‘To Organise Wherever the Necessity Exists’: the
Activities of the Organising Committee of the Labor
Council of NSW, 1900-10

Rae Cooper ^*

We know surprisingly little about the organising activities of Australian unions. The conventional wisdom, in line with the ‘dependency thesis’, is that unions have received rather than shaped their growth. The research presented here challenges some of the central assumptions of the dependency thesis arguing that the extension of unionism in New South Wales in the first decade of the twentieth century owed greatly to the agency of trade unionists and particularly to the work of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW. This article outlines the Committee’s methods, motivations and significant achievements in forming and recruiting into existing unions in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Organising is a critical concern for unions in 2002. Unions now represent only a quarter of the workforce, previously sacrosanct union rights have been wound back and anti-union employer activism is on the rise.1 Unions have responded to these challenges in a variety of ways. In the early 1990s restructuring and amalgamations were seen as the remedy to union woes. However in more recent times ‘organising’ has been emphasised as a key to survival.2 Despite this interest in organising we know surprisingly little about how Australian unions have traditionally undertaken this role. Indeed the issue of union growth has often been dealt with in an extremely circumscribed manner in the Australian historical literature. Reflecting the ‘dependency thesis’, there is a tendency to assume that Australian unions have not actively grown their membership and have relied instead upon the state, and in particular the arbitration system, to deliver membership growth.3	1
This article attempts in a small way to improve our understanding of the historical agency of trade unionists in building their organisations, though a study of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council of NSW in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Committee and its members exerted considerable energy on reorganising NSW workers after the massive defeats of the 1890s and played a critical role in the great upsurge of unionism in the ten years after the turn of the century. The article suggests that the agency of members of the Committee was important in shaping the union movement that resulted. The evidence presented here suggests that while the newly introduced arbitration system did play an important role in the union growth in the period it did not guarantee that unions would flourish. The article is structured as follows. Section one reviews the literature on historical union organising in Australia, including the ‘dependency thesis’ developed by W.A. Howard and critiques of this approach. The second section reviews the operation and activity of the Organising Committee, beginning with a brief review of the Committee’s operation in the early 1890s, before moving to a broader analysis of the activity of the Committee in the first decade of the new century. This section details the breadth of organising activity, outlines the impact that key women activists had upon the agenda of the Committee, analyses the methods and motivations of the Committee as well as the obstacles they faced in their work. The final section of the article provides some conclusions in relation to the research and suggests that it poses challenges to the traditional approach to union growth and union organising.	2
Union Organising in the Literature, ‘Dependency’ and Critiques
Trade union organising has been, at best, a marginal concern within labour history and industrial relations. Probably the best-known writer dealing with trade union organising in Australia is Howard who developed the ‘dependency thesis’. Howard argued that the peculiarities of Australian unions could be directly related to the relationship forged between the state and the labour movement through the establishment of and operation of arbitration in the first decade of the century. The arbitration system, according to Howard, sheltered the unions from the fluctuations of the market and the ravages of ‘internecine warfare’ with employers.4 Unions were afforded recognition allowing them to survive in the face of employer opposition, were protected from undercutting by non-union labour and from membership poaching by predatory unions.5 In relation to organising, Howard argued that arbitration and awards ‘took the place of union organisation, and the rebirth of unionism depended heavily upon state assistance’.6 Thus, according to his thesis, the state through its benevolence obviated the need for unions to strengthen their bargaining power by organising new members. Other researchers have concurred with Howard’s argument. For instance Griffin and Scarcebrook argue that Australian trade unions have relied heavily upon the legal protections afforded to the by the arbitration system to the detriment of ‘membership preferences and organising drives’.7 Hince has agreed with the central elements of the dependency thesis and suggested that it is similarly applicable in the New Zealand context.8	3
Howard’s key arguments are echoed in many broader Australian labour histories. Howard finds support among some historians examining union growth in the first decade of the twentieth century. For instance, Martin argues that growth during this period can be explained exclusively by the introduction of the arbitration system:	4
Arbitration directly promotes union formation and growth ... The statistics of unionism between the turn of the century and 1914, in the period in which arbitration was introduced, provide one indication of this.9
Others have argued that a combination of the effects of arbitration and an improvement of economic conditions can explain the increase in union membership early in the twentieth century.10
This analysis precludes consideration of other critical issues: be they structural, such as the shifting balance of class forces or more subjective, such as the actions of unions themselves. However it is not simply a problem of omission. Excluding the actions of the labour movement in interacting with and shaping the environment in which they operate robs unions of any broader role. Whilst any credible analysis must certainly account for the context in which unions operate it is vital to recognise the agency of the labour movement in any historical period. In recent years a number of writers have mounted critiques of Howard’s thesis on these grounds.	5
Sheldon argues that arbitration was not a direct catalyst for union growth, rather it provided an ‘indirect’ and ‘antagonistic’ stimulus to unionism.11 Nor did arbitration prove the boon for unions that Howard argues it was, instead it was a time-consuming, costly process that was of far greater benefit to employers.12 Markey, Macarthy and Sheil have argued that organising played a critical role in the extension of unionism in the period from 1900-10.13 Markey and Sheil’s work dealt specifically with the activities of the Labor Council in the early twentieth century. Markey argued that organising was a critical task of the Council in the early decades of the century. These efforts were motivated by the industrial necessity to overcome the shattering defeats of the 1890s.14 Sheil similarly argued that trade unionism early in the century was ‘present at its own extension’ rather than being a ‘dead husk’ upon which legal and political factors acted.15 However Sheil presented different motivations to Markey for the organising activities of the Labor Council. He argued that it was an attempt by the conservative craft unionists, aided by arbitration to create ‘bogus’ unions, in order to maintain control over the labour movement.16 When telling the story of the Organising Committee the article builds upon the work of these critics to question some of the key assumptions of Howard and other advocates of the ‘dependency thesis’.	6
