Waihi’s story is history in the present tense…
by Alison McCulloch
Images of Waihi mining in the 1920s and 30s from “Through the
Eyes of a Miner: The photographs of Joseph Divis” by Simon Nathan.
(Steele Roberts, 2010)
Besides
sitting atop a gold mine, the town of Waihi rests on some political and
economic fault lines that stretch from the present right back to the
town’s European origins. Perhaps the most pivotal event in that history,
aside from the discovery of gold itself, was the miners strike which
began 100 years ago in May and ended six-and-a-half months later, after
the death on 12 November 1912 of one of the strikers, Fred Evans.
It’s a history that has been much chronicled, studied and disputed. The short version of the strike, and the one given on the
Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s NZ History Online,
portrays it as a clash between members of a militant Federation of
Labour (the so-called Red Feds) and backers of a company-inspired
breakaway union for engine-drivers, with some state-sponsored violence
thrown in for good measure.
But of course, it’s not that simple. Historians like Jeremy Mouat (in his paper the
Ultimate Crisis of the Waihi Gold Mining Company)
contend that the duelling unions account understates the role of the
company, which was happy to let the Martha mine lie idle “so that it
[the company] could come to terms with the mine’s deteriorating position
as an ore-producer”. And what about the wider political environment at
the time, in particular the circumstance that gave rise to the
establishment of the Red Feds in the first place? That’s a part of the
story addressed by another historian, Erik Olssen, in his book of the
same name,
The Red Feds.
The most recent telling of the strike story was written by Mary Carmine, a Waihi local, titled
Perspectives of a Strike: Waihi 1912.
Carmine, a longtime councillor in Waihi, opens her 112-page book by
explaining that she wrote it “for the people of Waihi so that they can
know their own history, not be ashamed of it and can understand the
actions of their ancestors”.
Carmine’s take definitely has its supporters (it was recommended to
me by a spokesman from the current mining company in town, Newmont Waihi
Gold, and a Hauraki District Council official) as well as its critics.
Among the latter is Joce Jesson, one of the organisers of the Labour
History Project’s centenary seminar, scheduled for 10-11 November in
Waihi. In a review due to appear in the LHP’s August Newsletter, Jesson
applauds Carmine’s bravery in tackling the issue, but sees her book as
“the revision of a received truth”.
“Without some sense of significant structures,” Jesson writes, “this
work boils down to a trite story about individuals threatening and
fighting over what union they should be covered by. There is no sense as
to why people were prepared to go to such lengths in defence of the
idea of the right to strike, why working with non-union labour was seen
as a safety matter, nor what the ultimate goal might be for the
strikers.”
Challenging
the “received truth” is one of the goals of the LHP’s November seminar.
As well as a series of papers by New Zealand and Australian historians,
the LHP programme (see a draft schedule below) will be supported by a
series of cultural events, including a “Waihi oratorio” specially
written and directed by South Island playwright Paul Maunder; the launch
of “Gold Strike,” an exhibition by
Wellington artist Bob Kerr; and a commemorative ceremony for Fred Evans.
Mark Derby is the chair of the LHP, a non-profit society that works
to preserve and promote the history of working life in New Zealand.
Derby and the other organisers have made several trips to Waihi in the
past year and he says they’re in no doubt that the community feels
ambivalent about the impending arrival in their town of academics,
political activists and others determined to rake up the ugly and
uncertain events of a century ago. He said while the LHP has received
support from community leaders, “we’re well aware that some locals would
rather we stayed away, and will be happy when this awkward anniversary
is safely over and done with”.
Some of the current tensions in town, Derby says, likely date back to
those years. It’s not clear how many of the strikers – all of whom were
eventually driven from Waihi with the tacit support of the Police –
returned to work and settle there, he says, “but I think it likely that
those families who can trace their origins back as far as 1912 – and
such a pedigree is a source of considerable status in any close-knit
community – are most likely to descend from those who opposed the
strike, or were at least neutral, rather than those who supported it.”
Back then, the Martha mine one of the world’s greatest, helping to
swell the town’s population in 1901 to around 4,000. (It now stands at
4,500.) The year of the strike, Martha produced more than £330,000 worth
of gold, down from a peak of £960,000 three years earlier. According to
Mouat, a thousand men were working the mine – well over twice the
400-odd workers that today operate not just Martha, but Waihi’s other
operations, Trio and Favona.
But going even farther back, before it was the Martha pit, this gold
mine was Pukewa – a “broad hill with a pale outcrop of rock … a sacred
place,” as Stanley Roche describes it in her book,
The Red and the Gold. And
that’s another twist in the Waihi saga, one that remains largely
invisible in the contemporary disputes about blasting, dust, vibrations,
tailings dams, economic stress, depressed property values. The hill is
gone, and nothing can bring it back. A 2009 social impact report
commissioned by the Newmont noted that the mining of Pukewa “had a
significant negative impact on the spiritual connection of local Maori
with the land.”
