Industry > Waterside Workers
Waterside Workers
Darling Harbour was the busiest port in Australia, employing hundreds of Pyrmont men. It was also Australia’s most turbulent worksite. The Maritime Strike broke out here in 1890, and here it was crushed. Stevedoring companies demanded cheap, casual labour and tension was inevitable. During the “Great Strike” of 1917 for example, wharfies struck to support railway workers and the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) reluctantly endorsed the action.
Wages had been declining for several years, and war conditions made strike action seem (especially to exporters) treasonable. Mass protests in Sydney supported the strikers, but governments organised strike-breaking. Many rural and urban middle class men (known as “volunteers”) kept services running. The strike failed, and several years passed before workers were reunited.
The “bull system” prevailed, whereby employers selected men each day, from a pick-up point. (After 1938, one of the four points was at the corner of Harris and John Streets.) WWF members fought battles against non-union men who clustered at the wharves in the hope of work. Working conditions were primitive. Heavy bags were shifted on wharfies’ backs. Men died when loads fell on them, and they worked unprotected in freezer holds. In 1928 the WWF sought a new award, but the new award was worse than the old. Spontaneous strikes broke out, but the new Transport Workers Act controlled the engagement of wharfies who now needed a license, known as a ‘dog collar’, to work. Most jobs were taken by the unemployed, and the WWF almost died.
In 1943 at a time of acute crisis, the bull system was scrapped to ensure that cargoes flowed. Men formed teams (gangs), to work together and conditions improved: a gang was employed for blocks of four hours, minimum wages and smoke-oh breaks were imposed, and overtime paid for weekend work.
Wages were still unpredictable. In April 1951, 47 men earned from £25 to £29 each; 1,382 got £20 to £25; 1,666 got £15 to £20; 2,369 got £10 to £15; about 800 got less than £10. Average weekly pay was £10/2/ through 1949-50, £11/7/3 in July-Sept., 1950, and £10/16/3 in October-December (when the men cut their pay by striking). “Attendance money” was a step towards decasualising the industry. If a man turns up and there’s no work for him, he gets 12/.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 1951) The Herald was dismayed that wharfies always elected Communist leaders, but the danger and insecurity of the work and the unreliability of the income surely explain this loyalty.
In the 1960s shipping containers transformed stevedoring; the passenger terminal at Circular Quay made Jones Bay Wharf redundant, and cargo moved to Port Botany in the 1970s. Wharfies in Pyrmont are ageing but their memories are vivid, and the waterfront still provokes more conflict than any other work site.
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