Labour History

Footnotes

1.Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Industry, 2011–12, no. 8155.0 (:ABS, 2013). Google Scholar

2.Paul Cleary, Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia’s Future(:Black Inc, 2011), 79–83. Google Scholar

3. “Statement on Monetary Policy: May 2012, Box C: Resource Exports in 2011,” Reserve Bank of Australia, accessed August2015,http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2012/may/html/box-c.html. Google Scholar

4.Donald Denoon, Settler Capitalism: The Dynamics of Dependent Development in the Southern Hemisphere(:Clarendon Press, 1983) pays re-reading;Roger Hayter,Trevor J. Barnes andMichael J. Bradshaw, “Relocating Resource Peripheries to the Core of Economic Geography’s Theorizing: Rationale and Agenda,” Area 35(2003):15–23has a compelling account of the geographical and social distinctiveness of Canada and by extension Australia as a resource economy. Google Scholar

5.Pam Swain, Strategic Choices: A Study of the Interaction of Industrial Relations and Corporate Strategy in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry(:Curtin University of Technology, 1995), xi. Google Scholar

6.Swain, Strategic Choices, 78. Google Scholar

7.Jolly Read, Marksy: The Life of Jack Marks(:Read Media, 1998). Google Scholar

8.Bobbie Oliver, Unity is Strength: A History of the Australian Labor Party and the Trades and Labor Council in Western Australia(:API Network, 2003), 348–52. Google Scholar

9.Howard Smith andHerb Thompson, “Industrial Relations and the Law: A Case Study of Robe River,” The Australian Quarterly 59, no. 3–4(1987):297–305;Herb Thompson, “The Pilbara Iron Ore Industry: Mining Cycles and Capital-Labour Relations,” Journal of Australian Political Economy 21(1987):66–82;Herb Thompson andHoward Smith, “Conflict at Robe River,” Arena 79(1987):76–91; earlier byHerb Thompson, “Confrontation in the Pilbara: The Hamersley Iron Ore Strike,” Arena 50(1980):15–31;Herb Thompson, “Shorter Working Hours or Redundancies: Class Conflict in the Pilbara,” Arena 56(1980):113–27;Herb Thompson, “Normalisation: Industrial Relations and Community Control in the Pilbara,” The Australian Quarterly 53, no. 3(1981):301–24;Herb Thompson, “The Capital-Labour Relation in the Mining Sector,” Journal of Australian Political Economy 15(1983):64–85;Herb Thompson, “Class and Gender in the Pilbara,” Arena 68(1984):124–40. Google Scholar

10.Scott MacWilliam, “Marginalizing Opposition to the Accord,” Arena 92(1990):146–50. Google Scholar

11.Norm Dufty, Industrial Relations in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry(:Western Australian Institute of Technology, 1984) which draws on Dunlop’s version of systems theory, as do several research theses, notably Helen Court, “Industrial Disputes in the Pilbara”(MEc thesis,University of Western Australia, 1976). See also:Erroll P. Lovett, “The Structure of Industrial Negotiations within the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry”(MA thesis,Monash University, 1980);Stephen Frenkel, “Industrial Conflict, Workplace Characteristics and Accommodation Structures in the Pilbara Iron Ore Industry,” Journal of Industrial Relations 20, no. 4(1978):386–406; see alsoKosmas Tsokhas, Beyond Dependence: Companies, Labour Processes and Australian Mining(:Melbourne, 1986) on the labour process in the mines. Google Scholar

12.Bert Thompson andDon Bartlem, “The Hamersley Iron Ore Strike,” Arena 55(1980):15–31;Norm Dufty, “The 1979 Hamersley Strike,” Australian Bulletin of Labour 8, no. 4(1982):210–28; see alsoOliver, Unity is Strength, 277–79. Google Scholar

13.Ray Fells, “Award Restructuring: But How Did We Get our Awards in the First Place? The Development of the Award and Union Structures in the Iron Ore Industry,” Papers in Labour History, no. 11(June1993):2–19. Google Scholar

14.Clark Kerr andAbraham Siegel “The Interindustry Propensity to Strike: An International Comparison,”inIndustrial Conflict, ed.Arthur Kornhauser,Robert Dubin andArthur M. Ross(:McGraw-Hill, 1954), 189–212. Google Scholar

15.Peter Dicken, Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, 6th ed. (:Sage, 2011), 56. Google Scholar

16.For an overview, seeAl Rainnie,Andy Herod andSusan McGrath-Champ, “Review and Positions: Global Production Networks and Labour,” Competition and Change 15, no. 2(2011):155–69. Google Scholar

17.Jane Wills, “Space, Place, and Tradition in Working Class Organisation,”inOrganising the Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism, ed.Andy Herod(:Minnesota University Press, 1988), 132, original emphasis. Google Scholar