The report went on to quote a comment from one of those researchers
interviewed for their study. “There is an emptiness for Maori here in
Waihi,” the unidentified resident said.
Remember Waihi – Draft Centenary Seminar Programme
Saturday 10 November 2012
8.30 am – 12.00 Waihi Community Hall, Seddon St, Waihi
in collaboration with the Australian Mining History Association
Session one
Prelude To The Strike? The 1911 New Zealand Royal Commission on Mines
In the first decade of the 20th century, royal commissions
in both Australia and New Zealand sought to deal with growing public
and political concerns about their mining industries, especially
occupational health and safety issues. The report of the 1911 New
Zealand Royal Commission on Mines was the outcome of one of those
inquiries, and is an under-utilised source for understanding mining at
Waihi in the period immediately prior to the 1912 strike. This
presentation is concerned with its narratives from Waihi miners and
their union representatives, and its data on fatalities, injuries, and
industrial illness. It also focuses on the system of workers’
compensation in the Waihi mining industry around that time, and its
significance for industrial relations.
Hazel Armstrong is a Wellington lawyer specializing in employment law and occupational health and safety. She is the author of “Blood on the Coal: The Origins and Future of New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Scheme”
(Labour History Project, Wellington, 2008).
Tom Ryan has been a miner and union activist in both Australia and New
Zealand, and now teaches anthropology at Waikato University. He has
family links to Waihi, as reflected in “The Miners Thumbs: Re-Membering the Past in the Waihi Museum”
(NZ Journal of Literature, 2:1, 71-97, 2005).
The Waihi Strike – Some New Evidence
In recent years. the Waihi museum acquired a large and unusual cache of
primary documents – letters, telegrams, reports and publications –
dealing with the Waihi strike. They formed part of the personal
collection of an Auckland unionist closely involved with the strike from
the outset and include many documents not previously cited in any
published work. This paper examines the historical significance of this
collection.
Mark Derby is the chair of the Labour History Project
Striking A Balance – An Oral History of the Waihi Strike
In 2005 Newmont Waihi Gold initiated and funded an oral history project
to record the memories of elderly former miners and their families. The
interviews have uncovered divergent stories of the same event but it has
become obvious that no one involved; the strikers, the ‘scabs’ or the
constabulary, were lily white. This presentation uses material obtained
from interviews carried out in conjunction with the Newmont Waihi Gold /
Waihi Heritage Vision Oral history Project, with descendants of
families living in Waihi during the 1912 Waihi Miners’ Strike.
Doreen McLeod is a longterm resident of Waihi and the current manager of
Newmont’s interactive visitor centre ‘Waihi’s Gold Story’.
Session two
The 1912 Strike – Casting A Long Shadow Over Waihi
This paper is based on my childhood memories of Waihi in
the 1940s. My grandfather had worked at the battery during the 1912
strike and my father often mentioned the strike, which evidently had
huge and longlasting implications for the local community. During my
early years at school, we learned not to associate with kids whose
families still wore the scab label. By contrast, we were required to be
‘good mates’ with the children of the men who were on ‘our side.’ I
suspect some kids grew up feeling outcasts – everyone knew they were
tainted by their parents’ past.
Peter McAra has worked as a mine truck
driver and consultant chemical engineer. He is now a writer, and
part-time lecturer at the University of Wollongong
Chasing the Scarlet Runners – Women in Waihi
The women of Waihi played an active and innovative part in
the 1912 strike, often stepping well beyond the accepted bounds of
female behaviour for that period. Some, known by the admiring name of
the ‘scarlet runners’, acted as covert couriers for the strikers, often
at considerable personal risk. This paper examines the place of women in
Waihi during the most tumultuous events in the town’s history.
Cybele Locke is a lecturer in history at Victoria
University. She once played for a social netball team called the Scarlet
Runners.
Women’s Voices and Mine Safety
Stanley Roche published
The Red and the Gold, an Informal Account of the Waihi Strike
in 1984. This book breathed new life into the popular understanding of
the Waihi Strike by portraying the strike as a personal and not just a
political event. From listening to and recording the voices of the
people who experienced the Waihi strike as children, Roche developed the
view that history is unreal unless it includes details of day-to-day
domestic life, including women’s roles. This paper will trace the
research that led Roche to challenge the commonly held view of the women
of Waihi as strikebreakers. It will also critically examine the role
played by modern day mining companies and unions in ensuring the safety
of miners and by association that of their “wives, mothers, and
sweethearts”.
Louise Roche is the daughter of Stanley Roche. With Alfred Hill.
12.30- 1 .30 – Lunch – self-catered
1.30 – 5pm Friendship Hall, School Lane, Waihi
Session three
Launch Pad for Waihi: the Forgotten Strike Victory of Wellington’s Tramway Workers
In January 1912, 400 Wellington council ‘trammies’ tapped a growing mood
of defiance to arbitration and went on strike over a ‘scab’ inspector.
