Making the 'Gibraltar of Unionism': Union Organising and Peak Union Agency in Broken Hill, 1886-1930

Labour History

Volumn , Issue 83, 2002, Pages 65-88

  Ellem, Bradon ^a   Shields, John ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85171630816     PISSN: 00236942     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3828/27516883     Document Type: Article

References (106)

1. Andrew Herod, Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of Capitalism, Guilford Press, New York, 2001, pp. 24-36.
2. ACTU, unions@work, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Melbourne, 1999, p. 36.
3. Richard Hyman, Industrial Relations: a Marxist Introduction, Macmillan, London 1975, p. 41. For a discussion of peak union formation and development, see Bradon Ellem & John Shields, 'Placing Peak Union Purpose and Power: the Origins, Dominance and Decline of the Barrier Industrial Council', Economic and Labour Relations Review, vol. 11, no. 2, June 2001, pp. 61-84.
4. C. Briggs, The Rise and Fall of the ACTU: Maturation, Hegemony and Decline, PhD thesis, Department of Industrial Relations, University of Sydney, 1999.
5. Quoted in Raymond Markey, In Case of Oppression: the Life and Times of the Labor Council of New South Wales, Pluto Press, Leichhardt with the Lloyd Ross Forum, Sydney, 1994, p. 6.
6. Greg Patmore, 'Labour-Community Coalitions and State Enterprise: the Lithgow Small Arms Factory 1918-1932', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 39, no. 2, June 1997, pp. 218-43.
7. Rae Cooper, "To Organise Wherever the Necessity Exists": the activities of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW, 1900-10', Labour History, no. 83, November 2002, p. 51.
8. Lydia A. Savage, 'Geographies of Organizing: Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles', in Andrew Herod (ed.), Organizing the Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1998, pp. 230-235.
9. Briggs, 'The Rise and Fall of the ACTU', pp. 11-12,18,52-56.
10. Brian Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: a Social History of Broken Hill, 1883-1921, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1978, pp. 29-34
11. G. Robertson, 'Industrial History', Barrier Daily Truth, Centenary Souvenir Edition, Broken Hill, 1983, pp. 12-13.
12. George Dale, The Industrial History of Broken Hill, Fraser & Jenkinson, Melbourne, 1918, p. 10.
13. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 51-61
14. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 14-20
15. Robertson, 'Industrial History', pp. 13-14.
16. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 66-71
17. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 21-60
18. Robertson, 'Industrial History', p. 14.
19. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 71,75
20. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 61-72
21. Robertson, 'Industrial History', pp. 14-15.
22. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 76,83-6,91-92
23. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 69-70.
24. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 95-96
25. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 92-94.
26. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 87-91,93-99
27. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 97-99
28. E. Ross, These Things Shall Be! Bob Ross. Socialist Pioneer-His Life & Times, Mulavon, West Ryde, 1988, pp. 51 59.
29. Included in the CUC were the AMA, the Engine Drivers and Firemen's Association, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Boilermakers' Union, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenter and Joiners, the Masons and Bricklayers Society, the Iron and Brass Moulders, and several smaller unions. B. Pennay, Industrial Disputes at Broken Hill up to 1909, MA thesis, University of Sydney, 1968, p.59.
30. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, p.102
31. Robertson, 'Industrial History', p.15.
32. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 104-108.
33. Dale, Industrial History, p.109. BHP had relocated its main smelting operations from Broken Hill to Port Pirie in the 1890s.
34. Graeme Osborne, 'Town and Company: the Broken Hill Industrial Dispute of 1908-09' in John Iremonger, John Merritt and Graeme Osborne (eds), Strikes: Studies in Twentieth Century Australian Social History, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, pp. 31-49
35. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 103 110
36. Jeremy Mouat, Mining in the Settler Dominions: a Comparative Study of the Industry in Three Communities from the 1880s to the First World War, PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988, pp. 254-65
37. Robertson, 'Industrial History', pp. 15-17
38. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 110-139.
39. By this time, BHP had forfeited its dominance of production on the line of lode and embarked on a strategy of diversification away from lead-zinc mining and into steel production.
40. One striking but hitherto under-explored feature of the 1909 BHP lockout-strike is the unions' conscious use of space as a device for organising and mobilising. While allowing work to continue at other mines, the BHP mine was subjected to systematic around-the-clock picketing, with the Bakers and other town unions refusing to provide service to the 'big mine'. The unions also asserted the right to public protest and access to public space by means of mass street processions involving women and children as well as working men. When Mann was refused leave to address meetings in New South Wales while on bail awaiting trial on a charge of unlawful assembly, the CUC transported 3,000 supporters by train to the South Australian border to hear him speak. The organising of Port Pirie workforce can also be seen as an attempt to reorganise the industrial landscape to close off a potential weakness in union influence over the production process. Osborne, 'Town and Company', pp. 40,42
41. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 118-119.
42. Cited in Robertson, 'Industrial History', p.18.
43. Royal Commission on the Mining Industry at Broken Hill [1914], Report and Evidence, New South Wales Parliamentary Papers, 1914-15, vol. 3, questions 16305-6.
44. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 113-114
45. Robertson, 'Industrial History', pp. 20-22
46. Dale, Industrial History, p.267.
47. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 119-120
48. Robertson, 'Industrial History', p.18
49. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 152-153
50. Royal Commission on the Mining Industry at Broken Hill, questions 3740,4147,16460,16867,16893.
51. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 153-154.
52. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 152-158.
53. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 124-127.
54. For a full discussion, see Bradon Ellem & John Shields, 'Making a "Union Town": Class, Gender and Workers' Control in Inter-war Broken Hill', Labour History, no. 78, May 2000, pp. 116-140.
55. Dale, Industrial History, p. 161.
56. Dale, Industrial History, p. 171.
57. BDT, 21 December 1916.
58. BDT, 13 July, 4,9 August 1917. Gamboni subsequently became an organiser for the Victorian Branch of the Liquor Trades Union; BDT, 23 August 1922.
59. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 134-136
60. Robertson, 'Industrial History', p. 24
61. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 184-206.
62. BDT, 14 January 1916.
63. Dale, Industrial History, p.196.
64. For a summary of these years, see Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 128-144. For first hand accounts, see Dale, Industrial History, pp. 207-231 and Ern Wetherell, 'Industrial History of the "Stormy" Years of 1910-1921', unpublished typescript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill.
65. Dale, Industrial History, p. 233; BDT, 15 February 1916.
66. Dale, Industrial History, pp. 185-246
67. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 128-149
68. G. R. le Duff, Factions in the Labour Movement in Broken Hill, 1914-1919, BA (Hons) thesis, School of Social Science, Flinders University, 1969
69. B. Maughan, 'Review of Industrial Negotiations 1920-1946', Typescript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill, 1947, p. 7
70. Registrar of Friendly Societies, New South Wales, Trade Union Returns, 1919.
71. le Duff, 'Factions', pp. 98-100.
72. le Duff, 'Factions', pp. 97-8
73. Kennedy, Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale, pp. 158-164
74. Maughan, 'Review', pp. 25-26
75. Robertson 'Industrial History'.
76. Maughan, 'Review', p. 27
77. le Duff, 'Factions', pp. 98-100.
78. Robertson, 'Industrial History', pp. 28,30-31
79. B. Carroll, Built on Silver: a History of Broken Hill South, Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 54-58.
80. Maughan, 'Review', pp. 34-39.
81. Edgar Ross, A History of the Miners' Federation of Australia, Australasian Coal and Shale Employees' Federation, Sydney, 1970, pp. 306-307.
82. AMA/WIUA, Minutes, 11 January, 5 May 1921.
83. AMA/WIUA, Minutes, 11 January, 5 May 1921,22 January, 23 April, 27 August, 12 December 1922, 25 February, 6 March 1923
84. TLC, Minutes, 20 July, 12 December 1922,1,15 March 1923.
85. TLC, Minutes, 15 March, 7,22 June 1923
86. Maughan, 'Review', pp. 56-59
87. for a full account see Bradon Ellem & John Shields, 'Why Do Unions Form Peak Bodies? The Case of the Barrier Industrial Council', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 38, no. 3, September 1996, pp. 377-411.
88. TLC, Minutes, 15 March, 7, 22 June 1923
89. WIUA, Minutes, 26 August, 2,9,16 September 1923; BDT, 17 September to 4 October 1923.
90. BDT, 13,15 December 1924; BIC, Minutes, 12 February, 30 July, 10,24 September 1925,8 October 1925; Maughan, 'Review', pp. 71,73-77,81-82.
91. Bradon Ellem & John Shields, 'H.A. Turner and "Australian Labor's Closed Preserve": Explaining the Rise of "Closed Unionism" in the Broken Hill Mining Industry', Labour & Industry, vol. 11, no. 1, August 2000, pp. 69-94
92. William A. Howard, Barrier Bulwark: the Life and Times of Shorty O'Neil, Willry, Kew, 1990, pp. 87-89.
93. Ellem & Shields, 'H.A. Turner and "Australian Labor's Closed Preserve"', pp. 75-77
94. Jamie Peck, Work-Place: the Social Regulation of Labor Markets, The Guilford Press, New York, 1996, p. 108.
95. BIC, Minutes, 26 February 1925.
96. William A. Howard, 'The Rise and Decline of the Broken Hill Industrial Relations System', in K. Tenfelde (ed.), Towards a Social History of Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries, C. H. Beck, Munich, 1992, p. 720; TLC, Minutes, 11 October 1923; BIC, Minutes, 31 July, 20 November 1924.
97. Anon., 'Paddy O'Neill: the Uncrowned King', Conveyor, May 1952, pp. 4-6, June 1952, pp. 22-23.
98. Headline in BDT, 2 July 1926. See also 3,9 July, 13 September 1926; BIC, Minutes, 28 January, 1 July 1926; see also 11 February, 11 March 1926.
99. BDT, 11 October 1926.
100. BIC, Minutes, 23 September 1926; for the workings of the system, see especially 13,18 September, 10,17,22 October 1926.
101. BIC, Minutes, 4 November 1926; Registrar of Friendly Societies, NSW, Trade Union Returns, 1925-27.
102. Quoted in BDT, 2 July 1930.
103. BIC, Minutes, 4, 7,10,24 July 1930; BDT, 3,15,17,18,22, 25 July 1930.
104. BDT, 1,2 October 1928; BIC, Minutes, 20 September, 23,30 August 1928.
105. BDT, 1 October 1928.
106. BIC, Minutes, 7 June 1923,23 April 1925.