Industrial Workers of the World

On May 1, 1946, 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers from 27 stations in Western Australia walked off the job for better pay and conditions. This was the first industrial action by Indigenous Australians since colonisation in 1788 and predates the famous Wave Hill strike in the Northern Territory by 20 years. The Pilbara strike lasted until 1949, making it the longest strike in Australia's history.

History leading to the 1946 Pilbara strike

From the 1890s to the 1920s it was common for Aboriginal workers to be paid only in rations of food and clothing. During the 1920s some workers began to receive minimal wages. The 1936 Native Affairs Act legally compelled pastoralists to provide shelter and meet the medical needs of their workers, but this was never enforced by the government. Aboriginal stockmen were housed in corrugated iron humpies, without floors, lighting, sanitation, furniture or cooking facilities.

It was illegal for the Aboriginal people to leave their place of employment, and it was even illegal to pay them wages equal to the white people's. In 1942, there was a secret Aboriginal law meeting to discuss a strike proposal, an idea first discussed by white labourer and prospector Don McLeod and Aboriginal people Clancy McKenna, Dooley Bin Bin and Nyamal Elder Peter "Kangushot" Coppin from the Pilbara community who were instrumental in calling together the 1942 meeting.

200 law men from 23 Aboriginal groups gathered, and after six weeks a consensus was reached to begin a strike on May 1, the international day of workers' struggle and the beginning of the shearing season, thereby putting maximum pressure on the squatters. However, the strike was postponed until after the Second World War had ended.

How the Pilbara strike was organised

On the stations there were no phones or radios and the Aboriginal workers couldn't read or write English. Dooley was responsible for spreading word of the strike. He visited each station pretending to be a "visiting relative just passing through" to avoid any suspicion. Dooley distributed calendars to the workers on all stations, made from labels from jam tins, on which they marked off each passing day so they would all go out at the same time. Outback stations paralysed On May 1 hundreds of Aboriginal workers left 20 stations, affecting 10,000 square kilometres of sheep farming country.

They gathered at strike camps - Twelve Mile outside Port Hedland and Moolyella near Marble Bar - where they would spend much of the following three years. At its height, at least 800 people were on strike. The sheep stations were paralysed without Aboriginal labour. In order to survive, the strikers coordinated the collection of bush food and pearl shells and hunted kangaroos and goats to sell the skins. Many Aboriginal people got their first taste of economic independence. However, many Aboriginal strikers were jailed for their participation in the strike, some even put in chains for several days.

Although the striking stockmen won award rates in 1949 many never returned to the stations. Measured against the workers' initial demands, the three-year Pilbara strike was not a complete victory. But the strike was of great historical significance, providing a powerful example of Aboriginal people's resolve to struggle against their slave-like conditions. The struggle for equal wages was finally won in the wake of the 1966 Gurindji strike in Wave Hill, Northern Territory.

The 1946 Pilbara strike in the arts

BOOKS Don McLeod documented the Pilbara strike in his 1984 self-published book: 'How the West was lost: the native question in the development of Western Australia'. http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/1946-Pilbara-strike.html

Don McLeod (1908 to 1999) - Dr Jan Richardson. Source: The Age, Wednesday 21 April 1999 http://indigenousrights.net.au/person.asp?pID=975

Kangkushot The Life of Nyamal Lawman Peter Coppin - Jolly Read and Peter Coppin In a powerful and effective narrative based on oral history, Jolly Read tells the story of Peter Coppin (Kangkushot), 'the most senior elder, the top lawman' for the Nyamal people in the Pilbara, interspersing third person narrative with Peter Coppin's own voice. Living 2000 kilometres apart, the interviewer and interviewee met over a two year period as Kangkushot related his life story centred on a movement for social justice and social awareness encompassing the first strike of Aboriginal workers in Australia's history in 1946. Peter Coppin, also known as Kangkushot, who died in the Pilbara town of Port Hedland on September 11, 2006, aged 86. Two and a half thousand people attended his funeral in Port Hedland on Friday 29 September, after which a cavalcade of 300 cars with police escort travelled to his burial at the Jinparinya community 30 km away. http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/09/123645_comment.php#123647

FILM In 1987 David Noakes turned the 1946 Pilbara strike into a feature film called "How The West Was Lost". www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/587.html

VIDEO CLIP http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/how-west-was-lost/clip1/

POEM A poem about the Pilbara strike The poet Dorothy Hewett visited Port Hedland in 1946 and wrote the poem "Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod" about the strike.

Extract: ...The sheep's wool dragged and the squatters swore

And talked nice words till their tongues got sore

And their bellies swelled with so much lies

But the blackfellers shooed them off like flies.

The sheep got lost on the squatters' run.

The shearing season was nearly done.

Said the squatters eaten up with greed,

"We'll pay good wages and give good feed."

The blackfellers sheared the wool and then

Got their wages like working-men. T

he squatters' words were stiff and sore,

"We won't pay wages like that no more."...

http://unionsong.com/u399.html

SONG In 1993 folk musician Chris Kempster put the poem to music on his album "The Songs Of Chris Kempster". http://chriskempster.net/songs.html

PLAY The strike continues to be celebrated as a major achievement and an important development for all Australian workers. In 2006, Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre hosted a social event to educate the public about the strike and the strikers. In 2004, Black Swan Theatre staged a production of Yandy, directed by Indigenous artist Rachael Maza and adapted from a book about one of the Indigenous strike leaders, Peter Coppin. more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Pilbara_strike DVD www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/587.html

Strelley Nomad Group Milykujurna Old Generation Warnman Community Governing Committee of Incorporated Aboriginal Association

http://strelleynomadgroup.com/htwwl_f.html

RED ALERT - Genocide and enslavement is still continuing in 2009 We are the Pilbara Nomad Desert Aborigines in the north west of Western Australia, who are the oldest surviving culture in the world.

Nomads Proverb

You took away our every needs Just to satisfy your wanting greed

This land was ours before yous came So please give it back to us again

Yous came yous conquered and yous took

So now come with us and let us look

So lets all not perish and live in trust

Because Western Australia is a part of all of us.

Nomads Proverb

Bring back fairness to our country

Which was taken away from our country

By a person from another country

With a little black book

Containing facts, heard and discovered

In our country, which is true And which did happen in our country,

This is our country which is a part of us and no-one else.