The council capitulated after six days and the
NZ Truth
newspaper celebrated ‘The Tram Men’s Triumph, What Organised Labour
Accomplished.’ This paper argues that this strike victory was a ‘false
dawn’ of sorts for the nascent union movement, as the government changed
and industrial relations descended into acrimony, even bloodshed,
during 1912.
Redmer Yska is a Wellington journalist and historian. His latest book, “The NZ Truth – the rise and fall of the people’s paper
,”
was published in 2010.
A Tale of Two Strikes- the 1908 Blackball Strike and the 1912 Waihi Strike Compared
The 1908 Blackball coalminers’ and 1912 Waihi goldminers’ strikes were
both important events in the Red Fed era of 1908 to 1913; a period of
heightened militant industrial action in New Zealand. The Blackball
strike was carried out with almost comic opera good humour. There were
no scabs, no industrial violence, and no government intervention. Waihi
in contrast, resembled the violent strikes taking place in the USA in
the same period, with the local workforce and community torn in two.
This paper will compare the two strikes, illustrating how the New
Zealand industrial and social situation changed from 1908 to 1913. In
particular it will look at how the attitudes and aspirations of
unionists, employers and government helped create the most dramatic
period of class conflict New Zealand has so far experienced.
Peter Clayworth is a Wellington historian. He is writing a biography of miners’ leader Pat Hickey.
The IWW and the Waihi Strike
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was formed in the USA in 1905
with the goal of establishing a socialist society in which workers
controlled the means of production. Initially IWW ideas had some
influence on the New Zealand Federation of Labour. The Waihi strike,
however, bought the differences between the IWW and the NZFL executive
to the fore. This paper re-examines the role and influence of IWW
philosophies on the miners of Waihi, and argues that they had more
support and a bigger influence on the union, individuals and strategies
than previously thought.
Stuart Moriarty-Patten recently completed a thesis at Massey University on the IWW in early 20th-century New Zealand.
Session Four
The Aftermath of the 1912 Waihi Strike and the Second Wave of Syndicalism
In 1920, Waihi miners went on strike, and won their demands. In contrast
with 1912, both miners and engineers struck, and many strikers left
Waihi voluntarily to work temporarily in the Waikato coalfields. This
paper questions the common assumption that the repression of workers’
militancy in 1912-13 and during WW1 ushered in a period of moderation
and quietude on the industrial front. The 1920 Waihi strike was part of a
wider national and international upsurge in class struggle that
occurred in New Zealand from 1917 until the early 1920s.
Toby Boraman is a Wellington historian and author of “Rabble rousers and merry pranksters: a history of
anarchism in Aotearoa/New Zealand from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s” (2007)
Confrontation and Continuity: Waihi Beyond 1912
Histories of Waihi highlight the passions and significance of the 1912
strike, but typically frame it as a local skirmish in a larger
confrontation between the revolutionary ‘Red Feds’ and Massey’s Reform
government. Moreover, the involvement of future Labour Cabinet ministers
like Bill Parry and Tim Armstrong has encouraged a simplistic view of
industrial defeat turning the labour movement towards the ballot box,
placing Waihi within a linear political narrative leading to the Labour
Party’s 1935 election victory. This focus on leadership and ideology,
and conflict rather than continuity, has obscured a more complex history
of mining, unionism and local politics in Waihi before and after 1912.
By broadening our view of Waihi beyond those few dramatic months a
century ago, we can seek to unearth a richer story of labour and life in
the gold town.
Neill Atkinson is Chief Historian at Manatū Taonga – the
Ministry for Culture and Heritage. A former committee member of the
Labour History Project, he has written widely on transport, political
and labour history.
Then and Now, There and Here: From Waihi to Western Australia
New Zealand and Australia have long had close connections, with workers,
activists and ideas moving between the two lands. These close ties
continue in many ways today: at organisational levels, with inter-union
ties and multi-national enterprises; at the personal, as workers move
between the two countries in search of jobs; and at analytical levels,
as scholars and activists learn from one another across the Tasman. One
of the major manifestations of these linkages lies in a site as far from
New Zealand as one can travel without leaving Australasia, in Western
Australia’s booming iron ore mines. Here, many New Zealanders have found
work, and some have become leading unionists. Ironically one of the
major employers of these men and women is Rio Tinto, whose current
anti-union strategies were first honed at the bottom of the South Island
of New Zealand, at the Tiwai Point smelter in 1991. This paper is an
analysis of contemporary struggles for union survival in iron ore
mining. In the course of asking what it is that workers and researchers
can learn from history and other places, the importance of the exchange
between past and present is highlighted in showing how both employers
and unions have sought to use their reading of history as well as local
political power, the courts and class alliances to advance their
interests.
Bradon Ellem is chair of the Work and Organisational Studies
Discipline in the University of Sydney Business School, a Visiting
Professor at the Curtin University Graduate Business School and editor, Journal of Industrial Relations.
