1.
Fremantle Harbour
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Fremantle Harbour is Western Australias largest and busiest general cargo port and an important historical site. The inner harbour handles a large volume of sea containers, vehicle imports and livestock exports, cruise shipping and naval visits, the Inner Harbour includes northern and southern wharves named North Quay and Victoria Quay respectively. All of this area is managed by the Fremantle Port Authority, the first steamship to enter the port was HMS Driver on 4 December 1845. Fremantle shipping was served by the Long Jetty that extended into the open sea, cargo was offloaded onto the jetty and then taken down Cliff Street in Fremantles West End. It was loaded onto barges that sailed up the river on the sea breeze. Later it was transported by rail, sailors disliked the Long Jetty, in 1892 Captain D. B. Shaw of the American barque Saranac described it as terrible, entered and fought against putting the vessel alongside jetty to discharge. No place to put a vessel, all the ships have to lay and discharge at the wharf or pay lighterage. It is blowing a gale from the SW. and takes all our time to hold her and she had done considerable damage to herself. It is certainly the worst place I or anyone else ever saw, no place to send a ship of this size. Any man who would come or send a ship a second time is a damned ass, British marine engineer John Coode advised John Forrest an outer harbour near Rous Head, or one that would stretch south from Arthurs Head, could be built. Coode ruled out building a port in the mouth as he believed it would continually silt up due to lateral sand drift. By 1891 Forrest was examining another proposal, a facility at Owen Anchorage south of Fremantle. But by then Charles Yelverton OConnor had been appointed the Colonys Engineer-in-Chief, the first stage of the harbour works began with a ceremony in which the Governors wife, Lady Robinson, tilted the first truck load of rubble for the North Mole. Blasting and dredging the rocky bar created a channel, dredging deepened the river basin, land was reclaimed so quays and warehouses could be built. The inner harbour was opened on 4 May 1897 when the steamer Sultan drawing just one foot of water with Lady Forrest at the wheel was the first ship to enter the partly built port. As the port neared completion, Forrest lobbied the British to have Fremantle as the port of call for the Mail Packets, Victoria and New South Wales fought for the retention of Albany as the Mail Packet port, as they were fearful they would lose business. Forrest threatened Western Australia may stay out of the federation of Australian colonies unless they agreed
2.
Maritime Union of Australia
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The Maritime Union of Australia covers waterside workers, seafarers, port workers, professional divers, and office workers associated with Australian ports. The MUA was formed in 1993 with merger of the Seamens Union of Australia, in 2011 the MUA had about 13,000 members. It is affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Labor Party, since 2000 Paddy Crumlin has been National Secretary of the MUA and since 2010 he has been President of the ITF. He also holds the position of chair of the Dockers Section, since late 2015, MUA and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union have been in merger talks, which if successful would create Australias most powerful union. With Federation in 1901 and the introduction of an arbitration system. The Communist Party of Australia was formed in October 1920, and achieved some influence in the union movement. Though its influence had dwindled to an insignificant sect by the mid-1920s, it kept positions in trade unions. The union was regarded as militant and disruptive to the economy, in 1928, the Nationalist government of Stanley Bruce enacted the Transport Workers Act 1928 requiring workers to have a license, known as the dog collar, to work on the wharves. Employment of non-union labour and members of the Permanent & Casual Wharf Labourers Union almost killed off the Waterside Workers Federation. The Federated Seamens Union of Australasia was formed in 1876 by the amalgamation of the Sydney Seamens Union, from December 1935 to February 1936 there was a long strike against an unsatisfactory award and poor working conditions. The strike failed, and the union was divided and crippled. According to Glenn Milne, a Union Strategy document which was leaked in March 2008 reveals the union also wants a return to pattern bargaining. The timing of this move was damaging for the union as Julia Gillard was in the process of talking to employers. Since late 2015, the MUA and CFMEU have been in talks to create Australias most powerful union. On 29 February 2016, at the MUA national conference, delegates voted unanimously in favour of a merger with the CFMEU
3.
