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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
In September 1928, the members of the Waterside Workers Federation went on strike, paralysing South Australia's main harbour, Port Adelaide. Their places were taken by men who volunteered to load and unload the ships. When the strike collapsed the Stevedoring Company responsible for hiring workers for the waterfront continued to employ the men whose volunteer labour had broken the strike, in preference to members of the Waterside Workers Federation. Preferential treatment of “volunteers” continued and, as the Depression worsened and unemployment increased, this meant that Union members were less and less likely to get work on the waterfront. Such economic pressure, when combined with an instinctive hatred of the strikebreakers, produced continual clashes between the Unionists and the “volunteers”.
page 108 note 1 The letters are held in the Adelaide office of Dalgety Australia Ltd.
page 109 note 1 Central Committee of the Shipowners Association.
page 109 note 2 The Government “doled” (handed) out food, or coupons which could be exchanged for groceries, to the unemployed.
page 109 note 3 “This pamphlet” has not survived with the letter, and cannot be traced.
page 110 note 1 At this time about half of the entire South Australian Police force was stationed in and around Port Adelaide.
page 110 note 2 Some 1500 people were involved, approximately 10% of the workforce in Port Adelaide.
page 110 note 3 The Labour Government under Premier Lionel Hill, in office 1930–33.
page 111 note 1 For Commonwealth Oil Refineries Ltd., a company backed by the Australian (Federal) Government.
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