60 years since the historic Gurindji workers’ strike at Wave Hill Station brought national attention to the exploitation of Aboriginal station workers, Reconciliation News looks back at the history of trade union solidary with First Nations peoples in the struggle for civil rights.
Early in 1982, Builders Labourers Federation members packed a mass meeting on a Sydney construction site. They did not gather to discuss job safety or the latest log of claims, instead they listened to Birri Gubba and Gungalu man, Tiga Bayles, talk history and resistance.
Tiga talked of the oppressive realities of Bjelke-Petersen Government legislation controlling Queensland’s First Peoples’ lives; of deep-seated poverty, child theft, mass incarceration and deaths in custody.
Those attending the meeting had heard little of the truths Tiga told that day.
Incensed, the unionists voted to introduce a $10 weekly worker levy to fund protests at the Brisbane Commonwealth Games later that year.
Two years after that, the Queensland Government repealed the Qld Aborigines Act 1971.
Tiga and the protesters secured a huge victory and the group of NSW labourers had played a small but proud part in it.
A proud history
It wasn’t the first time that Australian unionists stood with First Nations resistance. Early trailblazing trade unionists Pearl Gibbs, Jack Ferguson and William Cooper went on to found the Aborigines Progressive Association and the Australian Aborigines’ League – both groundbreaking Aboriginal-led political organisations.
Other prominent leaders including Dexter Daniels, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Joe McGinness, Fred Maynard, Chicka Dixon and Kevin Cook, all leveraged the power of the labour movement to fight for equal rights.
Thomas Mayo, Kaurareg, Kalkalgal and Erubamle man and Assistant National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, said these leaders quickly recognised the inherent opportunities to be had from working with trade unions, in a country where exclusion of First Nations peoples was the norm.
‘Unions were some of the earliest organisations that started to push against racism and to start including Indigenous people, making sure we got the same rights as everyone else.
‘Our leaders saw the support in union ranks and joined unions.’
Professor Nareen Young of UTS’s Centre for Indigenous People and Work (CIPW) argues that the organised working-class movement from the 1930s depression took a partnership role with the Aboriginal movement and supported them strongly.
‘There was a lot of friendship, solidarity and exchange between the two movements,’ she said.
Strike action for change
In 1936, Zenadth Kes/Torres Strait Islander workers in the pearling and maritime industries struck against discriminatory wages and the heavy-handed control of the Queensland Government Protector.
After nine months the strikers won better pay and ended a government-imposed curfew. Crucially, they won the right to elect their own representative councils.
In 1946, 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers across 25 different sheep stations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region walked off the job. They set up strike camps to protest receiving basic rations in food and clothing instead of fair wages and to highlight oppressive colonial legislation.
During this historic action, known as the longest strike in Australia, the sustained activism of First Nations organisers Clancy McKenna, Dooley Bin Bin, and ally Don McLeod, ensured the strike was finally victorious after the Seaman’s Union threatened to ban the transport of wool from stations with slave conditions.
The 1946 Pilbara strike laid the groundwork for the 1966 Wave Hill Walk Off and inspired national civil rights changes in the form of equal wages for Aboriginal workers and the Northern Territory Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
A two-way street – a legacy for the future?
Trade union support for First Nations justice continued across communities such as Palm Island and Yarrabah and during high profile campaigns like the 1965 Freedom Ride, the 1967 referendum and the 2023 Voice referendum campaign.
However, that support has fluctuated with the political climate of the day.
In the early days of Australian unionism, workers organisations were often imbued with colonial attitudes and racism.
‘Unions were often supportive of the White Australia policy and the exclusion of First Nations people,’ Mayo explains. ‘But under the influence of Indigenous unionists they began to support our fight to end the violence and utter exclusion we were subjected to.’
Professor Young argues that while antiracism may not yet be a priority for all unions there is a growing understanding of the importance of anti-racism education in the workplace.
She also points to other First Nations initiatives such as the ACTU’s establishment of the First Nations Workers Alliance which successfully fought against changes to the Community Development Program (CDP).
The CDP was described by the First Nations Workers Alliance as a “pool of free labour” for employers, with participants denied basic entitlements such as annual and sick leave
Professor Young’s centre works closely with unions, who are taking up issues that the CIPW has prioritised. These include career progression for First Nations peoples into leadership, remuneration for cultural skills, employment equity and the lack of pay parity.
She says that achieving pay parity is key.
‘It translates into higher lifetime earnings, stronger superannuation outcomes and greater intergenerational economic security for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.’
The success of the partnership between the movements for First Nations rights and for workers’ rights was built on mutual respect and strong personal relationships forged in industrial and political struggles.
It stands as among the significant organised efforts towards reconciliation in Australian history.
This article is from the 56th edition of Reconciliation News. Read the rest of the issue.