18.Bradon Ellem andJohn Shields, “Rethinking ‘Regional Industrial Relations’: Space, Place and the Social Relations of Work,” Journal of Industrial Relations 41, no. 4(1999):536–60;Bradon Ellem andSusan McGrath-Champ, “Labor Geography and Labor History: Insights and Outcomes from a Decade of Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue”, Labor History 53, no. 3(2012):355–72. Google Scholar

19.Doreen Massey, Spatial Divisions of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production(:Macmillan, 1995, first published1984), 4, 49. Google Scholar

20.David Harvey, The Limits to Capital(:Blackwell, 1982);Karl Marx andFrederick Engels, Selected Works(:Progress Publishers, 1968), 38–39. Google Scholar

21.Jamie Peck, Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets(:Guilford Press, 1996) 15, emphasis added. For a full explanation of these geographical readings, seeBradon Ellem, “Scaling Labour: Australian Unions and Global Mining,” Work, Employment and Society 20, no. 2(2006):369–87. Google Scholar

22.Denoon, Settler Capitalism. On contemporary resource reliance, seeNeil Argent, “Reinterpreting Core and Periphery in Australia’s Mineral and Energy Resources Boom: An Innisian Perspective on the Pilbara,” Australian Geographer 44, no. 3(2013):323–40andHayter,Barnes andBradshaw, “Relocating Resource Peripheries.” Google Scholar

23.On this paradox, seeRaewyn Connell, Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science(:Allen & Unwin, 2007). Google Scholar

24.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 91. Google Scholar

25.Thompson, “The Pilbara Iron Ore Industry.”For a more general history, seeAlan Trengrove, Adventure in Iron: Hamersley’s First Decade(:Stockwell Press, 1976). On one aspect of Indigenous history, seeMichael Hess, “Black and Red: The Pilbara Pastoral Workers’ Strike, 1946,” Aboriginal History 18, no. 1–2(1994):65–86. Google Scholar

26.Dufty, Industrial Relations, 77–84. Google Scholar

27. Ibid., ch. 1;Fells, “Award Restructuring”;Lovett, “The Structure of Industrial Negotiations.” Google Scholar

28.Court, “Industrial Disputes in the Pilbara,” 161. Google Scholar

29.Bradon Ellem, “Unions, Community, Work and Family in Australia’s Iron Ore Sector,” Labour & Industry 25, no. 1(2015):9–22, available online athttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2015.1043511. Google Scholar

30.Dufty, Industrial Relations, ch. 1;Swain, Strategic Choices, 50. Google Scholar

31.Dufty, Industrial Relations, 9–10;Swain, Strategic Choices, 66–69. Cleveland Cliffs’ home operations were, and now as Cliffs Natural Resources remain, in the State of Ohio. Google Scholar

32.For a recent overview, seeChris F. Wright, “The Prices and Incomes Accord: Its Significance, Impact and Legacy,” Journal of Industrial Relations 56, no. 2(2014):264–72;Andrew Scott, “Looking to Sweden in Order to Reconstruct Australia,” Scandinavian Journal of History 34, no. 3(2009):330–52. Google Scholar

33.Swain, Strategic Choices, 52–56. Google Scholar

34.Business Council of Australia, Enterprise-Based Bargaining Units: A Better Way of Working(:BCA, 1989). For an overview of the period, seeBraham Dabscheck, Australian Industrial Relations in the 1980s(:Oxford University Press, 1989). Google Scholar

35.Dabscheck, Australian Industrial Relations, ch. 6. Google Scholar

36.Ibid.For different reasons, the ALP government and the ACTU squashed apparently powerful unions, notably the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation in 1986 and, after the Robe River dispute, the Pilots’ Federation. Google Scholar

37.Smith andThompson, “Industrial Relations and the Law,” 298;Swain, Strategic Choices, 53–54. Google Scholar

38.Reported inWendy Lowenstein, Weevils at Work: What’s Happening to Work in Australia(:Catalyst Press, 1997), 179. Google Scholar

39.Swain, Strategic Choices, 66–69. For simplicity’s sake the common term “Robe” or “Robe River” is used below. Google Scholar

40.Charles Copeman, “The Robe River Affair,” Proceedings of the Conferences of the H. R. Nicholls Society 3(1987), H. R. Nicholls Society Archives, accessed August 2015,http://archive.hrnicholls.com.au/archives/vol3/vol3-8.php;Swain, Strategic Choices, 66–69;Thompson andSmith “Conflict at Robe River,” 77–78;Smith andThompson, “Industrial Relations and the Law,” 298. Google Scholar

