Unemployed Agitation
Fleming spent many periods unemployed and was active in unemployed agitation. Many Trade Unions and Trades Hall officials were not sympathetic to unemployed agitation at this time. Fleming described one occasion:
- "...The unemployed meeting was held on a piece of land near the Workingmen's College. At the conclusion of the meeting, old John White and I carried the calico banner which had written on it: Feed on our flesh and blood, Capitalist hyena; it is your funeral feast. When the unemployed arrived at the Trades Hall they were attacked by unionists. During the fight the banner was destroyed. The police came and ended the fight ..."
In 1908, as part of an unemployed agitation, Fleming and Percy Laidler, a Marxist, led the unemployed into Federal Parliament in Melbourne, stopping it for one and a half hours.
Read more about this topic: Chummy Fleming
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