Gender, Household and Community Politics: The 1890 Maritime Strike in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

Introduction We know a great deal about the Maritime Strike of 1890. For fifty years it has stood at the centre of labour historiography, debated and celebrated on both sides of the Tasman. Nor is that surprising. The strike was phenomenally large by nineteenth century standards; 50,000 Australian workers were involved and perhaps as many as 10,000 New Zealanders. Its title suggests a misnomer. Though the strike began with the Maritime unions it spread to include shearers, miners, labourers, counters, storemen and railwaymen. The issues in dispute were just as daunting. New Zealanders joined the strike believing an attempt was being made 'to crush out unionism in Australia'. Their participation was a testimony to the strengthening federation of Australasian labour, a federation which embraced workers on both sides of the Tasman. It was also an act of reluctant self interest: ' [we must] help our cousins in Australia', one labour journal wrote 'because if the ship owners . . . succeed [there], New Zealand's turn will surely follow'.l The consequences of the strike are seen as even more significant. In both countries the strike is described as a catalyst for independent labour repre sentation. It is the single most important force behind the Arbitration Acts and linked to the progressive legislation which marked Australasia as a social laboratory. The consequences for the union movement were not so creative. The Maritime Strike reversed a generation's achievements: unions collapsed, federations failed, strikers fell prey to the 'terror' of victimisation.2 But for all the controversy surrounding this event, our knowledge of the dispute is alarmingly incomplete. The historiography of the Maritime Strike is overwhelmingly male in its focus.3 It was men, we are told, who refused