Australian Society for the Study of Labour History in Haymarket | Non-profit organisation

Australian Society for the Study of Labour History

Locality: Haymarket

Address: UTS, Haymarket 2000 Haymarket, NSW, Australia

Website: https://www.labourhistory.org.au/contact

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25.01.2022 On this day, 14 November 1903, striking Chinese furniture makers battled strikebreakers armed with knuckle dusters and sticks on Little Bourke Street in Melbour...ne, Australia. In September 1903, hundreds of Chinese cabinetmakers in the city had walked out on strike demanding better pay and union rights, and to be given two roast pigs each weighing at least 50 lbs. One of their slogans was: "Do nothing And do it well." The West Australian newspaper reported that strikers were "adopting such a threatening attitude towards their recent employers that the latter are in constant fear of violence, and are afraid to stir abroad without police protection." Bosses responded by locking out up to 1100 workers and bringing in dozens of Chinese scabs from Sydney to attack the strikers. On November 14, a pitched battle broke out in which the scabs, who according to the Adelaide Advertiser were "wearing Panama hats and smart neckties and carrying 'crooked' sticks" as well as knuckle dusters which were described as "brutal -looking contrivances, varying from 1 lb to 2 lbs in weight, and most of them had a murderous spike attached". Two strikers, Ah Hong and Fong Yee, were badly injured and hospitalised while at least four attackers were arrested. Dozens more strikebreakers were due to be brought in from Sydney two days later, and one scab told a journalist that they were preparing more knuckle dusters. Meanwhile, the mainstream white union movement failed to support the strike, and instead united with white furniture bosses to expel Chinese workers and reduce competition with white businesses. Despite their isolation, the violence, and arrests of many strikers, the workers held out and eventually in December achieved most of their demands, including the dropping of all charges against strikers. Pictured: Chinese cabinetmakers on a scroll illustrated by Mo Xiangyi, assisted by Wang Jingwen, with researcher Mo Yimei. See more

25.01.2022 Today we commemorate the 1936 Maritime Strike by Torres Strait Islander workers. Union historian Liam Byrne tells the inspiring story of this strike. You can read more at the ATUI’s history blog: https://bit.ly/35zXF7M

22.01.2022 In April 1998 the Howard Government and the anti-union Patricks Corporation took on the Maritime Union of Australia and lost. Union historian Liam Byrne tells the story. You can find out more at the ATUI’s history blog: https://bit.ly/31SWqhK

22.01.2022 A notice from the Noel Butlin Archives: The Noel Butlin Archives Centre annual lecture, Archives for a dry and drying land, will be given by Associate Professor Ruth Morgan, newly appointed Director of the Centre for Environmental History at the Australian National University, 6.00-7.00pm, on Tuesday, 20 October. Ruth Morgan explores the implications of global warming on a dry and drying continent. Bushfires of unprecedented duration and spread threaten communities in town ...and country alike. Water quality and supply in the Murray-Darling Basin continue to deteriorate. And rising sea levels, a sensitive barometer of environmental change, threaten the very viability of major coastal settlements. But the crisis Australia faces now is not without precedent. The archives offer surprising insights into how non-Indigenous people grappled with a ‘new’ land’s unfamiliar climes. Through their stories, Ruth Morgan’s lecture explores what the disasters of 2020 reveal about our relationships with the environment and how we live on the driest inhabited continent on Earth. Ruth Morgan is an environmental historian and historian of science. She is the author of Running Out? Water in Western Australia (UWA Publishing, 2015). Ruth has published widely on the climate and water histories of Australia and the British Empire and is a Lead Author for Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, contributing to the Sixth Assessment Report due in 2021. Archives for a dry and drying land will be hosted by the Noel Butlin Archives at the Australian National University on 20 September 2020.Seats are limited due to COVID-19 restrictions, but pre-registration will ensure you can view the lecture on-line Registration page: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/virtual-event-archives-for- Archives event page: https://climate.anu.edu.au//virtual-event-archives-dry-and or phone the ANU Archives (02) 6125 2521.

20.01.2022 The South Australia Branch of the Labour History Society has a new Facebook page and they are busy preparing for their 6 February conference. You can check them out here: https://www.facebook.com/LabourHistorySocietySA

15.01.2022 In 1933 the Sydney branch of the Workers’ Art Club produced Saga: A Protest In Linocuts, a bound set of 22 artworks. Its stated aim was to present in simple pi...ctorial form a brief outline of the events leading up to the present world-wide economic crisis and the only way out: a solution which will benefit society as a whole, not a minority of the population of the earth who offer fascism and war, with its enrichment for the few. Given the era many of the pieces, as seen here, dealt with unemployment, evictions and the persecution of activists. To find out more about campaigns against poverty and homelessness, past and present, visit this link- https://commonslibrary.org/resources-about-australian-hous/ This page includes more than 20 resources which the Commons Library have assembled that focus on case studies and stories of how communities have organised to secure housing, financial and other support for the unwaged and those on low incomes. We are looking for more so please get in touch with your stories and materials.

