Trade Unions in Australia - Depression and Attacks On Unions

Depression and Attacks On Unions

After the Transport Workers Act 1928 (more widely known as The Dog Collar Act) was passed, the Australian union movement sought to protect itself by forming the Australian Council of Trade Unions. By this point the idea of trade unionism had won out over industrial unionism. This was in part encouraged by the Industrial courts who freely gave registration to small, shop and trade specific unions. While the Communist Party of Australia would always argue for industrial unions, the idea of industrial unions mouldered until the 1960s, and only received support from the ACTU and ALP in the 1980s.

The dog-collar act was used to break up strong unions, in forestry and in dock-working. These unions were perceived to be revolutionary, or at least militant. At the same time the fragmented trade unions sought to maintain member conditions in an environment of massive unemployment. For instance, rates of male unemployment in the industrial city of Newcastle never dropped below 20% throughout the 1920s. When the depression hit, formal unemployment rates rose above 30%.

The 1929 Timber Workers strike was the first large strike after the onset of the Great Depression when Justice Lukin handed down a new timber industry award that increased the working week from 44 to 48 hours and reduced wages. During the strike Lukin ordered a secret ballot to be held which was the first attempt to enforce a secret ballot in an industrial dispute.

A fifteen month lockout during 1929–1930 of miners on the Northern New South Wales Coalfields was particularly bitter. The Rothbury Riot resulted in police shooting at miners, killing Norman Brown and seriously injuring many more.

The trade union response to unemployment was not inspiring. Before the Depression some strong trade unions would provide welfare for unemployed members, and seek jobs for them. The depression rendered this system useless where it existed at all. (Union welfare primarily existed in seasonal work with militant unions, like dock-working. It was precisely these unions that were attacked by the dog-collar act).

In response to the depression the remains of the IWW set up a union for the unemployed. This idea was quickly taken up by both the CPA and the ALP who both established associations (not organised as unions of workers) for the unemployed. The militance of unemployed workers who identified with the CPA or ALP, and the spirit of universal unionism which remained from the IWW, changed these movements of the unemployed into effective unions. The unemployed unions attacked local councils, and occasionally landlords, in order to win conditions. Infamously, a series of CPA inspired riots occurred against evictions in Newtown, Bankstown, Newcastle and Wollongong. The unemployed movements did not win significant employment, payment or condition victories for the unemployed workers. No future union of the unemployed would ever match the achievements of the unemployed unions of the 1930s.