Pilbara strike

{{Short description|Workers strike in the 1940s in Western Australia}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}} {{Use Australian English|date=July 2018}} The '''Pilbara strike''' was a landmark strike by Aboriginal Australian pastoral workers in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The strike lasted between 1946 and 1949, and was the longest industrial action in Australian history.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /> The strikers demanded social recognition, payment of fair wages,<ref name=":4" /> and an improvement in working conditions.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite news|last=Graham|first=Duncan|date=2 May 1996|title=Rebel of The Pilbara|work=The Age |url=https://global.factiva.com/redir/default.aspx?P=sa&an=agee000020011012ds5200ahv&cat=a&ep=ASE |access-date=30 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050315030844/http://home.vicnet.net.au/~aar/mcleod.htm|archive-date=15 March 2005}}</ref>

Participating in the strike were 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers<ref name="CP" /> who walked off the large pastoral stations in the Pilbara on 1 May 1946, and also from employment in the two major towns of Port Hedland and Marble Bar.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Hess|first=Michael|title=Black and Red: The Pilbara Pastoral Workers' Strike, 1946 |date=1994 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046089 |journal=Aboriginal History|volume=18|issue=1/2 |pages=65–83|jstor=24046089|issn=0314-8769|access-date=29 June 2021|archive-date=7 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107220445/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24046089|url-status=live}}</ref> The strike did not end until August 1949, and even after its conclusion many Aboriginal Australians refused to return to work for white station owners.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="CP">{{cite web |url=http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/1946-pilbara-strike-australias-longest-strike|title=1946 Pilbara strike – Australia's longest strike|year=2012|access-date=27 July 2014|publisher=Creative Spirits|archive-date=18 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140718133607/http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/1946-pilbara-strike-australias-longest-strike|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":3" />

The strike has been noted for its significance for the human rights of Aboriginal Australians.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Commons Librarian |date=2023-12-22 |title=Campaigns that Changed Western Australia |url=https://commonslibrary.org/campaigns-that-changed-western-australia/ |access-date=2024-04-19 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref> Historians have noted it as the first industrial strike by Aboriginal people since colonisation<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":5" /> and the longest industrial strike in Australian history.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /> It is regarded as a landmark historical moment in the history of the human rights, cultural rights, and native title rights of Indigenous Australians.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":0" />

==Working conditions== For many years Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Pilbara were denied cash wages and were only paid in supplies of tobacco, flour, and other necessities.<ref name=CP/><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|date=2016-09-06|title=Pilbara: Australia's longest strike |url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/pilbara-australias-longest-strike|access-date=2021-06-29|website=Green Left|language=en|archive-date=28 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128014655/https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/pilbara-australias-longest-strike|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":5" /> The pastoral stations treated the Aboriginal workers as a cheap slave labour workforce to be exploited.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name=":5" /> Under the state's ''Aborigines Act 1905'', workers could only leave the station with the manager's permission.<ref name=mclean2026>{{cite web | last1=McLean | first1=Charlie | last2=Bates | first2=Alistair | last3=Franklin | first3=Daniel | title=Left in the red dirt: The forgotten trail of Australia's longest strike | website=ABC News | date=30 April 2026 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-01/legacy-of-pilbara-aboriginal-strike-80th-anniversary/106620566 | access-date=1 May 2026}}</ref> Many tried to leave the stations on which they worked, but were met with legal resistance;<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /> those who were unsuccessful could be whipped<ref name=":3" /> and those who escaped were hunted by police and returned in chains.<ref name=mclean2026/> The situation was that "while Aboriginal labour was required, Aboriginal people were treated as if they were expendable".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rose|first=Deborah Bird|title=Hidden histories : black stories from Victoria River Downs, Humbert River, and Wave Hill Stations|date=1991|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press|isbn=0-85575-224-6|location=Canberra|pages=151 |oclc=24405276}}</ref>

European attacks and brutal shootings of whole family groups of Aboriginal Australians are part of the history of the region, though often not well documented. One attack took place at Skull Creek in the Northern Territory a few kilometres north of Ti-Tree in the 1870s, which resulted in the bleached bones and thus the name for the place.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1876756152|title=Daughters of the Dreaming|author=Diane Bell|year=2002|access-date=13 January 2014|publisher=Spinifex Press|isbn=9781876756154}}</ref> In 1926 the Forrest River massacre was carried out by a police party on the Forrest River Mission (later the Aboriginal community of Oombulgurri), in the East Kimberleys. Though there was a royal commission into the reported killing and burning of Aboriginal people in the East Kimberley, the police allegedly involved were brought to trial and acquitted.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Loos|first=Noel|title=White Christ black cross : the emergence of a Black church|date=2007|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press| isbn=978-0-85575-688-8| location=Canberra| oclc=671648394}}</ref>