The Depression, the War Against Unionism and the Union Response
In 1891, after a period of frenetic development from the mid-1880s, union density in New South Wales stood at 21.5 per cent, as unionism ‘broadened’ to represent workers who had previously remained untouched by unionism. As a result of this ‘broadening’ the colony’s labour movement could boast that they were the most highly organised workforce in the world.17 In the period from the 1880s to 1890s unions throughout the country also consolidated to achieve ‘closer’ organisation.18 One indication of this was the increase in affiliations to Labour Councils throughout the colonies. In New South Wales, affiliations to the Labor Council more than tripled between 1885 mid-1890. By June 1890, affiliations had reached an unprecedented 35,000 members, representing over 60 per cent of the unionists in the colony.19 The success of the push for ‘closer’ and ‘broader’ labour organisation in the late 1880s and early 1890s led the Secretary of the Council to announce in 1891 that: ‘never before in the history of the Council has such phenomenal uniform progress been made in so brief a period’.20	7
By the mid-1890s there was little sign of the well-organised and militant movement that had begun the decade. Throughout the 1890s the New South Wales union movement was engaged in open warfare with colonial employers.21 The unions decisively lost each battle they fought. Employers, encouraged by each victory, and spurred on by the effects of the deep economic crisis into which the colony had sunk, mounted a campaign to rid their workplaces of union influence, and to cut production costs via wage reductions and sackings. Employers also engaged in a more covert war against the unions. There is evidence that in industries ranging from transport to hospitality that employers victimised and intimidated activists and would-be activists, through the use of tactics such as black listing and surveillance of union activities, preventing unions from establishing a permanent presence in many workplaces.22	8
This employer onslaught coupled with massive unemployment left the unions decimated.23 Even skilled unions were hard hit by unemployment, for instance in 1893 the Stonemasons stated that of their 650 members, 77 per cent were unemployed.24 In this environment, maintenance of union standards became difficult; most workers who remained in employment laboured for what were previously thought substandard rates and under poor conditions.25 Buckley and Wheelwright have estimated that throughout the 1890s most workers had their wages reduced from between 10 and 35 per cent.26 In some trades and industries the cuts were higher, for instance Ellem suggests that by the mid-1890s tailors had their wages reduced by over 50 per cent.27 As well as paying less in wages, employers were in a position to introduce methods of payment, which previously had been resisted by the unions in various trades, such as the piece system introduced in the furniture industry.28	9
The times were indeed ‘very unpropitious for trade unionism’.29 As early as 1892 the union movement was in disarray, and by the mid-1890s even unions that had not been directly involved in the industrial battles of the early 1890s were collapsing. It is difficult to quantify accurately the extent of the falling off in union membership throughout the 1890s. Few official statistics measuring union penetration in the pre-1890s period exist and for the 1890s such data is virtually nonexistent.30 However we do know that the crisis was manifested in two ways: first, there was a reduction in the number of union members across industry; second and partly resulting from this, a number of trade unions actually ceased to exist.	10
One of the largest and most powerful unions in Australia, boasting 20,000 members on the eve of the maritime strike, was the Amalgamated Shearer’s Union.31 After suffering massive defeats in the ‘freedom of contract’ disputes the union was in disarray and by the turn of the century the union had lost 50-60 per cent of its New South Wales membership.32 Urban unions also went backward from the membership increases and organisational consolidation that had characterised the period from the mid-1880s to 1890. The ‘tin gods’, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, lost one third of their membership Australia wide between 1891 and 1895.33 The Stonemasons, another previously powerful craft union, fared even worse, virtually collapsing after a strike in 1893.34 However, the unions of skilled workers appear to have weathered the industrial storms of the 1890s better than the unskilled workers’ unions. Total collapse was more common among unions organising the unskilled. The majority of these unions were small, and organised on an occupational and in some cases workplace basis;most had collapsed by the end of the depression.35 The short life span of these unions is illustrated by data on union registration under the Trade Union Act. Of the 59 unions registered between 1890 and 1891, 88 per cent did not see the end of the year of their formation.36	11
The labour movement adopted a number of strategies in response to the organisational and membership crises of the 1890s. Much has been written of the movement into parliamentary politics via the formation and sponsorship of the Labor Party, and support for compulsory arbitration.37 They were, however, not the only responses to the defeats of the 1890s. An equally important response of unions was to reorganise and rebuild. The following part of the section briefly reviews this strategy.	12
Reorganising and Rebuilding: 1890s
One of the major lessons learned by New South Wales unions from the experience of the ‘great strikes’ was that unorganised labour posed a threat to successful industrial action and to the survival of unionism. Labour leaders began calling for strategies to extend unionism to unorganised sections of the workforce. In this vein, in 1891, the Australasian Shearers Union suggested:	13
Unions should be made as attractive as possible and the chief aim should be to gather as many of the workers as possible into the ranks, instead of raising barricades with a view to keeping them out, which fault many unions have been guilty of in the past.38
The labour movement of New South Wales did not await the introduction of arbitration, or the election of a Labor government, before it embarked upon the campaign to this end. In the midst of the maritime strike, Mr Colebrook, delegate for the Printers presented the following motion to a Sydney Trades and Labour Council meeting:
That a committee be appointed to be known as the Organising Committee, who shall be empowered to take all necessary steps for the formation of new societies, as well as affording assistance to any society requiring help with a view to inducing non-unionists to join their ranks or other means of strengthening the same.39
The motion was carried, and the Organising Committee was duly formed, holding its first meeting just under two months later on 11 October 1890.40 Over the next four years, the members of the Committee organised a number of new unions in Sydney and the suburbs, across a wide range of industries, occupations and workplaces. At the same time, the Committee attempted to bolster the organisational basis of many unions that were losing the battle to survive in the context of depression and employer assaults.
