Trade Union Activism
Along with May Jordan, she formed the first women's union in Brisbane in September 1890 supported by a campaign by William Lane in the Brisbane Worker newspaper. As a seamstress she gave evidence at the 1891 Royal Commission into Shops, Factories and Workshops, that highlighted the existence of many sweatshops that exploited women workers. Through this period Miller was an active participant in the Early Closing Association.
With the great strikes of the 1890s, Miller was active in supporting the 1891 Australian shearers' strike and in setting up the Prisoners' Relief Fund for the twelve arrested strike leaders. While William Lane chose to set up in 1892 the New Australia community in Paraguay along socialist lines which attracted many labour activists, Emma Miller believed Lane was "opting out of the struggle" and became a foundation member of the Workers' Political Organisation, a forerunner of the Australian Labor Party in Queensland. She became colloquially known as Mother Miller as the most dominant female figure in the Queensland labour movement.
Read more about this topic: Emma Miller
Famous quotes containing the words trade union, trade and/or union:
“No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesnt actually fall down.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)
“I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America is known to everyone who has given the matter attention.”
—William Howard Taft (18571930)
“The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
—Benjamin Harrison (18331901)