As well as proper wages and better working conditions, Aboriginal lawmen sought natural justice arising from the original Western Australian colonial Constitution. As a condition for self-rule in the colony, the British Government insisted that once public revenue in WA exceeded 500,000 pounds, 1 per cent was to be dedicated to "the welfare of the Aboriginal natives" under Section 70 of the Constitution.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Churches|first=Steven|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbkr2|title=What Good Condition?|date=2006|publisher=ANU Press|isbn=978-1-920942-90-8|editor-last=Read|editor-first=Peter|series=Aboriginal History Monograph|volume=13|pages=1–14|chapter=Put not your faith in princes (Or courts) – agreements made from asymmetrical power bases|jstor=j.ctt2jbkr2.5|access-date=2021-06-29|editor2-last=Meyers|editor2-first=Gary|editor3-last=Reece|editor3-first=Bob|chapter-url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbkr2.5|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210629112456/https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbkr2.5|archive-date=29 June 2021|url-status=live}}</ref> Succeeding colonial and state governments legislated to remove the funding provisions for "native welfare".<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

==The strike==

The strike was coordinated and led by Aboriginal lawmen Dooley Bin Bin and Clancy McKenna; and Don McLeod, an active unionist<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> and member of the Communist Party of Australia for a short period.<ref name=":5" /> The strike was planned at an Aboriginal law meeting in 1942 at Skull Springs (east of Nullagine),<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> where a massacre had previously occurred.<ref name=":5" /> The meeting was attended by an estimated 200 senior Aboriginal representatives representing twenty-three language groups from much of the remote north-west of Australia.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":5" /> Discussions were protracted, with the meeting requiring 16 interpreters and lasting six weeks.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /> McLeod, the only European-Australian present,<ref name=":2" /> was given the task of chief negotiator.<ref name=":0" /> While not present, Bin Bin was elected to represent the Aboriginal peoples from unsettled desert lands.<ref name=":0" /> Later McLeod and Bin Bin chose McKenna to represent those from the settled areas.<ref name=":0" /> The strike was postponed until after the Second World War had ended in 1945.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2011-07-08|title=NAIDOC profile: the Pilbara pastoral workers' strike|url=https://www.ymac.org.au/naidoc-profile-the-pilbara-pastoral-workers-strike/|access-date=2021-06-29|website=YMAC|archive-date=31 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210331055425/http://www.ymac.org.au/naidoc-profile-the-pilbara-pastoral-workers-strike/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":5" />

Peter Coppin, also known as Kangushot, (1920–2006) was another one of the strike leaders.<ref name=coppin1>{{cite web |website=ABC News | title=Original Indigenous strike leader dies in Pilbara | date=12 September 2006 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-09-12/original-indigenous-strike-leader-dies-in-pilbara/1261674 | access-date=30 June 2021}}</ref> Regarded as a pioneer of the Aboriginal rights movement in the 1940s,<ref name=coppin2>{{cite web | website=ABC News | title=Thousands to attend Coppin tribute | date=28 September 2006 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-09-29/thousands-to-attend-coppin-tribute/1274362 | access-date=30 June 2021}}</ref> he was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1972, and appointed NAIDOC Elder of the Year in 2002. Crude calendars were taken from one station camp to another in early 1946 to organise the strike.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> The efforts, if noticed by the white people present, were dismissed and laughed at.<ref name=":5" /> The date of May 1st was chosen not only because it was International Workers' Day but also because it was the first day of the shearing season.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":2" /> On 1 May 1946, hundreds of Aboriginal workers left the pastoral stations and set up strike camps.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" />

The strike was most effective in the Pilbara region. Further afield in Broome<ref name=":0" /> and Derby and other inland northern towns, the strike movement was harshly suppressed by police action and was more short lived. Over the three years, occasionally strikers went back to work, while others joined or rejoined the strike.{{cn|date=June 2021}}

At the commencement of the strike in 1946, McLeod was an Australian Workers' Union delegate{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} at Port Hedland wharf who motivated support by the Australian labour movement. The Western Australian branch of the Seamen's Union of Australia eventually put a blackban on the shipment of wool from the Pilbara.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} Nineteen unions in Western Australia, seven federal unions and four Trades and Labour councils supported the strike.<ref name=":3" /> The strike stimulated support from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who helped establish the Committee for the Defence of Native Rights.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="PilbaraStrike 1946">{{cite web | title=Committee for Defence of Native Rights | website=PilbaraStrike | date=28 May 1946 | url=https://www.pilbarastrike.org/content/committee-defence-native-rights | access-date=30 June 2021}}</ref> This organisation raised funds for and publicised the strike in Perth including organising a public meeting in the Perth Town Hall attended by 300 people.<ref name=":0" />