The efforts in the first two years of the decade were fruitful. For instance, in 1891 alone the Committee claimed to have organised 16 new unions.41 Amongst these was the Female Employees Union, whose secretary Creo Stanley, after the union’s inauguration became both delegate to Council and member of the Organising Committee. Stanley was the first woman to hold either position.42 In the early 1890s the Committee assisted in the formation of other women’s unions, the Barmaids and Waitresses Union, the Laundresses Union, the Female Employees Union and the Tailoresses Union, the only female unions formed in the period.43 In the first half of 1892 the Committee also claimed considerable success in helping to establish new unions.44	14
For the rest of that year and indeed for the remainder of the period of its operation the Committee was not so successful. Almost all of the energy and funds of the Committee were expended in attempting to revive unions ‘which ha[d] fallen back due to the great depression’.45 Unions requesting assistance were generally small urban unions of the unskilled, including the Gardeners and the Darling Point Sewer Miners Union but also included craft unions such as the Decorative Stonemasons and the Coachbuilders. From as early as August 1891 the Council was refusing requests to assist in forming new unions largely due to lack of funds.46	15
In the wake of the defeat of the maritime strike, the Organising Committee spent much of its time devising ‘the best ways and means to reorganise the respective unions’ of the waterfront.47 However despite organising several conferences, arranging many speeches by Committee members to espouse the virtues of trade unionism on the waterfront, and even appointing a paid organiser for a period of several months from September 1892, few permanent gains were made. By the end of 1892 the organiser, Peter Reilly, had enrolled 350 members to the Wharf Labourers Union, however by January of 1894 the Committee was calling for an inquiry into the ‘disintegration’ of the union, which had collapsed.48 This case quite obviously points to the organisational difficulties of many unions in New South Wales at the time. Despite a large sum of money and a considerable amount of time and energy being spent on attempts to revive it, the union was unable to survive in an environment of depression, industrial defeat and employer harassment. Following a similar fate, the Organising Committee, along with most of the other unions it had formed, collapsed by early 1894. However, the existence of the Committee and its persistence with organising drives throughout the period highlights the importance of rebuilding and recruiting as an early strategy adopted by the labour movement to overcome the organisational membership crises of the time.	16
Organising and Rebuilding: 1900-10
Relative to the lows of the 1890s, the period between 1900 and 1910 was one of economic recovery. The Censuses of 1901 and 1911 suggest unemployment rates of 4.6 per cent, and 3.95 per cent49 respectively, however these figures hide relatively higher rates in the intervening years.50 In the first decade of the century the manufacturing sector expanded on capital investment and employment indicators.51 Between 1901 and 1910 the manufacturing workforce of New South Wales increased by two thirds and the amount of capital investment in the sector more than doubled.52 In this decade there was a steady increase in the number of women employed in the factories of the state. Between 1900 and 1910 the female factory workforce of the metropolitan district of New South Wales more than doubled, and the ratio of men relative to women working in the factories moved from 3:1 to 2:1 from the beginning to the end of the decade.53 Under these conditions, the task of re-organising the labour movement through the establishment of new unions and the recruitment of workers into existing unions became somewhat easier.	17
The first decade of the century was one in which organisational decay and membership losses experienced by the state’s trade unions in the 1890s were reversed. Between 1903 and 1910 the membership of New South Wales trade unions increased by over 57,000 from 73,301 to 130,346. This represented an increase of 77.8 per cent in the membership of the state’s unions.54 Reflecting upon this, the Registrar of Friendly Societies, J.B. Trivett, reported in 1910 that:	18
A noticeable feature of present day organisation by means of Trade Unions is the tendency to embrace all classes of wage earners. A few years ago trade unions were confined almost entirely to male workers in skilled trades, and to those unskilled labourers whose numbers made them a powerful factor. Now it is difficult to point out any industry in which the workers, male or female are not united.55
Trends in the membership of New South Wales unions are set out in Figure A and Table 1.
Figure A: Trends in the Membership of NSW Unions, 1903-10 56     Table 1: Yearly Increase in Membership of Registered Trade Unions in NSW 57
Table 1 suggests that over 60 per cent of the increase in union membership witnessed in the eight years for which data is available occurred in the period from 1907 to 1910.