11.01.2022 I’m so proud that Andy got an outstanding review of his book Dissidents of the International Left in the May issue of Labour History, a peer-review academic j...ournal based in Australia. It reads in part: "Heintz has done an impressive job in giving voice to people and activisms seldom heard of or reported in the English-language world. The collection took four years to put together. Heintz takes a broad view of the Left in this collection, including 'human rights activists, women’s rights activists, feminists, liberal progressives, anarcho-syndicalists, democratic socialists and adherents of libertarian and democratic socialism.' Some of the interviews are prickly, and not all interviewees are on the same page. But what emerges from the collection is that there are commonalities within this diversity, and that if we avoid the quick leap to judgement and the resort to labels, we can detect the nuances and common values." Rowan Cahill, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales See more

11.01.2022 Available online!

10.01.2022 "The Allan Martin Award is closing soon! This offers up to $4000 for Early Career Scholars to undertake research on Australian history, with special conditions ...for 2021 due to Covid. Make sure to get your applications in before it closes on 1 December. Find out more here: https://www.theaha.org.au/awards-an/the-allan-martin-award/" See more

08.01.2022 ¡THIS WEEK! Annual conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions, 10-11 September 2020 (online) Full programme here: http://ialhi.o...rg//Extended%20programme%20with%20abstracts. Register here: https://docs.google.com//1zee7f4Gsi5FnDg_ezhnTQbsOzJ2/edit

08.01.2022 Via Rowan Cahill

07.01.2022 Excited to be giving the Vere Gordon Childe Annual Lecture to the Blackheath History Forum tomorrow (Saturday, 14 November) at 4 pm. Watch it live here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Ol4MYrWDxIBygnV-zdmAg It will also be available to watch on their YouTube channel after the event.

06.01.2022 Yesterday’s announcement from the NSW Treasurer and Transport Minister that they intend to demolish the historic White Bay Power Station is an obscene threat wh...ich, if carried out, would constitute a crime against the heritage of Sydney. This landmark industrial site is heritage listed and is of enormous heritage and historic value. Any attempt to destroy the Power Station, will be met with maximum resistance, including through the Courts if necessary. The Treasurer told Parliament yesterday that the Power Station is a shocking building that should be knocked down like the Sirius Building. This absurd statement demonstrates a deep ignorance of Sydney’s history and of the Government’s obligations under planning legislation. In 2016 the Government themselves announced that the Power Station and the surrounding Bays Precinct would be transformed into a high tech jobs precinct and a world leading example of urban renewal. They promised to create Sydney’s own silicon valley at White Bay but now intend to deliver only a pile of rubble by the sea. The White Bay Power Station was in fact Google’s preferred location for their Australian Headquarters, a proposal which didn’t proceed only because of the Government’s stubborn refusal to provide any public transport into the precinct. In recent years Government has received dozens of proposals, from some of the Australia’s most reputable architects, for adaptive reuse of the Power Station, which could be converted for a variety of commercial, artistic and community uses. White Bay Power Station was also the film set for Baz Lurman’s the Great Gatsby. Inner West Council will fight alongside our local community to protect this unique site from the Government’s thuggery and for the adaptive reuse of the Power Station instead.

06.01.2022 We have some exciting news: You can now pre-order ‘Comrades! Lives of Australian Communists’ on our site! Check out the cool video our comrade Hunter made for u...s too. Search Foundation and Australian Society for the Study of Labour History have put this together to celebrate the centennial of the Communist Party of Australia. Learn the stories of our Aussie comrades and celebrate the achievements of the CPA https://nibs.org.au/comrades-book

04.01.2022 Dear supporters, we really need your help to promote our launch on 18 April and the project concept that we all benefit with a grassroots festival where people ...can show our/their struggles - in all their diversity - on film. Please share widely and creatively so we maximise participation in the launch and in the festival entrants. Website coming soon! See more

02.01.2022 Winner of the 2020 Australian Industrial Relations Commission Centennial Prize, Daniel Hannington-Pinto. This prize is awarded for the best research essay or t...hesis on Industrial Relations or Labour History. Dan won the prize for his PhD thesis, titled ‘The Social and Moral Campaigning of Australian Trade Unions, 1960s to 2015.’ https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au///04/daniel-hannington-pinto/