Western Australia Police
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The genesis of the police was the appointment of a sheriff by Captain Stirling on 18 June 1829, as part of the proclamation of the Swan River Colony. The proclamation provided for the appointment of a sheriff having under his direction a high constable, constables, bailiffs, the sheriff still exists as an officer of the Western Australian Justice Department—no longer having jurisdiction over police or highways. The sheriff retains responsibility for enforcement of judgments and the administration of jury service. Police continue to carry out sheriff and bailiff duties, particularly in remote country locations, early colonial policemen were recruited by magistrates and worked part-time. They were paid only for specific tasks, such as one shilling for serving a summons, by 1830, there were fifteen part-time constables in the state, of whom five worked in Perth. It was involved in the Pinjarra Massacre, in which Captain Ellis, the first full-time constable for Perth was appointed in 1840. The Legislative Council passed an ordinance in 1849 that outlined police powers. An organised police force was established in 1853. After convicts started arriving in the colony in 1849, the acquired the duties of registering and supervising the ticket-of-leave men. By 1870, after transportation had ceased, some 1,244 ticket-of-leave men had to be supervised by 146 police employees, applicants for police service were required to be aged under forty, literate and physically fit. Leave was difficult to obtain and officers were not to appear in public out of uniform. Until the end of the century, the monthly pay day was marked by a parade with band. A Criminal Investigation Department was set up in 1873, although two detectives had been sent out from Britain in 1854, a fingerprint bureau was set up in 1902 and the first female officer was appointed in 1921. The Police Headquarters is located in East Perth overlooking the Causeway, the 1960s curved building also housed the former East Perth Lockup. and a magistrates courtroom. The structure is entered on the State Heritage Register, recruits are trained at the Western Australian Police Academy at Joondalup. Previously the Academy was located at Maylands, in premises used by various units including the mounted. The command structure has the state divided into three regions and sub-divided into fourteen districts, as of 2012 there were 35 metropolitan and 123 regional police stations. The highest-ranking officer is the Commissioner of Police, the current Commissioner is Karl OCallaghan, appointed in June 2004
4.
Strike action
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Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances, Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when mass labor became important in factories and mines. In most countries, strike actions were made illegal, as factory owners had far more power than workers. Most Western countries partially legalized striking in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Notable examples are the 1980 Gdańsk Shipyard or 1981 Warning Strike, official publications have typically used the more neutral words work stoppage or industrial dispute. The first historically certain account of action was towards the end of the 20th dynasty. The artisans of the Royal Necropolis at Deir el-Medina walked off their jobs because they had not been paid, the Egyptian authorities raised the wages. An early predecessor of the strike may have been the secessio plebis in ancient Rome. In the Outline Of History, H. G. Wells characterized this event as the strike of the plebeians, the plebeians seem to have invented the strike. The strike action became a feature of the political landscape with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. For the first time in history, large numbers of people were members of the working class, they lived in cities. By the 1830s, when the Chartist movement was at its peak, in 1842 the demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first modern general strike. Instead of being a spontaneous uprising of the masses, the strike was politically motivated and was driven by an agenda to win concessions. Probably as much as half of the industrial work force were on strike at its peak – over 500,000 men. The local leadership marshalled a growing working class tradition to organize their followers to mount an articulate challenge to the capitalist. Friedrich Engels, an observer in London at the time, wrote, by its numbers, this class has become the most powerful in England, the English proletarian is only just becoming aware of his power, and the fruits of this awareness were the disturbances of last summer. Karl Marx has condemned the theory of Proudhon criminalizing strike action in his work The Poverty of Philosophy, in 1937 there were 4,740 strikes in the United States. This was the greatest strike wave in American labor history, the number of major strikes and lockouts in the U. S. fell by 97% from 381 in 1970 to 187 in 1980 to only 11 in 2010
5.
Stevedore
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A stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock laborer, wharfie, wharf rat, lumper, whombler, and/or longshoreman is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships. The word stevedore originated in Portugal or Spain, and entered the English language through its use by sailors. In Canada, the term stevedore has also used, for example, in the name of the Western Stevedoring Company, Ltd. based in Vancouver. Loading and unloading ships requires knowledge of the operation of loading equipment, the techniques for lifting and stowing cargo. In addition, workers must be strong and be able to follow orders attentively. In order to unload a ship successfully, many longshoreman are needed, there is only a limited amount of time that a ship can be at a port, so they need to get their jobs done quickly. In earlier days before the introduction of containerization, men who loaded and unloaded ships had to tie down cargoes with rope, a type of stopper knot is called the stevedore knot. The methods of tying up parcels of goods is called stevedore lashing or stevedore knotting. Today, the vast majority of cargo is transported in intermodal containers. The containers arrive at a port by truck, rail or another ship and are stacked in the storage area. When the ship that will be transporting them arrives, the containers that it is offloading are unloaded by a crane, the containers either leave the port by truck or rail or are put in the storage area until they are put on another ship. Once the ship is offloaded, the containers it is leaving with are brought to the dock by truck, a crane lifts the containers from the trucks into the ship. As the containers pile up in the ship, the workers connect them to the ship and those workers at the port who handle and move the containers are likely to be considered stevedores or longshoremen. Before containerization, freight was handled with a longshoreman’s hook. Traditionally, stevedores had no fixed job, but would arrive at the docks in the morning seeking employment for the day, London dockers called this practice standing on the stones, while in the United States it was referred to as shaping. In Britain, due to changes in employment laws, such jobs have become permanent or have been converted to temporary jobs. Dock workers have been a prominent part of the labor movement. Container handling in Hong Kong -2005 In Australia, the informal term wharfie, the term stevedore is also sometimes used, as in the company name Patrick Stevedores
6.