In order to gain the right to hold property and to have access to arbitral mechanisms, unions had to register under the Trade Union Act, 1881 (NSW).58 While not all unions registered under the Act upon their formation, the trends in registration give a profile of organisational decay and growth.59 Between 1900 and 1910, 225 unions registered. The majority of these, 116, registered in the period 1900-04, the remaining 109 in the period from 1905 to the end of 1910.60 This does not mean that 225 new unions operated in the state by the end of the period. Only 56 per cent (or 128) of these unions survived until the end of the decade. Registration did not necessarily signify the formation of a new union, as many of the unions that registered in this period were revived versions of organisations that had collapsed in the 1890s. Figure B sets out the change in the number of unions registered under the Trade Union Act from 1903 to 1910. Figure B: Change in Number of Unions Registered 61	19
The Organising Committee: 1900-10
When the Sydney Labor Council was re-formed in 1900 its members recognised the necessity of reorganising and promoting the growth of state’s unions. One of the central objectives of the newly reformed Council was ‘to discuss, consider and put into force ... any schemes for the better guidance and extension of labour organisation’.62	20
The Organising Committee, which was re-established later in the year, was to fulfil this objective. On the motion of Tinsmiths delegate and Council Treasurer, Mr Brennan, an Organising Committee of seven was formed in November 1900.63 Over the next ten years this Committee played a central role in Council affairs, assuming the mantle of its 1890s predecessor as the coordinator of the organising and union formation activities of the Council.	21
Composition and Achievements
Council delegates elected for half-yearly terms constituted the Organising Committee. The size of the Committee varied considerably throughout the decade. Although the average membership was seven, at various points its size ranged from four to 12 members.64 Committee members hailed from a broad cross-section of the Council’s affiliates. Among the longest serving Committee members were delegates from the Pressers, Coachmakers, Hairdressers and Wigmakers, the Milk and Ice Carters, the Domestic Workers and the Clerks Unions.	22
As the decade drew to a close, the representatives of the unions formed by the Organising Committee were increasingly drawn into active organising work and a large proportion of the members of the Committee hailed from unions formed by the Committee in previous years. In 1910 five of the seven Committee members were delegates of unions that had been formed by the Committee: the Domestic Workers Union; the United Storemens Union; the Sawmill Employees Union; the Clerks Union and the Milk and Ice Carters Union.65 Men, as with the Council in general, dominated the membership of the Committee. Only four of the 76 delegates who at some stage in the decade were members of the Committee were women.66 However, as is detailed later in the article, the impact of the women upon the agenda and activities of the Committee well exceeded their under-representation.67	23
Initially members of the Council showed little enthusiasm for participating on the Committee. Until the mid-yearly election of 1904 all nominees were elected unopposed.68 The workload of the members of the Organising Committee was onerous. It was not out of the ordinary for a member to attend two or three meetings per week to organise groups of workers as well as attending the weekly meetings of both the Committee and the Labor Council. In addition to this work, the members of the Committee were frequently the office bearers and administrators of unions and on top of this most worked full time.69 In this early stage of the Committee’s operation, members regularly complained of lack of assistance from other Council members. For instance, in 1902 one delegate complained that he ‘did not think it right that the work should fall upon the shoulders of a few men, other members of the Council should assist the Committee’.70	24
Along with complaints of lack of support, members frequently voiced their displeasure at the ‘objectionable practice’ of members having to pay expenses from their own pockets. 71 For a brief period in 1902-03, a system of payment was introduced for the Organising Committee by which members were paid 1s per Committee meeting and a further 1s for each inaugural meeting of a union formed by Committee members.72 However this would have gone only a small way to reimbursing members for their expenses.73	25
In these early years, the Committee led a precarious existence. In 1903, after three members resigned, the Committee collapsed and the Executive assumed its duties for a period of six months until another Committee was formed. 74 However as the decade progressed, even though there was always a high turnover in its membership, the Organising Committee became a more resilient feature of the Council. From 1904 elections for Organising Committee positions became vigorously contested, and by 1906 there were as many nominations for positions upon the Organising Committee as there were for the only other long-standing Committee75 the Parliamentary Committee.76 This was a sign of the growing activism and controversy associated with the Committee’s activities.	26
The Organising Committee had one basic function and that was ‘to organise as many of the workers as possible’.77 This function was realised in two ways. Firstly the Committee helped to recruit new members into established unions and secondly it formed or re-established unions. It is not possible to quantify the number of members recruited to existing unions,78 however the work of the Committee in its union formation activities was prodigious. Such was their success that in 1913 the Council Secretary and one time Committee member, Edward Kavanagh, claimed that the Organising Committee had ‘formed fully 80 per cent of the unions at present on the Council’.79	27
However the importance of the activities of the Organising Committee reached beyond simply ‘making up the numbers’ on the Council. A substantial proportion of the 225 unions that registered under the Trade Union Act in the period between 1900 and 1910 were either aided or wholly established by members of the Committee. In 1901 the Organising Committee formed just over a quarter of the unions registered under the Act, in 1904 it formed half, and in 1910 established slightly less than a third of the unions that registered.80 These figures underestimate the union formation activities of the Labor Council as a number of unions that were established by the Organising Committee did not register, amalgamated with an existing union in their industry before registering or in some cases disappeared before seeking registration.81 Additionally, since the only source of information for the names and number of unions formed under the auspices of the Organising Committee is the Minutes of the Meetings of Labor Council, the record of their activities in this respect is likely to be incomplete.82	28
