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	1891 Australian shearers' strike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The 1891 Shearers Strike is one of Australia's oldest and most important industrial disputes.
		Many union shearers were outraged when Logan Downs Station Manager Charles Fairbain asked the shearers to sign a contract that would reduce the power of their union.
		The 1891 Shearers Strike is credited as being one of the factors for the formation of the Australian Labor Party.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/1891_Australian_shearers'_strike (603 words)

	1890 Australian maritime dispute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The 1890 Australian Maritime Dispute, commonly known as the 1890 Maritime Strike, was on a scale unprecedented in the Australasian colonies to that point in time, causing political and social turmoil across all Australian colonies and in New Zealand, including the collapse of colonial governments in the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales.
		The strike was defeated when the Marine Officers returned to work on the employers terms in November 1890, with Illawarra coal miners being the last workers to return to work in January 1891.
		The defeat of the Maritime Strike in 1890 and the 1891 Australian shearers' strike, laid the framework for the Australian labour movement entry into parliamentary politics.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/1890_Australian_maritime_dispute (819 words)

	Walkabout - Barcaldine (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		However, both the maritime and shearers' strikes were defeated when the Queensland and NSW governments sided with business interests, which were similarly amalgamating their associations to form a united front to oppose the unions.
		The strike was sparked in January 1891 when shearers at Logan Downs Station, near Clermont, were told they had to sign the Pastoralists' "contract of free labour" before commencing work: a move intended to reduce the influence of the unions in the sheds.
		A month later the centre of the strike had shifted to Barcaldine, which was the terminus of the rail line from Rockhampton and the commercial centre of the wealthy Mitchell district, where 30 stations were affected by the strike.
	www.walkabout.com.au /locations/QLDBarcaldine.shtml (1491 words)

	The Great Shearer's Strike of 1891 » ABC Queensland » Heritage
		The great shearers’ strike of 1891 laid the foundations for the labour movement in Australia.
		By 1890, the Shearers’ Union boasted tens of thousands of members, and had unionised thousands of sheds.
		And the shearers realised that they would need to be better organised next time.
	www.abc.net.au /queensland/heritage/stories/s687825.htm (325 words)

	Mango Grove Lyrics
		As the strike reached boiling point in Western Queensland, down in NSW the trouble in the outback was attracting national attention as the violence that escalated throughout the Eastern States of Australia was nothing short of a civil insurrection, with civilians being enlisted as special constables to combat the striking unionists.
		Throughout the 1894 shearers’ strike, paddle steamers were used to ferry troops (police) to areas of conflict where troops were required to protect shearing sheds attempting to shear with non-union labour.
		Shearers would sometimes hitch a ride on a bullock dray or ride their bicycle along the bullock tracks up to the Murray/Darling river systems where they would be transported by river-boats to the shearing districts.
	newmango.com /mangos/lyrics/lyrics_waltzing.html (1912 words)

	Tree of Knowledge: National Heritage Values
		Shearers and other workers used the Tree of Knowledge as a meeting place during the prolonged strikes of 1890-1.
		The Shearers Strike of 1891 is acknowledged as a significant event in Trade Union History in Australia.
		The Shearers Strike is acknowledged as the starting point of political and social processes, which led to the election of the first Labour representative to government anywhere in the world, and to the eventual formation of the Australian Labor Party.
	www.deh.gov.au /heritage/national/sites/tree.html (365 words)

	New breed in the shed - National - www.smh.com.au
		A survey of shearers released two years ago by the Australian Workers Union found that when the cost of travel, food, accommodation and tools were taken out, the average shearer was earning less than $35,000 a year.
		Murray encourages young shearers to take care of themselves physically and work hard for 10 to 15 years so they can have enough money for a farm or business and retire from shearing while they still have their health.
		Frost puts the looming shearer shortage down to the fact there are "too many other easier jobs for guys to get", but says it is still a great way for fit, young people to make good money in return for hard work.
	www.smh.com.au /articles/2004/07/12/1089484309746.html (1493 words)

