Exhibition Trade Union Action2 - 1970sprotestphotos

Exhibition: Trade Union Action

The rise of industrial action, organisation and militancy

Since the end of the 1951 waterfront lockout, industrial relations had been pretty subdued – until 1967, when the Arbitration Court, which set wage rates in the private sector, handed down a nil wage order. This marked the beginning of the end of the arbitration system and set the platform for the rise of industrial action, on-the-job organisation and militancy in the 1970s. Job delegate committees developed and became active on all the major industrial sites and other groups of workers also began to protest low wages and conditions.

Photographs

Dental nurses from all over the country march to Parliament in March 1974, to pressure the Government to restore their wage relativity with public health nurses. MPs were heard to comment: “It’s marvellous. They are so neat and tidy.” In any event they won relativity.

KEITH STEWART

Locked out Coach Workers’ Union members demonstrate outside the Ford car assembly plant in Seaview, Lower Hutt in 1974, seeking a separate agreement with the company. They did not believe the Engineers’ Union agreement suited them as coach-workers.

KEITH STEWART

Kindergarten trainee teachers gather on Flagstaff Hill in Wellington in April 1974 before they march to Parliament. They were a part of a nationwide protest of over 1000 students against the low level of their salaries compared to primary school trainee teacher salaries and the unemployment benefit.

KEITH STEWART

Seamen and drivers gather at Parliament to protest against laws being passed by the Government restricting their rights to withdraw their labour.

KEITH STEWART

Toby Hill of the Wellington Trades Council leads a march of union members to the Employers’ Federation building in Molesworth Street Wellington in 1974, to protest the use of court injunctions preventing workers striking. Secretary of the Northern Drivers Union, Bill Andersen, had been imprisoned for defying a court injunction.

KEITH STEWART

Wellington Drivers’ Union and Seamen’s Union members combine to present resolutions to Parliament in June 1974 protesting anti-union legislation, spiralling prices, the wage freeze and unwarranted verbal attacks on old age pensioners.

KEITH STEWART

The deregistration of the Wellington branch of the Boilermakers’ Union by the Government during the building of the new Bank of New Zealand building in Willis St (later called BNZ Centre) was the start of long-running industrial action from 1976 to 1981. Slogans, most likely written by riggers from the union, appeared on a number of occasions. “This job is black” informs other workers that there is a dispute in progress and labour has been withdrawn.

KEITH STEWART

The slogan “Boilermakers demand negotiation” on the partially built BNZ building in Willis St is a reference to the Government refusing to talk to the Wellington branch of the Boilermakers’ Union because it was deregistered. The dispute continued from 1976 to 1981. When completed in 1984 the building was the tallest in New Zealand, a status it held until 1987.

KEITH STEWART

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