Throughout the decade the Organising Committee succeeded in drawing workers from a broad range of industries, occupations and regions into trade unions. The Committee was most active in the metropolitan manufacturing industry. It formed unions among workers in the tobacco, clothing, footwear, hat making, cardboard box making, bookbinding, brewing and metal engineering trades. A number of unions were established in food and meat processing including the Jam and Condiment Factory Employees Union, the Pastry Cooks Union and the ominously named Bone Crushers and Fat Extractors Union. Along with forming unions, the Organising Committee also assisted a number of established manufacturing unions with recruiting members. The next most important area of the Organising Committee’s work was in the services sector. Among service workers, the Committee formed unions such as the Laundry Employees Union, the Canvassers and Collectors Union, the Watchmen Caretakers and Cleaners Union, the Hairdressers and Wigmakers Union, the Domestic Workers Union, the Lift Attendants Union and the City and Suburban Bottle Accumulators Society. The Committee also formed a union named the Undertakers and Assistants Union, whose delegate to Council was aptly named Mr Frost.83	29
The Organising Committee was also particularly active in the building and construction industry. Most of their work in this industry involved recruiting workers to pre-existing unions. However new unions were formed among bridge and wharf carpenters, marble workers and sign painters. In the transport industry, the Committee formed unions of licensed vanmen, cabmen, buggy boys, milk, ice and meat carcass carters. Organising was also undertaken on a number of occasions for the already established Trolley and Draymens Union. The Committee also organised outside of the Sydney metropolitan district. Rural and regional organising drives saw the formation of the Dapto Smelter Workers Union and recruitment among Newcastle sulphide workers, Lithgow brickyard employees, Kiama quarry men and timber cutters and sleeper getters on the North Coast.	30
Methods and Motivations
The Organising Committee employed a variety of methods in its organising activities. During the decade they raised finances for organising drives, arranged recruiting nights and conferences for which they provided speakers, they also formulated ‘fair lists’ in their efforts to increase the membership base of New South Wales unions.	31
The Committee usually became involved with recruiting or forming unions amongst groups of workers on request. Requests for assistance were received from workers seeking help in forming their own union, from unions in related industries or trades84 as well as from socially conscious individuals some of whom were employers.85 Upon receiving requests, the initial response of the Council was to assess the costs and benefits associated with organising a particular group of workers. The Committee rarely refused outright to organise a group of workers. In the cases where it did, lack of funds or fear of creating sectional rivalry and demarcation disputes was usually the reason.86	32
Often when the Committee organised a group of workers, its actions were very often motivated by reports of ‘sweating’ in a workplace involving long working hours, low wages and poor workplace safety. Indeed the Anti-Sweating Committee of the Council which was established in the middle of the decade, was almost indistinguishable in its membership from that of the Organising Committee. Organising a workplace was seen as a remedy to the exploitation of workers in a number of industries in rural and urban New South Wales including among assurance agents, canvassers and collectors, and workers in the timber, sulphide workers and tannery industries.87	33
Invariably when organising was undertaken among the female factory workforce it was amidst claims of exploitation and ill treatment.88 Such was also the case when the Organising Committee became involved in organising the Domestic Workers Union. Minnie Lalor, one of the founding members of the union, urged members of Council to assist in organising domestic workers on the grounds that they were: ‘at once the most useful and the most sweated body of women workers in the community’.89 In January 1909 Henrietta Greville, of the Whiteworkers and Shirtmakers Union, delivered a speech to the Council detailing the nature of the exploitation of the women workers the union were attempting to organise. She pressed for the Council to extend further assistance to the union in their efforts to ‘combat the evils of sweating’ through organising women.90 In many cases the Organising Committee became involved in a union formation after a strike over poor wages and conditions had taken place or was already in progress in an unorganised workplace.91	34
Sheil has suggested that one of the primary motivations of the Organising Committee was to produce a multiplicity of small, easily manipulated unions over which the craft unionists of the Council could maintain control.92 Clearly there is some truth in this claim. Most of the unions formed by the Organising Committee were small, some with a membership of fewer than 20,93 and some were clearly of what the Registrar of Friendly Societies described as ‘an ephemeral character’.94 However, despite this, the suggestion that Council attempted to establish ‘bogus’ unions seems, on the evidence, misguided. The Organising Committee did not ‘hand pick’ the groups of workers who would form new unions. In most cases where organising action was undertaken it was in response to calls for assistance from workers in the industry, in some cases once those workers were already on strike, or in response to an exposé of sweating in a workplace.	35
The assistance offered to groups of workers attempting to establish unions came in many forms. In some instances it was limited to the attendance of committee members at an inaugural meeting to lecture workers ‘upon the benefits of trades unionism’. In other cases prominent social or political figures were enlisted to do the same. A number of Labor Party members were conscripted to speak at meetings and even travel to country areas to help in recruitment efforts.95 In the case of women workers a number of well-known feminist figures such as Rose Scott and Maime Swanton were approached to speak to women workers about the benefits of ‘combination’.96 Generally though, unions or groups of workers who requested the help of the Organising Committee needed more than verbal confirmation of the virtues of trade unionism. Fundraising was crucial.	36
Money to establish unions was raised in one of three ways: through appeals to affiliated and in some cases non-affiliated societies; direct appeals to the Executive for donations; or, more often, through participation in the fund raising schemes of the proposed or new unions themselves. During the periods when the Organising Committee was most actively involved in the establishment of unions, there were numerous weekly appeals for members of Council to purchase tickets to ‘smoke concerts’, picnics, ferry rides, bazaars and lectures organised to raise funds for newly unionised groups of workers. Often these appeals involved the coercion of Council members.97 Apart from financial help, the Organising Committee provided the newly established unions with assistance in the drafting of rules, registration under the Trade Union Act, and affiliation to the Labor Council.98	37
The Committee also enlisted broader labour movement support in its efforts to build and stabilise new unions. Throughout the decade the Committee convened a number of open and kindred trade conferences with the purpose of formulating strategies for the extension of unionism across industry and amongst specific workforce groups. In 1905 and 1909 the committee convened meetings to discuss the best way to organise female workers.99 Throughout 1907 and 1909 the Committee organised a series of meetings of affiliated and non-affiliated building unions to promote the extension of unionism in the construction industry. One of the outcomes of one of these conferences was the decision to embark upon what might now be part of a ‘strategic organising’ exercise involving door-to-door visits of non-unionist building workers in the metropolitan area, as identified from electoral rolls.100 The members of unions affiliated to Council were encouraged to become involved in the recruitment of union members both within their own trades and on a broader basis.101 This included encouraging unionists to recruit outside of their workplaces, even in their own homes. In early 1903, for example, the Committee told members of affiliated societies to approach milkmen on their morning runs and inform them of the formation of a union in their trade and if possible to induce them to join.102	38