Many of the Aboriginal strikers served time in jail;<ref name=":0" /> some were seized by police at revolver point{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} and put into chains for several days.<ref name="CP" /> At one stage in December 1946, McLeod was arrested in Port Hedland during the strike for "inciting Aborigines to leave their place of lawful employment"; the Aboriginal strikers marched on the jail, occupied it and freed McLeod.<ref name=":2" /> McLeod was gaoled a total of seven times during the period, three times for being within five chains ({{convert|100| m}}) of a congregation of "natives".<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /><ref name=":1" />

Local strike leader Jacob Oberdoo was jailed three or four times and suffered humiliations and deprivations of many kinds during the strike, but maintained his dignity and solidarity for the length of the strike.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} In 1972 he was awarded the British Empire Medal, but turned it down.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

The strikers sustained themselves with their traditional bush skills, hunting kangaroos and goats for both meat and skins.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /> They also developed some cottage industry which brought some cash payment such as selling buffel grass seed in Sydney, the sale of pearl shell, and in surface mining.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" />

Aboriginal women played a vital role in the strike, both as workers on strike and in the establishment of strikers' camps, though their involvement has not been documented to the same extent as that of the men.<ref name=":0" /> Daisy Bindi,<ref name=":5" /> a Nyangumarta woman, led a walk-off of 96 workers at Roy Hill Station to join the strike.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Willey|first=Keith|date=1977|title=Review of The Black Eureka|journal=Labour History| issue=33| pages=110–112| doi=10.2307/27508287| jstor=27508287}}</ref> Before the strike commenced, Bindi organised meetings in south-eastern Pilbara, which attracted police attention, and authorities threatened to remove her from the area. During the strike she transported supporters to the strikers' camps, talking her way through a police confrontation. Her efforts played a large part in spreading the strike to the further stations in inland Pilbara.<ref name=":0" />

On 14 April 1949, Bin Bin, McKenna and 40 other strikers, including Crow Yougarla, were arrested at gunpoint, and a number of mass arrests followed. The leaders spent months awaiting trial, some of the time behind bars.<ref name =mclean2026/> Wages and improved conditions were eventually won by the strikers on Mount Edgar and Limestone Stations,<ref name=":0" /> after the managers realised that they could not continue to operate without Aboriginal labour.<ref name =mclean2026/>

In August 1949, the Seamen's Union agreed to blackban wool from stations in the Pilbara onto ships for export. On the third day after the ban had been applied, McLeod was told by a government representative that the strikers' demands would be met if the ban was lifted. Weeks after the strike ended and the ban lifted, the government denied making any such agreement.<ref name=":0" />

== After the strike == After the strike concluded, the stockmen had to negotiate their own pay. Many Aboriginal people refused to go back to working in their old jobs on the stations. It was not until 1968 that a full award rate for Aboriginal workers was enshrined in law.<ref name =mclean2026/>

Eventually they pooled their funds from surface mining and other cottage industries to buy or lease stations, including some they had formerly worked on, to run them as cooperatives.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" />

==Legacy==

Aboriginal plaintiffs from Strelley Station finally commenced an action in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1994,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Aboriginal Citizens and the Western Australian Constitution: Judamia & Ors v State of Western Australia|journal=Aboriginal Law Bulletin|year=1996|url=http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1996/54.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516113042/http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1996/54.html|archive-date=16 May 2017|access-date=5 March 2018|last1=Bulletin|first1=Aboriginal Law}} (1996) 3(83) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 12.</ref> seeking a declaration that the 1905 repeal of section 70 was invalid.<ref name=":1" /> In 2001, after protracted litigation, the High Court of Australia held that the 1905 repeal had been legally effective.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite AustLII|HCA|47|2001|litigants=Yougarla v Western Australia|parallelcite=(2001) 207 CLR 344|courtname=High Court|date=9 August 2001}}.</ref>

Four streets in the Canberra suburb of Bonner were named after the strike leaders in 2010. Clancy McKenna Crescent, Dooley Bin Bin Street, Peter Coppin Street and Don McLeod Lane were all named after the men instrumental in organizing the strike.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wangkamaya.org.au/pilbara-history-and-culture/01-the-1946-strike|title=The 1946 Strike|year=2014|access-date=27 July 2014|publisher=Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre|archive-date=27 July 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140727155648/http://www.wangkamaya.org.au/pilbara-history-and-culture/01-the-1946-strike|url-status=live}}</ref>

