Unions- Commons Library

Against Fascism and War: Pig Iron Bob and the Dalfram Dispute, Port Kembla 1938

The 1938 Dalfram dispute involved workers at Port Kembla in Australia striking and refusing to load iron on a ship bound for Japan in 1938.

Read an excerpt from the book, Without Bosses: Radical Trade Unionism in the 1970s, about workers retaining the right to strike.

Learn how workers in Weipa forced a mining company to accommodate collective bargaining by combining strike action and a port blockade.

Watch this video presentation or read an article about beer strikes and the history of hotel / pub boycotts in Australia in the early 1900s.

Learn about the Sydney Opera House ‘work-in’ carried out by construction workers who expelled management & continued work under workers’ control.

How workers at the Nymboida coal mine in NSW resisted mass sackings by taking over and running the mine themselves in 1975.

Lines of Resistance: A Symposium on Media, Arts & Activism that profiles research on the role of media and visual arts in activist movements.

Case study of organising at a local level, Victorian Trades Hall Council’s Candidate School, focused on changing who gets elected to local office.

Australian Rainforest Action Groups blockaded ships bringing rainforest timbers logged in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Brisbane unionists organised a general strike in 1912 to protect and enhance the rights of tramways workers to organise.