Unions Exposed As War Saboteurs

[icyfroth]

AS the Abbott government begins to take on union power and corruption, a timely new book reveals the union movement's role in one of the most shameful periods of Australian history.

What the wharfies did to Australian troops - and their nation's war effort - between 1939 and 1945 is nothing short of an abomination.

Perth lawyer Hal Colebatch has done the nation a service with his groundbreaking book, Australia's Secret War, telling the untold story of union **bleep**ry during World War 2.

Using diary entries, letters and interviews with key witnesses, he has pieced together with forensic precision the tale of how Australia's unions sabotaged the war effort, how wharfies vandalised, harassed, and robbed Australian troop ships, and probably cost lives.

One of the most obscene acts occurred in October, 1945, at the end of the war, after Australian soldiers were released from Japanese prison camps. They were half dead, starving and desperate for home. But when the British aircraft-carrier HMS Speaker brought them into Sydney Harbour, the wharfies went on strike. For 36 hours, the soldiers were forced to remain on-board, tantalisingly close to home. This final act of cruelty from their countrymen was their thanks for all the sacrifice.

Colebatch coolly recounts outrage after outrage.

In Adelaide, American soldiers fired sub-machine guns at wharfies deliberately destroying their aircraft engines by dropping them from great heights. Australian soldiers had to draw bayonets to stop the same Adelaide wharfies from stealing food meant for troops overseas.

You will read this book with mounting fury.

Colebatch offers various explanations for the treasonous behaviour of the unions. Many of the leaders were Communists obsessed with class warfare. Fervent "identity politics" led them to believe they were victims and servicemen and women were "puppets of capitalism whose lives were of no consequence". Contrary to popular belief, strikes and sabotage continued, even after the Soviet Union became an ally, writes Colebatch, who contends that the Australian Left may have wanted to undermine the military in preparation for revolution after the war.

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Methinks that book will be very interesting reading.

More About The Author

[boris1gary]

The wharfies who stopped ‘Pig Iron Bob’

FOR a few hours last Friday, Port Kembla was transported back to the 1930s for a 75th anniversary re-enactment of an industrial dispute that changed the shape of Australian history.

On 15 November 1938, 180 wharfies prevented pig iron being loaded onto ships bound for the Japanese war machine.

The incident is now the subject of a full-length film documentary under production called Pig Iron Bob.

Back in 1938, reports were making their way back to Australia of the brutalities carried out by the Japanese Imperial Army when Ted Roach, then-Branch Secretary for the Waterside Workers’ Federation, addressed the men at the labour pick up for the ship – the Dalfram. He told the men of the destination of the pig iron and the uses the Japanese would make of it: bombs – first against the Chinese and eventually against Australia.

In protest, men walked off the ship declaring they refused to load pig iron for Japan to turn into weapons.

Important part of union history

The lockout lasted for nine weeks, during which Attorney-General and aspiring Prime Minister Robert Menzies went to Wollongong to try and end the gridlock.

Menzies was met by an angry crowd and it was there he was awarded the nickname that would haunt him for the rest of his life, after a woman in the crowd heckled him with “Pig Iron Bob”.

Maritime Union of Australia South New South Wales branch secretary Garry Keane says the Dalfram Dispute was an important part of union history.

“It set a precedent in Australia, in that it was not about terms and conditions of employment but purely about social justice and trade union members doing what was right for the protection of vulnerable peoples,” Keane says.

“Those brave workers paved the way for many international solidarity movements the MUA and the wider trade union movement carries out today.”

[silverfaun]

Thanks for posting this, I have read all  about the traitorous actions of unions during wartime, it makes me sick. They were safe at home whilst a generation of young men lost their lives defending these ................ I cannot write what I'd like to say.

Unions  should be abolished completely, we no longer need them,  if we ever did.

Rotten from the head down, greedy grasping and power hungry .

[spotweldersfriend]

He is/was a member of the Liberal party eh?

[lakeland27]

if you feel inclined to check out 'Quadrant' further its obvious why this inventive piece of fiction gets a run there. there was a lot of ill-feeling from the Australian side in regard to the very well paid US troops, the idea that it was a union plot is ludicrous,

[boris1gary]

The Pig-Iron Song

Did you ever stop to wonder why the fellows on the job
Refer to Robert Menzies by the nickname Pig-Iron Bob?
It's a fascinating tale though it happened long ago
It's a part of our tradition every worker ought to know

Chorus
We wouldn't load pig-iron for the fascists of Japan
Despite intimidation we refused to lift the ban
With democracy at stake the struggle must be won
We had to beat the menace of the fascist Rising Sun

It was 1937 and aggressive Japanese
Attacked the Chinese people tried to bring them to their knees
Poorly armed and ill equipped the peasants bravely fought
While Australian water siders rallied round to lend support

Attorney General Menzies said the ship would have to sail
"If the men refuse to load it we will throw them into jail"
But our unity was strong - we were solid to a man
And we wouldn't load pig-iron for the fascists of Japan

For the Judas politicians we would pay a heavy price
The jungles of New Guinea saw a costly sacrifice
There's a lesson to be learned that we've got to understand
Peace can only be secured when the people lend a hand

[icyfroth]

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@spotweldersfriend wrote:
He is/was a member of the Liberal party eh?

---

'Asked about being “very right-wing”, Hal says, “Such a reputation is a surprise to me; I think of myself as mainstream. I just do what I do. Some have attacked me after first distorting what I wrote.”'

[silverfaun]

There is NO  defence any left can put up here to defend what those traitors did. Scampering around trying to discredit the messenger is par for the left on here when an article is put up they don't like.

[icyfroth]

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@lakeland27 wrote:

if you feel inclined to check out 'Quadrant' further its obvious why this inventive piece of fiction gets a run there. there was a lot of ill-feeling from the Australian side in regard to the very well paid US troops

O is that what it was...?

So they took it out on the Aussie Soldiers as well, not to show favouritism?

'A planned rescue of Australian PoWs in Borneo late in the war apparently had to be abandoned, writes Colebatch, because a wharf strike in Brisbane meant the ships had no heavy weapons.'

'There was no act too low for the unionists. For instance, in 1941, hundreds of soldiers on board a ship docked in Freemantle entrusted personal letters to wharfies who offered to post them in return for beer money. The letters never arrived.'

'Almost every major Australian warship was targeted throughout the war, with little intervention from an enfeebled Prime Minister Curtin. There was the deliberate destruction by wharfies of vehicles and equipment, theft of food being loaded for soldiers, snap strikes, go-slows, demands for "danger money" for loading biscuits.'

, the idea that it was a union plot is ludicrous,

O of course it is

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[lakeland27]

'A planned rescue of Australian PoWs in Borneo late in the war apparently had to be abandoned, writes Colebatch, because a wharf strike in Brisbane meant the ships had no heavy weapons.'

there's that disclaimer in a word Again.  Apparently being a word used when there is a lack of evidence or proof.  the author came to this conclusion but cannot back it up . BZZZZT .. Dismissed .