The 1946 Pilbara strike was a landmark

strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

pastoral workers in the

Pilbara The Pilbara () is a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia. It is known for its Aboriginal peoples; its ancient landscapes; the red earth; and its vast mineral deposits, in particular iron ore. It is also a g ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

for

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

recognition, payment of fair wages and working conditions. The strike involved at least 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers walking off the large pastoral stations in the Pilbara on 1 May 1946, and from employment in the two major towns of

Port Hedland A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

and

Marble Bar Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphosed ...

. The strike did not end until August 1949 and even then many Indigenous Australians refused to go back and work for white station owners. It is regarded as the first industrial strike by Aboriginal people since colonisation and one of if not the longest industrial strikes in Australia, and a landmark in indigenous Australians fighting for their human rights,

cultural rights The cultural rights movement has provoked attention to protect the rights of groups of people, or their culture, in similar fashion to the manner in which the human rights movement has brought attention to the needs of individuals throughout t ...

, and

Native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

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. The pastoral stations treated the Aboriginal workers as a cheap slave labour workforce to be exploited. Many tried to leave the stations on which they worked but were met with legal resistance; those who were unsuccessful could be whipped and those who escaped were hunted by police and returned. The situation was that "while Aboriginal labour was required, Aboriginal people were treated as if they were expendable". 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 The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

a few kilometers north of Ti-Tree in the 1870s, which resulted in the bleached bones and thus the name for the place. 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. 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. Succeeding colonial and state Governments legislated to remove the funding provisions for "native welfare".

The strike

The strike was coordinated and led by Aboriginal lawmen Dooley Bin Bin and Clancy McKenna; and Don McLeod, an active unionist and member of the Communist Party of Australia for a short period. The strike was planned at an Aboriginal law meeting in 1942 at Skull Springs (east of Nullagine), where a massacre had previously occurred. 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. 16 interpreters were needed for the meeting. Discussions were protracted with the meeting lasting six weeks. McLeod, the only European-Australian present, was given the task of chief negotiator. While not present, Bin Bin was elected to represent the Aboriginal peoples from unsettled desert lands. Later McLeod and Bin Bin chose McKenna to represent those from the settled areas. The strike was postponed until after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

had ended in 1945. Peter Coppin, also known as Kangushot, (1920–2006) was another one of the strike leaders. Regarded as a pioneer of the

Aboriginal rights Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the Indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land (inc ...

movement in the 1940s, 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. The efforts, if noticed by the white people present, were dismissed and laughed at. 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. On 1 May 1946, hundreds of Aboriginal workers left the pastoral stations and set up strike camps. The strike was most effective in the Pilbara region. Further afield in Broome and

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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. At the commencement of the strike in 1946, McLeod was an Australian Workers' Union delegate at Port Hedland wharf who motivated support by the

Australian labour movement The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial (Australian unions) and political wings (Australian Labor Party). Trade unions in Australia may be organised (i.e., formed) o ...

. The Western Australian branch of the Seamen's Union of Australia eventually put a blackban on the shipment of wool from the Pilbara. Nineteen unions in Western Australia, seven federal unions and four Trades and Labour councils supported the strike. The strike stimulated support from the

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

, who helped establish the Committee for the Defence of Native Rights. 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. Many of the Aboriginal strikers served time in jail; some were seized by police at revolver point and put into chains for several days. 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. McLeod was gaoled a total of seven times during the period, three times for being within five chains () of a congregation of "natives", three times for inciting natives to leave their lawful employment, and once for forgery. In one incident during the strike, two policemen were sent out to the Five Mile Camp near Marble Bar. When they arrived they commenced shooting the people's dogs, even when they were chained up between their legs. Shooting the dogs of Aboriginal people was considered by some frontier Europeans as a sport. On this occasion the endangering of human life angered the strikers, who quickly disarmed the two policeman. The local strike leader, Jacob Oberdoo, and other strikers held the policemen until they had regained some composure and then arranged their own arrests, insisting they be taken into custody. 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. In 1972 he was awarded the British Empire Medal but turned it down. McLeod described Oberdoo's reply to the Prime Minister rejecting the medal: : "...he was unable to do business with, or accept favours from Law-carriers in bad standing. 'You pin medals on dogs' was how he explained the real message underlying the award". The strikers sustained themselves with their traditional bush skills, hunting kangaroos and goats for both meat and skins. They also developed some cottage industry which brought some cash payment such as selling

buffel grass ''Cenchrus ciliaris'' (buffel-grass or African foxtail grass; syn. ''Pennisetum ciliare'' (L.) Link) is a species of grass native to most of Africa, southern Asia (east to India), southern Iran, and the extreme south of Europe (Sicily). Other na ...

seed in Sydney, the sale of pearl shell, and in surface mining. 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.

Daisy Bindi Daisy Bindi (1904—1962), also known as Mumaring, was an Aboriginal Australian Indigenous rights activist and a leader in the landmark 1946 Pilbara strike in Western Australia. Early life Bindi was born about 1904 on a cattle-station near p ...

, a Nyangumarta woman, led a walk-off of 96 workers at Roy Hill Station to join the strike. 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. Wages and conditions were eventually won by the strikers on Mount Edgar and Limestone Stations. These two became a standard, with the strikers declaring that any station requiring labour would have to equal or better the rates of pay and conditions operating on these two. By August 1949, the Seamen's Union had 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. After the strike concluded many Aboriginal people refused to go back to working in their old roles in the pastoral industry. Eventually they pooled their funds from surface mining and other cottage industry to buy or lease stations, including some they had formerly worked on, to run them as cooperatives.

Legacy

Aboriginal plaintiffs from Strelley Station finally commenced an action in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1994, seeking a declaration that the 1905 repeal of section 70 was invalid. In 2001, after protracted litigation, the High Court of Australia held that the 1905 repeal had been legally effective. 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.

In the arts

*The poet Dorothy Hewett visited Port Hedland in 1946 and wrote the poem "Clancey and Dooley and Don McLeod" about the strike, which was subsequently put to music by folk musician Chris Kempster and recorded by Roy Bailey. *The 1959 documentary novel ''Yandy'' by Donald Stuart deals with the strike. *In 1987 a documentary film was made about the strike by director David Noakes, titled ''How the West was Lost''. *''Kangkushot, The Life of Nyamal Lawman Peter Coppin'', by Jolly Read and Peter Coppin, 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 The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an annual book award provided by the Government of Western Australia, and managed by the State Library of Western Australia. History and format Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the West ...

. *''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. *Artist Nyaparu Gardiner, who was born into the strike, has portrayed it many times in his work.

References

External links

(1987), film made by David Noakes * (Dedicated website) {{DEFAULTSORT:1946 Pilbara Strike Pilbara Strike, 1946 1947 labor disputes and strikes 1948 labor disputes and strikes 1949 labor disputes and strikes Pilbara strike Pilbara strike Pilbara strike Pilbara strike Indigenous Australian politics Labour disputes in Australia Pilbara Agriculture and forestry strikes 1940s in Western Australia 1940s in Australia Economic history of Western Australia