San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-04-05
LABOR CONFLICT IN AUSTRALIA
How Employers Were Found to
Combine Against the Trade
Union.


than in Australia. There has been
no actual blOOdshed, as in the case
of the Homestead strikes in Amer
lea; but there have been present
most of the other elements of war,
bitter animOsity, ceaseless vigil
ance engendered by mutual dis
tresS and ruin, involving not
merely the combatants but thou
sands of innOcents as well.
1t has been noted that in no
single instant did these disputes
originate from or hinge upon
| disagreement as to wages. Brush
ing aside few minor issues in
Volved, we find that the one cause
of quarrel throughout was the de-
mand on the part of the strikers
for the exclusive recognition of
of unionism and the firm deter
minatiOn of the employees to refuse
to cOncede, that demand. Had the
uniOnists won the day, there can
be no doubt that every worker in
Australia earning his living by
| the sweat of his brow would have
been compelled to join one or the
other of the labor organizations
and place himself under the domi-
nation of the small cliques of in
dividuals in the big cities who
make of labor agitation and eXhil-
arating and lucrative profession.
To show how thoroughly labor
militant in Australia has forced
employers to combine in Self-de-
Tense, let me take the great WOOL
growing industry, which adds
yearly to the wealth of these colo
MES from f20,O0O,OOO to 100000.
The lethargy and lack of cohesion
among the paStorals enabled the
shearers' union three years ago to
acquire a position of almost des-
pOtic power. Its leaders boosted
that they controlled the shearing
in % per cent of the WOOl-ShedS. In
the framing of the rules (which
regulated in every detail the man
ner in which the shearing was to
be conducted, the employer had no
voice whatever; he had either to ac-
cCpt them or to enter upon the al
most impossible task of fighting
| the whole union single-handed.
Every Shearer was compelled to
take out his union ticket, paying,
besides entrance fees, IL per annum
for the privilege; and the man who
refused to submit to this black
mailing process was declared a
Dariah by whose side no uniOniSt
would work or eat, was bounded
! from wOOl-Shed to WOOl-Shed with
out the chance of securing employ
ment, and was finally driven out of
the the industry.
The weapon of the boycott was
ruthlessly alike against employees
and nOn-uniOiSt Shearers used, and
some conception of the wide-react-
! ing development of the system
will be derived from an extract
| from manifesto issued by the
sheaserS' union: 1--WE intend" ran
this official document, "tO teach
the sQuatter the folly of resistance
to our combination. He shall not
be allowed to shear his wool except
by union labor. But if he should
succeed in getting the wool off the
Sleeps back, it may rot in his
sheds, for we shall prevent the car
riers taking it to the railway; and
should be succeeded in getting it
to the railway, we shall prevent it
going to sea, for we shall call out
the sailors and the officers; and if
it sails, we shall prevent its dis
charge in London, for we shall call
out the dock-labOrers."
This announcement, on the part
of the trade-uniOnists, of their de-
| liberate intention to int1ict reel
ing blow upon the great staple pro-
ducing industry of Australia, for
no more important reason than
J that a single back-blOck squatter
might have refused compliance
with the uniOnist demands was the
death-blow to the new trade-union-
ism in these colonies. 1t etfectual-
ly ranged public opinion upon the
other side, and, when the actual
attempt to enforce the threat was
made, the shearers' union found
itself face to face with cOmbina-
ton of pastoral employees infinite
ly stronger than that of the work.
men.-Edmund Mitchell, in the
Engineering Magazine.
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