One of the most valuable tools of the Organising Committee was the ‘white’ or ‘fair employer list’. Unions and kindred committees were encouraged to formulate a list of employers who employed at union standards recognised the appropriate union. The fair lists for various industries were distributed amongst the membership, who were asked to only patronise those businesses. The white list was a tool to protect the employment and prevent the victimisation of unionists. In this respect in 1910 Thyer, delegate of the Furniture Trade Union, and ex-Council President argued that: ‘A white list is just as good as a black list’.103	39
In the case of small urban unions: such as the Bill Posters Union, the Vaudeville Artists Association, and the Professional Musicians Association formed by the Organising Committee the lists were used to ensure that members of unions and affiliates only engaged the services of the employers of members. This was an attempt by the Committee to ensure that members remained employed, and thus that their union survived.104 Indeed a number of unions were reprimanded throughout the decade by the Executive for using the services, especially in printing, postering and advertising, of shops not declared ‘white’ by the Council.105 The Bill Posters Union, formed by the Committee in 1903, constantly sent deputations to Council to reprimand representatives of unions for employing non-union labour in the distribution of their advertising.106	40
The white lists were also an attempt by the Organising Committee to make trade unionism more palatable to employers. The assumption was that employers, who would receive the benefit of free advertising and the patronage of unionists from the fair lists, would be more amenable recognising unions in their workplaces. Occasionally these assumptions proved correct and employers approached the Organising Committee. Early in 1905 the Labor Council carried out an advertising campaign amongst employers to increase awareness and encourage participation in the lists scheme. One reply they received one was from the Tooths Brewery who invited the members of the Organising Committee to come to the Brewery for the purposed of enrolling members into the Brewery Employees Union. However, despite the employer’s enthusiasm, the attempt to organise the workplace was a failure. Neither the representatives of the Organising Committee nor the Brewery Employees Union could persuade any of the 150 employees to join the union.107 The use of the ‘fair lists’ highlights the link between the organising activities of the Council and their broader industrial agenda. While it was clearly an attempt to strengthen the membership of unions it sought enforce a common rule of wages and conditions across industries and trades.	41
New Unions or Recruiting into Existing Unions: Sectionalism
As outlined earlier in the article, the Committee spent considerable time forming new unions and recruiting members into existing ones. Early in the decade the Council encouraged the formation of small workplace or occupationally based unions. However later, the Organising Committee came under increasing pressure from Council delegates to recruit workers into existing unions rather than forming new unions in an attempt to avoid the provocation of demarcation disputes between affiliates.108 In 1908, after apparently causing demarcation disputes in the painting and tobacco processing trades, the Committee was urged by E.J. Kavanagh of the Pressers Union not to ‘spoil the good work done’ in organising workers by promoting ‘one of the greatest evils unionism had to contend with – sectional unionism’.109	42
In the first of these cases, in the tobacco trade, the Committee came under fire for recruiting 200 female tobacco operatives to an unaffiliated union when an affiliate, the Tobacco Workers Union, claimed coverage. Marshall, the Organising Committee member held responsible for this action, retorted that he was unaware that two tobacco unions existed and acted as he did at the insistence of the women workers in the trade.110	43
Later in the decade as the notion of industrial unionism gained currency among Council delegates the organising tactics of the Committee were criticised and their focus was changed. Increasingly, delegates asked: ‘Why bring another baby along like so many the Council had to nurse in the past?’.111 Throughout the rest of the decade the Committee became more actively involved in the promotion of amalgamation of the unions they had formed and with recruitment of workers into existing unions. Signalling the need to move in this direction, in early 1910 the President of the Council, Mr E. Farrar, argued that:	44
There is not the least doubt that the industrial movement will have to look to the organising part of its functions to a greater extent than ever before – not only with regard to unions, but with regard to some system of completeness to make the union movement broader and federated.112
Organising Women and Women Organisers
Throughout the first decade of the century, the Labor Council was involved in attempting to unionise women workers. In a variety of workplaces and industries, the Organising Committee, either upon the request of workers themselves or of other trade unionists, recruited women workers into existing unions and helped establish female unions. In the period before 1908 the Committee was involved in organising a diverse group of women employed in the manufacturing sector in the metropolitan area. This included women workers in bookbinding, tailoresses, female boot trade workers, women workers in the tobacco trade, and straw and felt hat makers. The Committee also organised female service workers such as laundresses and shop assistants. In all of these cases the women were recruited into established unions and apart from the women organised into the Tailoresses, the Laundresses, and the Book Binders (Female Employees) Union, they were organised into predominantly male unions. It was not until the last three years of the decade that the Organising Committee began to treat the organisation of women workers with something approaching the same enthusiasm and urgency as the organisation of men. The increased interest stemmed partly from recognition of the increasing employment of women in industry, partly from a desire to improve the often shocking conditions under which women worked, and partly because of the impact of women union activists who campaigned for support in organising female workers.	45
Most of these women activists were members of the Women’s Central Organising Committee of the Political Labor League (WCOC) that was formed in September of 1904 with the purpose of formulating a strategy to harness the ‘female vote’ for Labor. However it also had a broader social and industrial agenda. 113 It was in its industrial agenda that the WCOC’s concerns intersected with those of the Organising Committee of the Labor Council. The WCOC strove for the institution of a minimum wage for women workers, the abolition of sweating, and the organisation of women into trade unions. The interaction of the two organisations in the last three years of the decade led to the establishment of a number of all-female unions and saw the enthusiasm of the Council for organising women workers into existing unions reach its highest point in the period under examination.	46
