Heroic Failure? Unionism and Queensland's Coal Communities, 1954–67

Abstract

This article records the struggle waged by the Queensland Colliery Employees ‘Union, the state branch of the Miners’ Federation, in defence of jobs between 1954 and 1967. This struggle was unsuccessful, in that it failed to achieve its objective of protecting underground jobs. Despite this failure, however, the campaign to defend the collieries managed to overcome the traditionally locality-based outlook of Queensland's coal miners, producing organising techniques and an industrial vision that proved the salvation of the union. When the union began a large-scale organising campaign in open-cut mining after 1967 it took to this new sector a tradition of militancy and resistance that no other coal union could equal.