Talk:1951 New Zealand waterfront dispute

Importance Rating
I disagree with the importance rating. I would say this article ranks as Mid importance since it deals with a major national strike in New Zealand, that had far reaching ramifications for unionism in new Zealand. "...was the largest and most widespread industrial dispute in New Zealand history". Sendervictorius 10:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think you're right, I changed the rating to Mid.--Bookandcoffee 17:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)heeellllllllllloooooooooo

Former classified documents
The SIS is going to release formerly classified information on the dispute soon, it should be available to the public in the next 2 weeks. I've archived a Stuff article about it here, if anyone has time to add relivent information to the article. Lossenelin (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Extremely Disappointing
I'm very sorry to be so critical, but when I entered this discussion page I became quite incensed by what I found in relation to this very uninformative and incomplete article.

Instead of finding a discourse on what was seriously lacking in this article and how to improve this romanticised politically motivated manifesto by including facts such as for example:

1) Damage in terms of cost to the economy of NZ. How did the striking men and their families survive without income for SO long? How did a country so very dependant on imports fair during what must have been such a very arduous time. How did this affect feelings toward the uninists. What happened to the spoiled produce on the docks and on the ships?

2) Positions, strategies and tacticts of major belligerants in greater detail. Plotted out temporally so that readers might get a sense of the event and how things developed and unfolded once union action began. What was the corruption on the docks like and how deep did it go socially etc (or would the writer try to have us believe that New Zealand's docks were/are 'clean'... lol)

3) and most... MOST... importantly (and indeed incredibly and totally amazingly that it should not already be included) the outcome of the dispute! (not a mention! Not even a hint!) Were awards adjusted and if so then by how much etc. Who won on the surface and who lost as it appeared to the public but who perhaps were the REAL winners and who ultimately really lost position, face, power etc.  What happened!!! Details, facts, figures, etc etc etc

4) What happened to the major belligerants post dispute and who were they and what became of them in later political/union or other life

5) What was the long term fallout to unionism/politics in NZ. after this event, due to this action, and how did it change the face of NZ.

6) What was the long term economic effect upon the country.

7) Was there further strike action or other direct effect on the NZ waterfront in later years directly or otherwise ancillary to this incident?

8) Dozens of things that I as a foreign reader cannot even imagine as significant as I had never even heard of this very major incident in New Zealand's history but someone with knowledge or access to further material should be able to come up with without much thought or difficulty.

Instead I found a discussion about the 'relevence rating' of this totally irrelevant article... at least in it's present form. Indeed, and I mean no disrespect at all, but it appears to me that the author/s of this article have lost objectivity and may be far too close to the subject matter. It ends up being like one of those funny stories that someone recounts about a humorous event only to add upon seeing the listeners' blank expressions that "I guess you had to be there"

Outofthewoods (talk) 01:55, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Those best placed to comment on the '51 'dispute' would have a hard time making a balanced article. I haven't seen anything that supported the government/FOL/scab position (see bibliography ) and the passions that it raised are still felt, but mostly by those on the left. The right seems to suffer a collective amnesia in trying to forget that it was a manufactured 'red scare' by a government that become a police state for the duration of the dispute, in support of a tame FOL trying to destroy a break-away faction, and at the behest of US McCarthyism and the Korean war effort. There, I've pretty much ruled myself out as an editor with my POV :)


 * 1) Cost to economy: £50 ~ £150 million, 3 million in lost wages. NZ wasn't so dependent on imports, unless you count the growth in consumerism post-WWII and the lack of new cars and washing machines for the middle classes. NZ was dependent on exports ... and the foreign exchange they bought. In spite of prohibition on supporting the wharfies and their families, plenty of people did support them - with samizdat publishing, food, clothing and money, unions in Australia and the US smuggled money to NZ and the families organised cooperatives to support themselves.
 * 2) "Corruption on the docks" wasn't an issue of the lockout, and if it existed before 15 Feb it certainly existed after 15 July. Government position was to deny a voice to any opposition and to break the union over trying to reach a settlement. Union leaders travelled the country and got support from other unions - freezing workers, miners and railway workers joined the strike
 * 3) Outcomes included the breaking of the national union and the blacklisting of many workers, the creation of 'tame' local unions and the securing of Fintan Patrick Walsh's position. It also damaged the opposition Labour party due to Nash's fence-sitting, and it returned a larger majority National government at the snap election.
 * 4) Holland was returned as PM and stayed in power to 1957. Walsh rose to head the FOL until his death in '63, while Barnes & Hill were broken and blacklisted throughout NZ.
 * 5) Long term effects - Labour eventually dumped the arbitration system in '73, and apart from a few sputters of activity, unionism has been more or less destroyed in NZ ... but that is the case in other western democracies too. OR might suggest that the repressions of '51 set the scene for further removal of union rights - inequality and poverty have grown since the late 1970s, thru the 50s & 60s NZ was comparatively egalatarian.
 * 6) Long term economic ... not sure if it had much effect. That NZ's economy is currently basket-case has more to do with governments from the mid 70s to the mid 90s.
 * 7) I don't know of another watersiders' dispute until the 90s, and that was a local issue. Biggest disputes since then have centred on a couple of major construction projects in the 70s & 80s.
 * 8) See 50th anniversary documentary for more info. Fan  |  talk   17:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Cafh123 (talk) 03:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with outofthewoods, most material surrounding the 1951 Waterfront Dispute is in support of the ‘wharfies’ as opposed to the Government or Federation of Labour for instance. The only side that opposes the action of the wharfies that you may find information about is the opinion of farmers in NZ at the time. After 22 years of low wool prices, the waterfront dispute came at quite a bad time for them as they obviously could not sell their wool when they could not transport it up to Auckland (due to miners striking = no coal for trains) or export it to overseas markets (because the ships weren’t running). The wharfies did get paid more than other workers in NZ at the time, but one should take into consideration that they had to work long hours of overtime and faced terrible and dangerous conditions as shipping companies had no incentive to improve the equipment and machinery down at the docks therefore compromising the safety and health of workers. The government at the time had strict regulations for factory work, however seemed to overlook the less than adequate working conditions down at the waterfront.