	Michael Quinlan, Margaret Gardner, and Peter Akers \| Reconsidering the Collective Impulse: Formal Organization and ...
		Turning to strikes, Palmer identified 70 strikes by unskilled workers in the period 1815–1859 (or 53 per cent of the total strikes for the period) with railway labourers (22 strikes or 16.6 per cent of the total) and canal labourers (20 strikes or 15.1 per cent of the total) being most prominent.
		Single establishment strikes constituted over 75 per cent of all strikes in the period 1795–1850, and a similar ratio applied to later periods, despite an increase in the number of larger strikes (multi-establishment, regional, and ultimately national) over the course of the 19th century.
		The average number of workers involved in strikes and non-strike disputes outside of the auspices of a union was, on average, 8.65 and 9 respectively.
	www.historycooperative.org /journals/llt/52/quinlan.html (15338 words)

	"Fact Sheets" - ACTU Worksite 2003 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The union representing the shearers wanted the station to form an agreement, stating that the shearers’ pay would not be reduced and that their rights would be protected.
		The striking shearers formed themselves into bush camps while they waited for their union organisers to negotiate.
		It was a mortal blow to the union and the shearers and by June the strike had collapsed.
	www.worksite.actu.asn.au /showall.php3?page=article&artid=509&secid=3&workst_Session=663a1be31245027afae1cf37431449e1 (286 words)

	DNZB / BIOGRAPHY
		The shearers' union hoped to prevent the evils of 'land-jobbing and syndicating' - practices by which separate pieces of land were aggregated into large holdings - which Garmson herself had observed in Victoria.
		In 1894 a violent shearers' strike in Australia led the Australian pastoralists to recruit non-union labour in New Zealand.
		She was an articulate and forceful speaker with a command of the gritty language of shearers, while her letters to the newspapers gave her a wider audience.
	www.dnzb.govt.nz /dnzb/Essay_Body.asp?PersonEssay=2G1&QuickSearch=true (1108 words)

	socialist alternative (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		These were the years of the “Great Strikes”, especially the maritime strike of 1890 and the shearers’ strike of 1891.
		Despite the shearers coming out in September, the strike began to collapse, funds were running out and in October the unions conceded defeat.
		Shearers struck in January 1891, with hundreds of workers setting up camps at strategic points such as Barcaldine to hinder the recruitment of scabs.
	www.sa.org.au /8718.htm (1615 words)

	Bulletin - 125 Moments: 31-40 Birth of the Ashes (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		A six-month strike by shearers in NSW, Queensland and Victoria leads to the jailing of strike leaders.
		Shearers are fighting for the principles of unionism and the “closed shop”.
		This is the period when unionisation has emerged in Australia, and the shearers are fighting for better wages and conditions.
	bulletin.ninemsn.com.au /bulletin/site/articleIDs/5B85A858DC3A64C0CA256FF2001319C2 (1887 words)

	Spence, William Guthrie
		Organizers were sent out and in 1887 the struggle began between the owners and the shearers which was to last many years.
		It was asked that a conference should be held between representatives of the union and of the owners, but very few of the latter took any notice of the circular and none attended the proposed conference.
		In the maritime strike of 1890 and the Queensland shearers' strike of 1891 Spence was a prominent figure, and though the financial depression which followed increased the difficulties of the unions on account of the large number of unemployed, some progress was made.
	www.electricscotland.com /history/australia/spence_william.htm (574 words)

	Clermont History (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Striking shearers held a meeting at Balcaldine and they then travelled to Clermont where they camped on the banks of Sandy Creek in large numbers.
		The defence force was called in and four hundred troops provided a guard preventing the striking shearers from entering the township.
		Sentenced to 3 yrs imprisonment for rioting at the Shearer's Strike 1891
	www.jenwilletts.com /clermont.htm (756 words)