===In the arts=== *The poet Dorothy Hewett visited Port Hedland in 1946 and wrote the poem "Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod" about the strike,<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite web|url=http://unionsong.com/u399.html|title=Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod|first=Dorothy|last=Hewett|author-link=Dorothy Hewett|work=Union Songs|access-date=7 February 2013|archive-date=10 May 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130510125302/http://unionsong.com/u399.html|url-status=live}}</ref> which was subsequently put to music by folk musician Chris Kempster<ref name="CP" /> and recorded by Roy Bailey.{{cn|date=June 2021}} *The 1959 documentary novel ''Yandy'' by Donald Stuart deals with the strike.<ref>{{cite book|last=Stuart|first=Donald|author-link=Donald Stuart (Australian author)|title=Yandy|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9512152?selectedversion=NBD2268207|access-date=7 February 2013|year=1959|publisher=Georgian House|location=Melbourne|archive-date=21 December 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151221042600/http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9512152?selectedversion=NBD2268207|url-status=live}}</ref> *In 1987 a documentary film was made about the strike by director David Noakes, titled ''How the West was Lost''.<ref name="CP" /><ref name=":4">{{cite web|url=http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/how-west-was-lost/clip1/|title=How the West was Lost (1987)|access-date=27 July 2014|publisher=National Film and Sound Archive|archive-date=26 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140226135601/http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/how-west-was-lost/clip1/|url-status=live}}</ref> *''Kangkushot, The Life of Nyamal Lawman Peter Coppin'', by Jolly Read and Peter Coppin,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Read|first1=Jolly|title=Kangkushot : the life of Nyamal lawman Peter Coppin|last2=Coppin|first2=Peter|date=1999|publisher=Aboriginal Studies Press| isbn=978-0-85575-594-2| location=Canberra| oclc=671656050}}</ref> tells the story of Kangku's life including his leadership in the strike and after in setting up Yandeyarra station which still runs today. It was shortlisted for the 1999 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. *''Yandy'', a play written by Jolly Read after being commissioned by Black Swan State Theatre Company, tells the story of the strike and its leaders and families. It won the 2004 Western Australian Premier's Book Award for best script.{{cn|date=June 2021}} *Artist Nyaparu Gardiner, who was born into the strike, has portrayed it many times in his work.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jorgensen|first=Darren|date=2020-01-02|title=Slow Time: Nyaparu (William) Gardiner and the Strike Camps of the Pilbara|url=https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/files/78037393/jorgensen_on_gardiner.docx|journal=Journal of Australian Studies|volume=44|issue=1|pages=82–96|doi=10.1080/14443058.2020.1716044|s2cid=213909096|issn=1444-3058}}</ref>

==See also== * Bill Dunn (Pilbara Bushman) * Wave Hill walk-off

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *{{cite book|title=The Black Eureka|first1=Max|last1=Brown|first2=Dorothy|last2=Hewett|publisher=Australasian Book Society|location=Sydney|year=1976|isbn=978-0909916763|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9523853?versionId=45252079|access-date=7 February 2013}} * {{cite web| archive-date= 15 May 2006| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060515194650/http://www.treaty.murdoch.edu.au/Conference%20Papers/Steven%20Churches.htm |title=The Story of a Promise made to Western Australia's Aborigines| first=Steven |last=Churches| others=Speech made at Murdoch University, June 2002 |url=http://www.treaty.murdoch.edu.au/Conference%20Papers/Steven%20Churches.htm}} * George, Jennie. (1997) [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/IndigLRes/car/1997/3/speeches/seminar1/george.htm Reconciliation in the Community – How do we make it a reality?] * {{cite AustLII|HCATrans|406|1996|litigants=Judamia & Ors v State of Western Australia |courtname=auto |date=8 October 1996}} *McLeod, D. W. (1984) ''How the West was lost: The native question in the development of Western Australia'' Port Hedland, W.A. The author. * Roberts, Janine (1978) ''From Massacres to Mining'' {{ISBN|0-905990-05-6}}

==External links==

* [https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/0/120/587.html ''How the West was Lost''] (1987), film made by David Noakes *{{cite web | title=PilbaraStrike | website=PilbaraStrike | url=https://www.pilbarastrike.org/|date=2018}} (Dedicated website)

{{Portal bar|Australia|Organized labour}} {{Indigenous Australians}}

Pilbara Strike, 1946 Category:1947 labor disputes and strikes Category:1948 labor disputes and strikes Category:1949 labor disputes and strikes Category:1946 in Australia Category:1947 in Australia Category:1948 in Australia Category:1949 in Australia Category:Indigenous Australian politics Category:Labour disputes in Australia Category:Pilbara Category:Agriculture and forestry strikes Category:1940s in Western Australia Category:Economic history of Western Australia Category:Labour disputes and strikes in the aftermath of World War II Category:Indigenous economies of Oceania