The Rabaul Strike of 1929 was the first ever industrial strike in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. The strike began on January 2, 1929 in the township of

Rabaul Rabaul () is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province ...

, then the capital of the

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered League of Nations and then United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an adm ...

. The goal of the strike was increased wages. The strike was led by Sumsuma, who was assisted by N'Dramei of Manus, the senior sergeant-major of the police. Around 3,000 workers participated in the strike, a majority of Rabaul's working population. The strikers had originally planned for the local

Catholic mission Missionary work of the Catholic Church has often been undertaken outside the geographically defined parishes and dioceses by religious orders who have people and material resources to spare, and some of which specialized in missions. Eventually, p ...

to mediate between them and the employers, but the mission refused. This, combined with the employers' refusal to negotiate at all and the general inexperience of the strikers, caused the strike to quickly fizzle out. By the afternoon of January 3, most of the strikers had returned to work. Sumsuma, along with N'Dramei and the other strike leaders were sentenced to 3 years in prison.

References

1920s in Papua New Guinea January 1929 1929 labor disputes and strikes {{PapuaNewGuinea-stub Labor disputes in Papua New Guinea