Fremantle
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Fremantle is a major Australian port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital, Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829. It was declared a city in 1929, and has a population of approximately 27,000, the city is named after Captain Charles Fremantle, the English naval officer who established a camp at the site on 2 May 1829. The city contains well-preserved 19th century buildings and other heritage features, the Western Australian vernacular diminutive for Fremantle is Freo. The Nyungar name for the area is Walyallup, Fremantle lies on a series of limestone hills known by the Nyungar people as Booyeembara, the sandplain to the east is Gardoo. The original vegetation of the area was mainly Xanthorrhoea and eucalyptus trees, the central part of the suburb extends eastwards to include Royal Fremantle Golf Club and a suburban area south of Marmion Street and west of Carrington Street. The City of Fremantle local government area also includes the suburbs of Beaconsfield, Hilton, North Fremantle, OConnor, Samson, South Fremantle, East Fremantle has its own town council and is not governed by the City of Fremantle. Fremantle is the end of the Fremantle railway line runs from Perth to Fremantle. Major highways including Stirling Highway, Canning Highway and Leach Highway have Fremantle as their start point and/or terminus, the regular sea breeze is known as the Fremantle Doctor, as it provides cooling relief from the summer heat when it arrives between noon and 3pm. The traditional owners of the land on which the city of Fremantle is built are the Whadjuk Noongar people who called the area Walyalup, to the local Noongar people, Fremantle is a place of ceremonies, significant cultural practices and trading. For millennia the Noongar people met there in spring and autumn to feast on fish, today, Whadjuk and other Noongars continue to gather and meet in Walyalup and at Manjaree. The area was considered as a site for possible British settlement in 1827 and his favourable report was welcomed by the British Government, who had for some time been suspicious of French colonial intentions towards the western portion of Australia. As a result of Stirlings report, Captain Charles Howe Fremantle of HMS Challenger, the settlement of Perth began on 12 August 1829. Captain Fremantle left the colony on 25 August after providing much assistance to Stirling in setting up the colony and it was then that Stirling decided to name the port settlement Fremantle. In early September 1829 the merchant vessel Anglesea grounded at Gage Roads and she did not break up, as had been expected, but instead survived to become Western Australias first prison hulk. Lotus, which arrived on 10 October 1829, became the vessel to land immigrants at Fremantle. On 1 June 1850, the first convicts arrived at Fremantle aboard the Scindian, the thirty-seventh and last convict ship to dock at Fremantle was the Hougoumont on 10 January 1868, signalling the end of penal transportation to Australia. During this period, notorious South Sea pirate Bully Hayes lived in Fremantle with his fiancée Miss Scott, in 1897, Irish-born engineer C. Y
7.