41.Terry S. Reynolds andVirginia P. Dawson, Iron Will: Cleveland-Cliffs and the Mining of Iron Ore, 1847–2006(:Wayne State University Press, 2011). Google Scholar

42.Even allowing for a degree of flattery – this was in a presentation to the Society – this is telling: Copeman, “The Robe River Affair,” last paragraph. For a compelling analysis of local varieties of neo-liberalism, seeJamie Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason(:Oxford University Press, 2010) esp. ch. 1. For Australia, seeDamien Cahill, The End of Laissez-Faire? On the Durability of Embedded Neoliberalism(:Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014). Google Scholar

43.14 May 1986: cited among other places inPaul Kelly, The End of Certainty: The Story of the 1980s(:Allen & Unwin, 1992), 196. Google Scholar

44.Copeman, “The Robe River Affair.” Google Scholar

45. Ibid. Google Scholar

46. Ibid;Swain, Strategic Choices, 248–49. For a sympathetic explanation of the trigger to this action,Patrick Getlin, The Power Switch at Robe, (:Australian Institute for Public Policy, 1990). Google Scholar

47.Copeman, “The Robe River Affair.” Google Scholar

48.Widely accepted in anecdotal terms, this claim is sourced to a mining conference in the early 1990s inHerb Thompson, “The APPM Dispute: The Dinosaur and Turtles vs the ACTU,” Economic and Labour Relations Review 3, no. 2(1992):153. Google Scholar

49.Copeman, “The Robe River Affair.” Google Scholar

50.Charles Copeman, “I. R. Lessons from Recent Mining Industry History,” Proceedings of the Conferences of the H. R. Nicholls Society 13(1992),H. R. Nicholls Society Archives, accessed August 2015,http://archive.hrnicholls.com.au/archives/vol13/vol13-7.php. Google Scholar

51.Copeman, “The Robe River Affair.” Google Scholar

52.These claims are still used against unions in the Pilbara: see for exampleAustralian Mining Monthly(September2011):14. Google Scholar

53.Swain, Strategic Choices, 243–50, has a full account of the lead-up to Peko’s takeover in July. Google Scholar

54. Ibid, 251. Google Scholar

55.Ian McRae, letter to, for example, the Australian Workers’ Union, 31 July 1986, provided by Bruce Bonnor, former Robe employee, copy in possession of the author. See alsoSwain, Strategic Choices, 236. Google Scholar

56.Ian McRae, “Memo to All Staff: Union Representatives,”31st July1986, memorandum provided byBruce Bonnor, copy in possession of the author. Google Scholar

57.Ian McRae, General Manager Operations, Notice to All Employees,” 31st July 1986, memorandum provided by Bruce Bonnor, copy in possession of the author. Google Scholar

58.SeeDabscheck, Australian Industrial Relations, 123, on the thinking in the Society on this matter. Google Scholar

59.Copeman, “The Robe River Affair”;Swain, Strategic Choices, 247. Google Scholar

60.See especiallySwain, Strategic Choices, 234. Google Scholar

61.Copeman quoted inSwain, Strategic Choices, 252. Google Scholar

62.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 79–82.Swain, Strategic Choices, 255–70has a detailed account of this period including State government attempts to find a compromise. Google Scholar

63.Swain, Strategic Choices, 273–74;Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 79–80. Google Scholar

64.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 82–83;Swain, Strategic Choices, 270–71;Bruce Bonnor, interview with author, 16 November2005;Graeme Haynes, former ETU convenor, interview with author, 23 November 2006. Google Scholar

65.Swain, Strategic Choices, 275. Google Scholar

66.SeeRead, Marksy, 321, 347–48;Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 80–81for discussion of growing resentment;Bonnor, interview;Haynes, interview. Google Scholar

67. Workplace News, June1989, no publisher details, copy in possession of author. Google Scholar

68. Ibid. Google Scholar

69.Swain, Strategic Choices, 290;Read, Marksy, 347–52;Bonnor, interview; Haynes, interview; Jim Murie, ETU official, interview with author, 16 November 2005; Lea Anderson, former Pilbara AMWU administrative worker, interview with author, 27 November 2006. Google Scholar

70.Copies fromBruce Bonnor, covering 1987–88, in possession of the author. Google Scholar

71.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 84;Swain, Strategic Choices, 284–88. Google Scholar

72. Australian Financial Review, 19 January1987. Google Scholar

73.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 84. On the “rescaling” of regulation generally, seeSally Weller, “Power and Scale: The Shifting Geography of Industrial Relations Law in Australia,” Antipode 31, no. 5(2007):896–915. On the Pilbara, seeBradon Ellem, “Resource Peripheries and Neo-Liberalism: The Pilbara and the Remaking of Industrial Relations in Australia,” Australian Geographer 46, no. 3(September2015):323–37. Google Scholar