Many of the founding members of the WCOC became delegates to the Council on behalf of women workers’ unions formed in the latter part of the decade. Unions such as the Domestic Workers Union, the Whiteworkers and Shirtmakers Union, and the Factory Employees Association, had been either initially established by the industrial activists of the WCOC and later aided by the Organising Committee, or were established or aided through the joint efforts of both organisations. Shortly after their appearances as delegates for female unions to Council many were elected to the Organising Committee where they exerted considerable influence over the Committee’s activities.114	47
Three of the four women Organising Committee members came from unions formed under the mutual patronage of WCOC and the Labor Council.115 These women members made substantial contributions to the organising work of the Council. In early 1906, Selina Anderson, delegate for the Shop Assistants Union, became the first woman to take up membership on the Organising Committee in the period from 1900.116 Anderson later went on to help establish the Box Makers Union and spent considerable time along with H.A. Mitchell organising laundresses.117 Anderson resigned her position in late 1906 and for over two years no other women sat on the Committee until the election of Kate Dwyer, Henrietta Greville and Minnie Lalor in 1909.118 For the rest of the decade at least one of these women remained on the Committee.119 Women activists had an enormous effect upon the Organising Committee and most of the organising work among women workers in the latter part of the decade was at the insistence of these women and the women of the WCOC.	48
Organisational and Organising Problems
Some historians have assumed that the introduction of arbitration and the improvement in economic conditions in the first decade of the century heralded a new era of trouble-free organising for the union movement.120 However, despite the growth in union membership in the period from 1900 to 1910, this was not uniformly so. Throughout the first decade of the century the Organising Committee encountered a number of obstacles including among other things employer victimisation of unionists and the costs of the arbitration system.	49
In 1908, the Vice-President of the Labor Council, and delegate of the Furniture Trade Union, Thyer remarked that ‘everywhere the workers are not organised the employers are doing all they can to prevent them from organising’.121	50
Throughout the decade the Labor Council was called upon to take action to prevent the victimisation of union activists. In 1908 in the wake of the tram workers’ strike, which was initially sparked by the dismissal of over 150 union members, a ‘victimised unionist’ fund was established.122 Victimisation extended to the unions and groups of workers that the Organising Committee was involved in organising. A number of the unions that had been established by the Organising Committee collapsed, or near collapsed, as a result of employer victimisation. In 1902, the Secretary of the Dapto Smelter Employees Union, a union organised by the Committee, was discharged ‘from the fact of his active connection with the formation of the union’.123 Numerous other examples of employer bullying of union activists were played out across the decade.124 The victims included the members of the Organising Committee. In 1903, H.A. Mitchell, member of the Committee and delegate of the Sydney and Manly Ferries Association, had his roster changed so that, in his opinion, he would not take such an active interest in union affairs.125	51
Employers’ efforts to ‘disorganise’ workers were at times more sophisticated than sacking activists and changing rosters. In 1908, in a strategy echoing union avoidance strategies of nearly a century later, employers of members of the Masters and Engineers Association attempted to induce workers to abandon their union. The employers offered the workers wages higher than the union rate, and had donated £50 towards the establishment of a bogus union – the Sydney Ferry Employees Mutual Provident Society. The two members who remained with the Masters and Engineers Association, continued to receive the standard union rate of pay, but had been removed from the ‘good’ ferry runs and were reportedly fearful for their jobs. The rest of the employees were reportedly ‘even afraid of speaking to a union man’. Such employer harassment and victimisation of unionists is out of keeping with the view of New South Wales in the period from 1900 to 1910 as a paradise for union organising.	52
Arbitration itself seems to have constituted a barrier to the success of the Organising Committee. This was principally because of the financial constraint arbitration imposed upon unions who sought to use its mechanisms. As early as 1902 the Executive of the Labor Council was refusing to extend loans to unions ‘owing to the number of appeals for assistance throughout the year’.126 In 1905 the Secretary announced that many of the affiliated unions were in ‘financial difficulty owing to Arbitration Court litigation’.127 Many of the unions that were formed by the Organising Committee later appealed from other Council affiliates to help them through financial difficulties resulting from the legal expenses of arbitration cases.128 For many of these unions the legal costs incurred through arbitration drained their already meagre finances and proved detrimental to their prospects for survival. The case of the Pastry Cooks Union, formed in 1903 by the Organising Committee, suggests that the budget of many small unions simply would not stretch to include both embarking upon organising drives and pursuing awards through the Arbitration Court. In this case the union launched a desperate appeal for assistance amongst the unions affiliated to the Council, reporting that they were without funds for their case before the Arbitration Court because ‘finances had been depleted by the organising work carried out recently’.129 These cases suggest that whilst many of the unions formed by the Committee did become involved in the arbitration system, it proved at best to be a double edged sword, depleting finances to the point where it threatened organisational viability.	53
Conclusion