	Landline - 10/02/2002: Shearing past celebrated in Hall of Fame . Australian Broadcasting Corp
		Danny O'Hare is a shearer from the old school, even down to the trademark blue singlet he wears as he works the sheds surrounding his hometown Wagga Wagga in southern New South Wales.
		The industry also holds an important place in the political landscape; the Labor Party was born out of the great shearers' strike in the late 19th century.
		And it is not just the shearers who will be on display there is also an extensive collection of machinery in the experts room next door.
	www.abc.net.au /landline/stories/s473544.htm (1800 words)

	List of strikes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The following is a list of deliberate absence from work related to specific working conditions (strikes) or due to general unhappiness with the political order (general strikes).
		Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority transit operators strike 2005
		Kinshasa general strike of 1997, Democratic Republic of the Congo
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/List_of_strikes (146 words)

	Sheep, Wool and Shearing in the Jondaryan Saga Jondaryan WoolShed
		The ensuing shortage of labour on the Downs stations in the 1850s saw a movement to bring in Chinese labourers, but a great many of these were lost to the goldfields which also attracted many more of their compatriots to the country.
		In the blade shearing days, when the shed had its full complement of 52 competent shearers, it is reported that a fleece was coming onto one of the three wool-rolling tables every eight seconds.
		Wienholt, along with most of the other big pastoralists rejected the agreement and the union went ahead with a national shearers strike the following year in 1891, but the agreement held up for Jondaryan and the station was not involved in that strike.
	www.jondaryanwoolshed.com /03_the_woolshed/sheepwool.htm (1712 words)

	An injury to one is an injury to all (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		A good example was the role it played in the shearers' strikes in Queensland and NSW in 1916.
		The first chairman of the shearers' strike committee, was E H Fish, an IWW member.
		In quick succession similar rank and file and IWW-led victories were won at the Broken Hill mines, in the coal strike, and at the Redfern rail workshops, which later sparked the 1917 general strike.
	www.iso.org.au /socialistworker/534/p7a.html (767 words)

	H.R. Nicholls Society: Tim Hewat: The Century of Brawn
		To return to Bill Spence: Because the members of both his miners' and shearers' unions had no special skills and could easily be replaced, a key plank in their platform was the demand for a monopoly on all jobs down the mines and in the woolsheds---a policy still fiercely pursued by the MUA.
		In the winter of 1917, in support of striking Sydney tram and railwaymen and in protest against galloping inflation and general war-weariness, the best part of 100,000 workers including wharfies, seamen, ships' painters and dockers, coal bumpers, gasworkers, firemen, engineers, slaughtermen and other meat-industry employees walked out in what was the biggest-ever strike in Australia.
		The war effort was weakened constantly by strikes in the mines, on the railways and certainly on the waterfront, where there was now work for all.
	www.hrnicholls.com.au /nicholls/nichvo19/Hewat.html (4567 words)

	Ø Wilson's Almanac free daily ezine \| Book of Days \| August 30\| Robert Crumb Mary Shelley Frankenstein Modern ...
		Great Maritime Strike: The 1890 Australian Maritime Dispute, commonly known as the 1890 Maritime Strike, was on a scale unprecedented in the Australasian colonies to that point in time, causing political and social turmoil across all
		During the 1890 Maritime Strike military units were extensively used against strikes in New South Wales and Victoria.
		McLean was charged with ‘unlawful assembly’ and sentenced to three years hard labour at Goulburn Gaol where the damp and cold of the cells exacerbated his condition, but as he grew close to death was released early and died at home.
	www.wilsonsalmanac.com /book/aug30.html (3151 words)

	The nineties
		The aim was apparently to provoke a riot, leading to the arrest of strike leaders, and perhaps to bring about the deployment of British troops from visiting warships against the unionists; but the union leaders were not involved in the riot and the latter parts of the scheme came to nothing.
		Even so, the organised workers put up stiff resistance to attacks on wages and conditions in a series of further disputes: the Queensland shearers’ strike of 1891, the 1892 Broken Hill disputes, the 1893 seamen’s strike, and the shearing dispute strike of 1894 were all bitterly fought, even though they mostly ended in union defeats.
		By April, defeat was staring the shearers in the face and divisions emerged in their ranks, with one section calling for more aggressive tactics and others drifting back to work.
	www.anu.edu.au /polsci/marx/interventions/nineties.htm (6852 words)

