BHP, the Newcastle SteelWorks' Management and the 1945 Steel Strike: A Note

Abstract

My interpretation of the 1943 lockout1 emphasised the way the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited's (BHP) management, in particular the Newcastle Steelworks' (Steelworks) management never ceased to exploit every opportunity to uphold managerial prerogative against the growing power of the trade unions, especially the Federated Ironworkers' Association (FIA). Further, I argued BHP believed in its right to regain absolute control over the employment of labour which it had lost under the National Security (Employment) Regulations. It is my intention in this short note to analyse the activities of the Steelworks' management during the lead up to the 1945 dispute in a number of crucial areas. Additional files released by BHP's Archives relating to the coal shortage and the retrenchment of labour show the company attempting to manipulate events so that it could implement a 'plan' to rid itself of undesirable employees. Consequently, the activities of management should be regarded as being far more premeditated than has been emphasised in recent historiography. In numerous articles and a recent monograph2, Tom Sheridan has provided a comprehensive analysis of the 1945-46 steel dispute. Here Sheridan refutes two theories that were held by most people at the time: the BHP plot thesis that had the company hell-bent on crushing the FIA as the first part of wholesale attack on labour by capital and the communist conspiracy theory that dominated the thinking of conservative Australia. In dealing with the FIA, Sheridan claims that the respective works' management in NSW related to events as they occurred, and central to their response was their fervent adherence to managerial prerogative. While I agree with Dr. Sheridan's conclusions about the theories, I believe he undervalues the dominant policy of the company at this time: that all managements were intent on regaining control of the workplace and were expected to take full advantage of every opportunity offered by the unions, the governments and the arbitration courts to do so. The activities of the Newcastle management should be seen as part of this ideology. It was in the company's interest to react to events because if the