74.Smith andThompson, “Industrial Relations and the Law,” 302. Google Scholar

75.Swain, Strategic Choices, 290. Google Scholar

76.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,” 86. Google Scholar

77. Australian Financial Review, 23 December1987, 5 January1988, 22 March1988. Google Scholar

78.Tsokhas, Beyond Dependence, 194–99. Google Scholar

79.Swain, Strategic Choices, 69. Google Scholar

80.Copeman, “I. R. Lessons from Recent Mining Industry History.” Google Scholar

81.Thompson andSmith, “Conflict at Robe River,”esp.84;Read, Marksy, 347–52. Google Scholar

82.Read, Marksy, 350. Google Scholar

83. Ibid, 348–50; compareLowenstein, Weevils, 178–80;Haynes, interview;Anderson, interview. Also see various issues ofResist to Exist; copies provided to the author by workers but there is a set in the National Library. Google Scholar

84.Lowenstein, Weevils, 178. Google Scholar

85.Harold Peden inLowenstein, Weevils, 179. Google Scholar

86.“Rob”inIbid., 180. Google Scholar

87. Australian Financial Review, 13 April, 22 April1988;Tom McDonald andMalcolm Rimmer, “Award Restructuring and Wages Policy,” Growth 37(1989):111–34. Google Scholar

88. Western Australian Industrial Gazette(hereafterWAIG) 73(1992):382;McDonald andMalcolm Rimmer, “Award Restructuring”;Australian Financial Review, 13 April, 22 April1988. Google Scholar

89. Australian Financial Review, 5 July, 8 July1991;Geoff Spencer, “Seamen Battle Robe River Thug Tactics,” Green Left Weekly, no. 34(1991), accessed August 2015,https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/297. For a full account see the Parliamentary statement by Larry Graham, MLA, Pilbara, Western Australian Legislative Assembly, Hansard, 24 September1991, 4989–95. Google Scholar

90. Australian Financial Review, 13 April, 22 April1988, 1 December1989. ForHamersley Iron, seeBruce Hearn Mackinnon, Behind WorkChoices: How One Company Changed Australia’s Industrial Relations(:Heidelberg Press, 2007), ch. 4. Google Scholar

91. Green Left Weeklyprovided rare analysis: seehttps://www.greenleft.org.au/node/4315; see alsoAustralian Financial Review, 10 December, 22 December1992, 4 June, 16 June1993, 14 July1994. Google Scholar

92.Various issues ofResist to Existattest to this, as do all author’s interviews cited above. For some public hints, seeAustralian Financial Review, 1 December1989; see alsoLowenstein, Weevils, 178–88. Google Scholar

93. WAIG 69(1989):3000;WAIG 70(1990):1659, 2083. Google Scholar

94. WAIG 71(1990):582. Google Scholar

95.Cited inAustralian Financial Review, 1 December1989. Google Scholar

96.For overviews of legislative changes in the States, seeStephen Deery andRichard Mitchell, eds, Employment Relations: Individualisation and Union Exclusion(:The Federation Press, 1999). Google Scholar

97. Australian Financial Review, 24 August1993. For the cancellation of the award, seeWAIG 73(1993):2646. Google Scholar

98.Hearn MacKinnon, Behind WorkChoices, ch. 4. Google Scholar

99.Many of these tactics are summarised inDavid Peetz, Brave New Workplace: How Individual Contracts are Changing Our Jobs(:Allen & Unwin, 2006), ch, 5. For mining, seeJohn T. Ludeke, The Line in the Sand: The Long Road to Staff Employment in Comalco(:Wilkinson Books, 1996). Google Scholar

100.Thompson, “The APPM Dispute.” Google Scholar

101. Australian, 31 December1996. In 2003, when workers in other parts of Rio Tinto’s Pilbara operations voted against an employer-mandated non-union agreement, Robe workers supported it:Bradon Ellem, “New Unionism in the Old Economy: Community and Collectivism in the Pilbara,” Journal of Industrial Relations 45, no. 4(2003):423–41. Google Scholar

102.For an overview, seeEllem, “Unions, Community, Work and Family.” Google Scholar

103.David Peetz, “Decollectivist Strategies in Oceania,” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 57, no. 2(2002):252–53; see alsoHearn Mackinnon, Behind WorkChoices, in general. Google Scholar

104.Stuart Macintyre, “Labour, Capital and Arbitration,”inState and Economy in Australia, ed.Brian Head(:Oxford University Press, 1983), 105. Google Scholar

105.Smith andThompson, “Industrial Relations and the Law,” 304. Google Scholar

106.Quoted inSwain, Strategic Choices, 260. Google Scholar