Waterside Workers Federation of Australia
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The Waterside Workers Federation of Australia was an Australian trade union that existed from 1902 to 1993. After a period of negotiations between other Australian maritime unions, it was federated in 1902 and first federally registered in 1907, in 1993 the WWF merged with the Seamens Union of Australia to form the Maritime Union of Australia. With Federation in 1901 and the introduction of an arbitration system. Hughes had been a member of parliament and became Prime Minister in 1915. Hughes was expelled from the party and the union in 1916 over conscription in Australia, in Sydney, workers would walk from wharf to wharf in search of a job, often failing to find one. The impending arrival of strikebreakers from Sydney resulted in the calling off of the strike, the strike action led to the formation in 1917 of the Permanent & Casual Wharf Labourers Union of Australia in opposition to the Waterside Workers Federation. Immediate problems followed when a new award for waterside workers in 1928 worsened conditions for workers on economic grounds, wharfies were to be paid less for evening and night shifts than they would for the horror shifts making these dangerously attractive. All appeals for safeguards against excessive strain and overwork were rejected, the union rejected the award and organised strike action, which later resulted in riots and violence. Bruce pushed the Transport Workers Act through parliament in September, which gave the government unprecedented regulatory power in industrial relations, all waterfront workers now required federal licences, or dog collars as they were derisively known, to work. Employment of non-union labour and members of the Permanent & Casual Wharf Labourers Union almost killed off the Waterside Workers Federation and he then called the 1928 election for November, reviving the red scare pitch for the campaign. The stalwarts of the Waterside Workers Federation were subject to official suspicion, in 1936 the union shifted its head office from Melbourne to Sydney. The union consolidated its strength with the shortages during World War II. In 1950, the WWF finally absorbed the Permanent & Casual Wharf Labourers Union of Australia as a distinct branch, the Waterside Workers Federation went on strike for a fortnight in November 1954. Although the changes were passed, the new legislation proved unworkable, in early 1955 a new recruiting agreement was drawn up protecting the unions right to recruit labour with Harold Holt, Minister for Labour and National Service. The government pressed ahead in 1956 with new legislation aimed at weakening the federation, in the 1960s containerisation began to replace break bulk as the main means of transporting cargo, dramatically reducing the need for waterfront labour. In 1971 the WWF affiliated with the International Transport Workers Federation, in 1991, the WWF amalgamated with the Australian Foremen Stevedore Association but retained the name Waterside Workers Federation of Australia. The Communist Party of Australia was formed in October 1920, and achieved significant influence in the Australian trade union movement, Healy had joined the CPA in 1934, after he had been the Queensland branch president since 1929. He was elected national General Secretary in October 1937, a position he held until his death in 1961
8.
Hal Colebatch
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Sir Harry Pateshall Colebatch CMG, better known as Sir Hal Colebatch, was a long-serving and occasionally controversial figure in Western Australian politics. Hal Colebatch was born in Wolferlow in Herefordshire, England, on 29 March 1872 and his family migrated to Australia in 1878, settling at Goolwa in South Australia. Colebatch left school in 1883 at the age of 11, because his father could not afford to continue his education and he then found work as an office boy and junior reporter for a local newspaper, the Norwood Free Press. When this paper collapsed, he worked for a series of short-lived papers on the South Australian goldfields and he worked for the Petersburg Times and the Laura Standard. In 1888, he moved to Broken Hill, New South Wales, there, he reported on a number of strike meetings in 1892, and was subsequently summoned as a Crown witness in the prosecution of some strike leaders. In 1894, Colebatch migrated to Western Australia to take up a position as reporter on the Coolgardie newspaper Golden Age, after the collapse of the Golden Age the following year, he moved to Kalgoorlie to report on the Kalgoorlie Miner. In 1896, he moved to Perth to join the Morning Herald as mining editor, Colebatch was a keen chess player at this time and, in 1898, he won the state title, thereby becoming Western Australias third chess champion. On 29 April 1896, Colebatch married Mary Maude Saunders in Perth, in 1898, Hal Colebatch telegraphed to the Kalgoorlie Miner a report on a fist-fight in the state parliament between two members. Information on the fight had been provided by an inspector who had been on duty in the House. However, by the time Colebatch discovered this fact, the office was closed. The Kalgoorlie Miner ran the story on the front page, the premier, Sir John Forrest, was furious about the report because of its potential effect on investment in the state. The government subsequently sued the proprietors of the Kalgoorlie Miner for publishing a libel, Forrest then ordered Colebatch to be barred from the press gallery. On 19 October, the sergeant-at-arms forcibly ejected Colebatch and, the following day, Colebatch subsequently received plenty of support in the House from members who felt that he had been unfairly treated, and, shortly afterwards, his suspension was lifted. In 1904, Colebatch moved to Northam, where he bought the Northam Advertiser and he ran the paper until 1923, when he gave it to his sons as a reward for their war service. He would continue contributing to the paper for the rest of his life, in Northam, Colebatch met and became friends with James Mitchell. Colebatch encouraged Mitchell to stand for parliament and, in 1905, Mitchell would hold the seat until 1933, and this would later prevent Colebatch from contesting the lower house seat himself. From 1909 to 1912, Colebatch was the mayor of Northam, in February 1912, he formed a Northam branch of the Liberal League. In 1910, Colebatch unsuccessfully contested a by-election for the then upper-house rural seat of East Province, the following year, he contested the Legislative Assembly seat of Avon but was again unsuccessful
The Fremantle Wharf Crisis of 1919. Wikisource.
