HISTORY – Shearer’s strike 1891 - Australia’s first big industrial dispute

The Great Shearers' Strike of 1891 was one of Australia’s first big industrial disputes.

By 1891, wool had become an enormous industry in Australia. Shearers at the Logan Downs Shearing Station in Queensland already believed their pay rates and conditions were unacceptable, but were further angered when the station began to employed non-union men to do the work.

The union representing the shearers wanted the station to form an agreement, stating that the shearers’ pay would not be reduced and that their rights would be protected. However because he wanted to reduce union influence, Logan Downs Station Manager Charles Fairbain wanted the shearers to sign the Pastoralists Association contract of free labor. On the January 5 1891, the shearers refused to work unless the station agreed to their union’s terms.

More than 1000 men downed shears and marched through the streets demanding better conditions. The potential for revolution dissolved when Aborigines, Kanaka Islanders and Chinese immigrants were enlisted to work for even cheaper wages.

The striking shearers formed themselves into bush camps while they waited for their union organisers to negotiate.

Concluding the strike, the colonial administration ordered the arrest of the shearers' leaders and mounted troopers went to the camps and arrested the unionists involved. They were charged under British legislation with conspiracy and sedition. It was a mortal blow to the union and the shearers and by June the strike had collapsed. Thirteen of the union leaders were brought to trial at Rockhampton, and were sentenced to three years jail at the St Helena island prison.

The harsh suppression of this strike made many people in the trade union movement see the limitations of industrial action and the need for a political party to represent the interests of working people. Separate labor parties, called Labor Leagues, were formed in Queensland and in New South Wales, quickly taking a prominent role in politics. The parties later joined to become the Australian Labor Party.