	Chapter 11: Strike! and the Ship Painters and Dockers Union
		The sacrifices that striking entailed were great, for the workers and for their families, and were such as to expose the empty arrogance of those who asserted that workingmen struck for no valid or serious reason and without the deepest consideration of the consequences before taking action.
		Another strike by Moulders was the subject of a conference arranged by the Labor Council and the Union elected three delegates to attend.
		Despite the wide-ranging statutes, however, strikes, though watered down in many ways (one-day stoppages, overtime bans etc.), still occur and thus teach the essential lesson: that the right to strike exists and is generally asserted at the moment when work ceases and remains a right until the strike ceases.
	www.takver.com /history/myunion/myunion11.htm (10110 words)

	ABC Rural Online
		Wolseley machine shearing is demonstrated around the country to the delight of woolgrowers and the horror of blade shearers.
		A shearer's union is formed in Ballarat by W.G.Spence.
		A ten week strike over the use of wide combs on handpieces does not have the popular support of shearers.
	www.abc.net.au /rural/shearhistory/story2.htm (733 words)

	DNZB / BIOGRAPHY
		His first visit to New Zealand was marked by a spectacular incident: after fomenting a strike on a Waitaki station, Boreham and another shearer were chased by the squatter with a gun.
		This led to his alienation from the mainstream leaders of the shearers' union in the early 1890s and accusations of misuse of union funds.
		Indeed, he was cast out of the shearers' union for several years.
	www.dnzb.govt.nz /dnzb/Essay_Body.asp?PersonEssay=2B33 (1181 words)

	Slouch Hat
		The 1891 strike by workers in the wool growing industry had its genesis in the growing labour movements of the era and the fierce opposition to change among the squattocracy that controlled the main industry in Queensland.
		Having won an agreement in 1890 that precluded the use of non-union labour and payment of an agreed rate, the unions were not impressed by the recision of this agreement by the squatters for the 1891 season.
		Although they had been defeated by the combined forces of the Government and the Pastoralists many claimed that in the long term it had led to victory because the unions were convinced of a need for a political Labor Party to fight their cause in Parliament.
	www.anzacday.org.au /education/tff/slouch.html (2900 words)

	How Labour Governs by Vere Gordon Childe
		In Sydney the issue was complicated by the attempt of some pastoralists to shear their sheep by non-union labour and the boycotting of nonunion wool by the transport and waterside unions.
		In sympathy with the maritime workers, who thus came out on strike in a body, the coal miners also ceased work, and at a later date all the members of the Shearers' Union were withdrawn from the sheds.
		It had further shown that, however ready bourgeoise ministries might be to receive deputations from trade unions with smiles and to promise reforms in return for working-class votes, when the fundamental issues of the class struggle were raised, they would be solidly behind the employers and lend them every assistance to defeat the toilers.
	www.marxists.org /reference/subject/politics/childe/how-labor-governs/ch01.htm (3499 words)

	Bitter battles at Barcaldine (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		This was the meeting place for organisers of the six-month Great Shearers Strike of 1891 during which 1,000 strikers walked through town in what was Australia's first May Day March.
		Strikes took place far and wide and Barcaldine in Queensland's Outback was the central point for the military, taking in 500 troops.
		When funds run out, the strike ended with the leaders imprisoned and non-union labour organised.
	www.tq.com.au /index.cfm?3F7EB7F4-BCB4-171B-D485-6D4B9F9709BF&print=true (529 words)

	1890 Australian maritime dispute - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		By September 1890 28,500 workers were on strike.
		The conspiracy to break union solidarity was engineered by stevedore Alfred Lamb, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, owner of one of the four main wool exporting firms, vice president of the NSW Employers' Union.
		This page was last modified 13:00, 6 December 2005.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/1890_Australian_Maritime_Dispute (819 words)

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