Pilbara Strike

The Pilbara strike that lasted more than three years, started with 800 and was 600 Aboriginal farm workers in the Pilbararegion in Western Australia conducted from 1 May 1946 to August 1949th They went on strike for fair wages, better working conditions, human and cultural rights and for their rights to their ancestral land.

This strike was the first massive Aboriginal strike in Australian history . He is considered to be the trigger of the Aboriginal struggle for their land rights. In 1939 the Cummeragunja Walk-off had taken place, in which 150 Aborigines resigned from their work for better living conditions and human rights, and in 1966 the Gurindji Strike , in which the Aborigines fought for equal wages for “black and white”.

Working and living conditions

The striking Aborigines, who worked in numerous cattle and sheep breeding stations in north-western Western Australia, wanted at least 30 shillings to be paid as a week's wages and no longer to receive the equivalent of 12 shillings in kind , the right to freely choose their representatives themselves and free choice of job. From the 1890s through the 1920s, it was common practice to reimburse Aboriginal labor in the form of tobacco, flour, and other essentials. The payment of wages in kind was ultimately not abolished until 1968. The farm workers were also deprived of their freedom of movement. They were followed by the police and taken back to the cattle station when they left it. Your strike demand was essentially also the demand for self-determination.

Strike preparations

The strike was led by Dooley Bin Bin , Clancy McKenna and Don McLeod , an active trade unionist and a brief member of the Communist Party of Australia .

McLeod wrote in his book How the West Was Lost , published in 1984, that the strike took place at the secret Aboriginal rights meeting in 1942 in Skull Springs , a place that was sparked by the Skull Creek massacre of Aborigines at age 60 up to 70 people are known to have been murdered. McLead was the only European at this meeting, which was attended by around 200 tribal representatives, mostly from northern Australia. It was decided that the strike would take place in several places after the end of World War II .

Course of the strike

On May 1, 1946, about 800 farm workers left their jobs, 600 of whom never returned to their original jobs as strikers. About 100 farm workers left the Pilbara cattle station and set up their own strike camp. The strike action spanned 10,500 square kilometers of farmland. Strikes initially took place in Broome and Derby and in other places, which ended after a short time under pressure from the police. The strike only continued in Pilbara. The strikers in Pilbara had no telephone or radio, they could neither read nor write English, and they had to communicate with each other in 23 Aboriginal languages.

Originally, the policy of the trade unions in Australia was mainly geared towards the interests of the "white" workers, but this changed with this strike and the Aborigines were seen as part of the labor movement.

One of the leaders of the strike, Don McLeod, a “white” man, was a member of the Australian Workers' Union and he also had the task of organizing support in the port of Port Hedland and liaising with the Seamen Union of Australia . These should block the transport of the sheep's wool. 19 unions in Western Australia and other supraregional unions supported this strike. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union helped set up a Committee for the Defense of Native Rights and organized briefings about the strike.

There were numerous arrests during the course of the strike. In December 1946, McLeod was arrested for preventing Aboriginal people from legal work. Aboriginal people then marched to Port Hedland prison and he was released. McLeod was arrested a total of seven times during the Pilbara strike.

One problematic incident occurred during the course of the strike when two police officers broke into the Five Mile Camp at Marble Bar and shot Aboriginal dogs. The camp residents then disarmed the police because they saw it as a threat to their lives. Jacob Oberdoo, who was arrested three or four times and was to receive the British Empire Medal in 1972, was also involved in this measure, but he refused to accept it.

Due to the circumstances and length of the strike, the strikers were forced to lead their traditional bush life again, they hunted kangaroos , ate bush food and mussels. They also farmed and mined for natural resources to feed themselves. A mine from this time of them was only abandoned in 1959.

In August 1949, just before the start of the new season for sheep shearers , the Seamen's Union struck the transport of the sheep's wool from the Pilbara station. On the third day after this union support, the blockade was successful. Government officials now wanted to accommodate the strikers, provided they end the transport blockade. A week later, the government officials said they had never made such a commitment.

After the strike ended, many went back to their jobs and went back to work or bought ranching stations, opened their own mines and worked in cooperatives with Aborigines.

Strike evaluation

In 1949 the High Court of Australia ruled that Aborigines had a right to organize and elect their own representatives. The Pilbara Strike was not a complete success, but it was of great historical significance for Australia and an example of how the Aborigines can successfully stand up for human and labor rights and that strike can open a path for the Aboriginal land rights movement. The dispute over equal wages for Aborigines was only successfully concluded in 1966 with the Gurindji Strike on Wave Hill in the Northern Territory .

Strike culture

The writer Dorothy Hewett visited Port Hedland in 1946 and wrote the poem Clancey and Dooley and Don Mclead about the strike. In 1987 a documentary film was made about this strike, the film How the West was Lost , in which u. a. it is also shown that the strikers had developed their own singing and leisure culture.

literature

McLeod, DW (1984): How the West was lost: the native question in the development of Western Australia Port Hedland, Western Australia.
Roberts, Janine (1978): From Massacres to Mining ISBN 0-905990-05-6

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c George Jennie: Reconciliation in the Community - How do we make it a reality? Statement by the President of ACTU at austlii.edu.au , accessed April 1, 2010

↑ ^a ^b ^c Pilbara: Australia's longest strike Green Left Weekly on greenleft.org from May 3, 2006 ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 1, 2010 @1@ 2

↑ Pilbara Strike (1946-1949) , accessed April 1, 2010

↑ The Age: The Rebell of the Pilbara from May 2, 1996 ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 1, 2010 @1@ 2

↑ Steven Churces: The Story of a Promise made to Western Australia's Aborigines on treaty.murdoch.edu.au ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 1, 2010 @1@ 2

^ Clancey and Dooley and Don McLeod

[Jennie-1] George Jennie: Reconciliation in the Community - How do we make it a reality? Statement by the President of ACTU at austlii.edu.au , accessed April 1, 2010