This article has examined the activities of the Organising Committee between 1900 and 1910, in relation to their work in organising and rebuilding unions after the setbacks of the 1890s. During this decade the size of the State’s unionised workforce grew by 75 per cent. This growth took place in the context of an expanding economy and the emergence of a system of compulsory arbitration but, contrary to the arguments of proponents of the dependency thesis, it did not occur without trade union intervention. The evidence presented here suggests that NSW unionists played a critical role in this extension of unionism. The article has argued that the work of the Committee was motivated by a commitment to build a broad-based labour movement and to improve the wages and working conditions of the State’s wage earners. Their enthusiasm for these goals saw unionism spread into new areas of industry and among previously unorganised groups. Despite the dearth of resources available to them and the demands of participation in the affairs of their own unions the successes of Committee members suggest the extent of their enthusiasm. The involvement and influence of women members of the Committee provided but one example of how the agency of labour movement activists helped shape the form of labour organisation in this period. It was at the insistence of these activists that the Council turned itself to organising women workers and to the formation of a number of women only unions. Despite the upturn in the economy and the supposed advantages extended to unions by arbitration, the Committee encountered significant problems in their attempts to organise workers. While arbitration provided incentives for organising, it was also a double-edged sword sapping union funds which might otherwise financed the recruitment activity. Employer victimisation remained a formidable hurdle for the union organising effort. Together these findings lend support for historians who argue against simple causal connections between an improved economy, arbitration and an upsurge in unionism. Clearly the speed and scale of union recovery after 1900 owed more to worker and union activism than has often been acknowledged.	54
Endnotes * Thanks to Bradon Ellem for his invaluable contribution, as research supervisor, to this work. I am also grateful for the thorough comments of John Shields on an earlier draft of this paper and the helpful comments of the referees. The quote used in the title of the article is from H. Thyer, Vice-President, Labor Council of New South Wales, Address to Council, General Meeting Minutes Labor Council of New South Wales, 12 November 1908. 1. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Trade Union Members Australia, Catalogue number 6325.0, 2001; Michael Crosby, ‘Union Renewal in Australia: The view from the inside’ in Gerry Griffin (ed.), Trade Unions 2000: Retrospect and Prospect, Monograph no. 1, National Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Monash University, Melbourne, 2000, pp. 127-153; Braham Dabscheck, ‘A Felt Need for Increased Efficiency’: Industrial Relations at the End of the Millennium, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, vol. 39, no. 2, 2001, pp. 4-30. 2. ACTU, Future Strategies for the Trade Union Movement, ACTU, Melbourne, 1987; ACTU, unions@work: The Challenge for Unions in Creating a Just and Fair Society, ACTU, Melbourne, 1999. 3. William Howard, ‘Australian Trade Unions in the Context of Union Theory; Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 19, no. 3, 1977, pp. 255-273; William Howard, ‘Trade Unions and the Arbitration system’ in B.W. Head (ed.), State and Economy in Australia, OUP, Melbourne, 1983. 4. Ibid. 5. Howard, ‘Australian Trade Unions in the Context of Union Theory’, pp. 262-263, 266. 6. Ibid., p. 263. 7. Gerry Griffin and Victor Scarcebrook, ‘The Dependency Theory of Trade Unionism and the Role of the Industrial Registrar’, Australian Bulletin of Labour, vol. 16, no. 1, 1990, p. 30 8. Kevin Hince, ‘Towards an Australasian Theory of Unionism: Some New Zealand Evidence’ in Doug Blackmur (ed.), Contemporary Industrial Relations Research, Proceedings of the 6th AIRAANZ Conference, Queensland University of Technology, 29 January-2 February, 1992. 9. Ross Martin, Trade Unions in Australia: Who Runs Them, Who Belongs - Their Politics, Their Power, 2nd edn, Pelican Books, Ringwood, 1980, p. 6. 10. Donald Rawson, Unions and Unionists in Australia, George, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1978, p. 23; Howard Gill and Gerry Griffin, ‘The Fetish of Order: Reform in Australian Union Structures’ Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 23, no. 3, September 1981, pp. 368-369. 11. Peter Sheldon, ‘Arbitration and Union Growth: Building and Constriction Unions in NSW, 1900-1912’, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, no. 3, 1993, p. 379; See also Peter Sheldon, ‘In Division is Strength: Unionism Among Sydney Labourers, 1890-1910’, Labour History, no. 56, 1989, pp. 43-59. 12. Sheldon also levels criticisms at Howard’s methodology suggesting for instance that he mistakes the registration of unions for formation, ignoring the fact that most unions that registered federally were already in existence at the state level. Sheldon, ‘Arbitration and Union Growth’, p. 380. 13. Ray Markey, In Case of Oppression: the Life and Times of the Labor Council of New South Wales, Pluto, Sydney, 1994; Chris Sheil, The Invisible Giant: a history of the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union in Australia: 1915-1950, Unpublished PhD thesis, the University of Wollongong, 1988. 14. Markey, In Case of Oppression, pp. 72-85 15. Sheil, The Invisible Giant, pp. 72, 74. 16. Ibid. 17. Ray Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales: 1880-1900, NSW University Press, Kensington, 1988, pp. 139-140. 18. Ibid., p. 155; Brian Fitzpatrick, A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement, Rawson’s Bookshop, Melbourne’, 1940, pp.60-61; James Sutcliffe, ‘The Historical Development of Trade-Unionism in Australia’, in M. Atkinson (ed.), Trade Unionism in Australia, Conference Proceedings WEA of NSW, Sydney, 1915 19. Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, p. 319. 20. Quoted in Robin Gollan, The Coal Miners of New South Wales, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1963, p. 80. 21. These disputes were the shearers’ strikes of 1891 and 1894, the metal miners’ strike of 1892, the seamens’ strike of 1893 and the coal miners’ strikes of 1894, 1895 and 1896. Ray Markey, ‘New Unionism in Australia 1880-1900’, Labour History, no. 48, May, 1985, p. 20; Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, pp. 160-162. 22. See Tom Nelson, The Hungry Mile, Newsletter Printery, Sydney, 1957, pp. 22-23; Shirley Fitzgerald, Millers Point: the Urban Village, Wilke & Co., Melbourne, 1991, p. 59; Minutes of the Organising Committee of the Trades and Labour Council (henceforth noted as MOCTLC), 9 March 1891, Mitchell Library, Sydney. 23. There was no systematic collection of unemployment data during the depression. Macarthy estimates the unemployment peaked at over 29 per cent in 1894. Peter Macarthy, ‘Wages in Australia, 1891 to 1914’, Australian Economic History Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1970, pp.56-76. 24. Calculated from Ray Markey ‘The Aristocracy of Labour and Productive Re-organisation in NSW, c. 1880-1900’, Australian Economic History Review, vol. 38, no. 1, 1988, p.196. 25. Timothy A. Coghlan, Labour and Industry in Australia, Vol. IV, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1969, pp. 2018, 2026. 26. Ken Buckley and Ted Wheelwright, No Paradise For Workers: Capitalism and the Common People in Australia 1788-1914, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1988, p. 196. 27. Bradon Ellem , In Women’s Hands? A History of Clothing Trades Unionism in Australia, NSW University Press, Kensington, 1989, p. 55. 28. Leading to a considerable reduction in wages and simultaneously to increases in the pace of work. Macarthy, ‘Wages in Australia’, pp. 59-60. Along with changes in the method of payment, employers across New South Wales embarked upon a programme of productive reorganisation which Frances argues resulted in the ‘wholesale dismemberment’ of craft control over the productive process. Rae Frances, ‘The Clothing and Boot Industries, 1880–1939’, in Evan Willis (ed.), Technology and the Labour Process, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988, pp. 99-100. 29. Coghlan, Labour and Industry Vol. IV, p. 2026. 30. Markey provides the only industry-wide quantification of union membership for any period in the 1890s, in New South Wales for 1891. See Markey, The Making of the Labor Party in New South Wales, pp. 318-320. 31.