Australian coal mine strike in 1949
In the Australian coal strike of 1949 ( Australian coal strike 1949 ), military forces were used for the first time in peacetime by an Australian government to end the strike, which was led by a union. The strike of the 23,000 miners in the Australian coal mines lasted from June 27 to August 15, 1949. Soldiers were dispatched to coal fields on the basis of an order dated July 28, 1949 by the Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley . As a result of this directive of July 28, 1949, given by a government led by the Australian Labor Party (APL), the miners were in the coal mines in New South Wales forced to return to work.
This strike was the continuation of the confrontation between employers and workers after the Queensland Railway Strike of 1948.
backgrounds
As early as March 1947, the coal workers were demanding a 35-hour week, 30 shillings more wages and a pension scheme. In February 1948 the union campaigned for overtime pay. She wanted to improve working conditions primarily for those who had to work at a temperature of 54 ° C in the coal mines with poor ventilation. On average, 25 workers died each year in the coal fields from work-related accidents, and numerous other miners suffered work-related accidents. In 1947, the Australian federal government had enacted the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, along the lines of Chifley. The miners, who were pursuing other approaches to resolving the conflict, were ready to strike after this long period in which their demands had not been taken into account.
In the days before the strike, the union wanted to negotiate with the owners of the mines, offered a transitional arrangement for a 40-hour week of one year, and proposed negotiations to reduce working hours during this period. The union also agreed to the use of machines to speed up work.
Course of the strike
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) had a strong position in the miners' union . At the same time, the Australian Railway Union (ARU) and the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) were dominated by ALP members who were part of the right wing there. In 1946 the ALP had won the federal election with 49.7 percent and the Senate election with 52 percent. Prime Minister Ben Chifley saw this strike as an attempt by the CPA to dispute the ALP's place as a workers' party. On June 30th the Labor government placed a full-page advertisement in the newspapers: “This is a strike against arbitration! It is a communist inspired strike! "(This is a strike against the arbitration! It is a strike influenced by the communists!)
The strike was called communist conspiracy by the employers and the government . The communists undoubtedly had influence in the union, but only two members of the union strike committee were organized in the CPA.
Just two days after the start of the strike, the government issued an order that it was a criminal offense to provide the strikers and their families with any financial assistance, including assistance with loans for groceries through shops. On July 5, union officials were asked to transfer the union's property to a government trustee. On July 6, the government arrested union officials and the CPA headquarters was raided. At the end of July, courts sentenced seven union officials to twelve months and one to six months in prison.
As a result of this strike, the Australian electricity and gas supply had to be rationed and 750,000 people who were not involved in the strike could no longer start their work.
Military action
On August 1, 500 soldiers with machine guns , rifles and bayonets slung over the Minimi coalfields near Newcastle , Muswellbrook and Ben Bullen . Further occupations of seven coal fields followed later.
After the occupation, the strike collapsed two weeks later. Many workers were shocked that the ALP used such drastic methods because the ruling ALP did not stand up for their interests and gave up. The strike committee tried to take action against the occupation with mass demonstrations in the minefields. However, some of these did not materialize. The strike committee then called a vote on the continuation of the strike, where it proposed continuation. 5403 to 2343 voted to end the strike, which ended the strike, and for the first time in the Australian history of the labor movement, strikers voted against their leadership's proposal. In the run-up to the military operation, the government's minister for information, AA Calwell, said that the government would first break the strike and then remove the CAP. The result of the vote qualified the Minister for Supply J. Armstrong: “This is a knockout blow for the Communist leaders.” (German: “This is the knockout for the Communist leaders”).
Consequences of the strike
The Conservative government of Robert Menzies started the military on strikes against the waterfront strike at Bowen in 1953 and also against strikes by seafarers and dock workers in 1951, 1952 and 1954. The government of Harold Holt sat naval forces against the striking Seamen's Union of Australia in 1967 and Malcolm Fraser , the aircraft of the RAAF to transport passengers in the strike of 1981 against the airline Qantas one. Bob Hawke did the same in 1989 on strike by the Australian pilots.
To this day, this 1949 policy against a strike by a Labor-led government has had an impact on the Australian labor movement and strikes there.
literature
- Phillip Deery (Ed.): Labor in Conflict, the 1949 Coal Strike , 1978
- Phillip Deery: Chifley, the Army and the 1949 Coal Strike in Labor History , No. 68, (1995)
Web links
Video: Ben Chifley - The Aftermath of the Miners' Strike
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elizabeth Ward: Call Out the Troops: an examination of the legal basis for Australian Defense Force involvement in 'non-defense' matters in Parliamentary Research Paper 8, (1997) ( Memento of October 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 27, 2010
- ↑ a b c d Kim Bullimore (1999): 1949 coal strike: Labor's 'boots and all' sell-out of June 9, 1999 ( Memento of August 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 27, 2010
- ↑ a b Stephen Jolly: 1949 Coal strike: A turning point in Australian history at socialistpartyaustralia.org , accessed March 27, 2010
- ↑ a b The Register Gard v. August 10, 1949 Information from news.google.com , accessed March 27, 2010