In response to the above questions:

1)	All wharfies survived through handouts from neighbours, friends etc. even though it was illegal to help the watersiders once the government imposed the emergency regulations on the nation. Support in the form of money also came from overseas unions such as America and Australia. Does it really matter what happened to the “spoiled produce on the docks and on the ships”? I think focusing on this may be missing the entire point behind the dispute.

2)	Not sure where this person gets the impression that there was “corruption on the docks”. Watersiders were fighting through their unions for better conditions (not given to them by the shipping cartels that employed them) and shorter hours at work, as well as the 15% pay increase that the rest of the nations workers were granted by the Arbitration Court in 1951 (this excluded the watersiders as their employment was controlled by the Waterfront Industry Commission).

3)	The outcome of the dispute was that NO ONE ended up benefiting from the dispute. There was no winner. Other workers (such as freezing workers, miners etc.) from other parts of New Zealand who ended up striking in support of the wharfies gradually had to return to work, and as far as I’m aware the wharfies did not succeed in getting the 15% wage increase. The Government used the whole affair to seize a tight control on the country, took power and civil liberties away from society (i.e. by controlling the press, giving large amounts of power to the police – they were allowed to break up meetings, search properties etc. and people were refused the right to speak openly about the wharfies actions). The major reason for this was that they were trying to help the UK out of the Depression at the time and so were using resources from NZ to do so. Austerity measures in NZ hung around a lot longer than in the UK.

4)	Those who were seen as the ‘troublemakers’ (from the perspective of the government and therefore the majority of society influenced by their propaganda – they used the fear surrounding communism and the Cold War to label ‘unionist militants’ as communists or ‘traitors’) were blacklisted, refused work back on the waterfront as well as many other places of employment.

5)	In 1973 the Arbitration system was abolished, in 1991 the ECA (Employment Contracts Act) basically took all power away from unions – i.e. they weren’t even mentioned in the legislation. The ERA (Employment Relations Act) brought in in 2000 attempted to remedy this but there seems to be quite a lot of ill-feeling surrounding unions since the waterfront dispute.

6)	I’m afraid I’m unaware of the long term economic effects on the country.

If you google ‘1951 waterfront dispute nz’ it comes up with a whole host of resources and information surrounding this event. There is a fantastic documentary http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/1951-2001 which outlines what happened. Cafh123 (talk) 03:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

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--JeffGBot (talk) 17:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Sympathy strikes
The article says "The miners and seamen who held sympathy strikes were likewise beaten." but gives no further information about these strikes or what the government did. Reading the news reporting of the day, the miners, at least, went on strike because of the emergency regulations passed by the government; At least that was reason they gave to explain it was not a sympathy strike. The mine-workers strike resulted in a severe nation-wide coal shortage by the end of March, quite early in the dispute. The government sent the navy in to work the West Coast mines, while in the Waikato, open-cast mine-workers had returned to work at the beginning of April 1951 and, because of ill-feelings, were protected by the police. Dynamiting of a railway bridge on 30 April gave Prime Minister Holland the opportunity to set up the "Civil Emergency Organization" on 1 May, to support the police, claiming that coal supplies were threatened, although coal-trains were running "as normal" by then, after a brief stoppage on the day of the incident. Some of the "histories" of the dispute gloss over these events and their cause and effect. The article should, at least, present a timeline of the significant events in the dispute, along with actions taken by local civil authorities in setting up "emergency committees", along with the police in dealing with protests and civil disorder. In some respects, the dispute was the Holland Government's response to a Red Scare, and meant the country did not descend into protracted form of McCarthyism. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 00:55, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Chronology of the dispute
The Press published a rough chronology of the significant events relating to the waterfront dispute on 20 July 1951. Even though that list seems mostly confined to the actions of various unions along with the employers and government responses, it might serve as a useful starting point for more detailed research.
 * See: Papers Past - Waterfront Strike: Chronology of Events, Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26478, 20 July 1951, Page 8.

What this list omits is a wider understanding of the impact of the dispute on the New Zealand economy and society. - Cameron Dewe (talk) 10:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Dates for the 151 days of the lockout
Currently the LEAD gives the length of the dispute as 151 days and period of the dispute as 13 February to 15 July 1951. That makes 153 days by my calculation, if you count both dates. The Waterside Workers' Union Loyalty Card gives the dates of the 151 days of the lockout as 15 February to 15 July 1951, which I assume includes both dates, for having 151 days. Although the Waterside Workers Union recommended a return to work on 11 July 1951, branches still needed to hold meetings to ratify that decision and then register with new union this meant most watersiders only returned to work on Monday, 16 July 1951, or Tuesday, 17 July 1951. However, if one counts the duration of the overall dispute, not the lockout, from when the watersiders first rejected the employers offer on 8 February 1951 to the last watersiders returning to work on 17 July, on needs to add another 8 days, to get 159 days, or two days short of 23 weeks. Cameron Dewe (talk) 06:45, 20 December 2022 (UTC)