better pay and shorter workings hours. To an extent, this has been echoed by the actions of the Gillard and Rudd governments, in allowing the proportion of the GDP spent on defence to fall to levels not known since before the Second World War. In response, the government used the Navy to ship coal from remote parts of New Zealand to centers of commerce. And some of the men inside the party. I’m a bit concerned that Mr Flint has not incorporated some of the evidence put forward in letters to the editor that have questioned the veracity of the tale of the missing squadron. Army personnel unloading meat for soldiers at the front; during a wharfies’ strike, Sydney, 9 April 1943 (Australian War Memorial 050671) Some of the claims made by Colebatch’s informants are vague and impossible to check. In November 1938, Port Kembla wharfies refuse to load pig iron on to the Dalfram, a boat bound for Japan. The New Zealand government and the waterfront employers. There was the deliberate destruction by wharfies of vehicles and equipment, theft of food being loaded for soldiers, snap strikes, go-slows, demands for “danger money” for loading biscuits. When RSL leaders also called for a coalition, Labor’s left-wing leader Eddie Ward dismissed these men, who had served and fought for Australia, as “fifth columnists”. What is essential now is for the Abbott government to appoint an inquiry to find the facts and to report on those measures which should be taken in any conflict in the future to ensure that our defences are not again seriously impaired as they were by government weakness and inaction during the Second World War. There was no wharfies strike that day. It lengthened workers’ hours to supplement the war effort, and New Zealanders generally accepted these changes as necessary for the war effort. Then there were the coal strikes which pushed down coal production between … This treachery was not limited to the wharves. New Zealand waterfront workers strike for better wages and shorter hours, 1951, Opponent, Opponent Responses, and Violence, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. The communists and their allies achieved their dominance of the unions through the rigging of elections and through the strong-arm tactics which they used to rule the unfortunate countries which fell under their sway. It is a courageous action, joining worldwide work stoppages to stop the flow ofiron and other war supplies to Japan in the years leading up to World War II. The situation became increasingly tense as the strike progressed. Supported by overwhelming evidence, Colebatch’s book demonstrates that the Curtin government failed to protect our soldiers, sailors and airmen from the traitors who inflicted enormous damage on them. One of the most obscene acts occurred in October, 1945, at the end of the war, after Australian soldiers were released from Japanese prison camps.
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