Editorial

This issue of Labour History continues a focus on the history of occupational health and safety and its impact on workers and the community. Beris Penrose provides an international dimension to this research by examining the influence of the Lead Industries Association on debates, primarily in the US but also in Australia, concerning the effect of lead poisoning on workers. The research endorsed by the Association rejected the adoption of the Precautionary Principle according to which substances suspected of being harmful would be removed from the workplace. The links between medical research and capital, explored here by Penrose, have contemporary implications not only for occupational health and safety issues but also for general public health issues such as cigarette smoking.	1
Robert Crawford, in an innovative article, links labour history to marketing by exploring the way the Australian advertising industry presented manufacturing between 1900 and the 1960s. The factory image became a symbol of industrial productivity and national development, and served the advertising industry in its campaign to establish a nation of consumers. The manipulation of images in order to promote public sympathy and attract investment has been a perennial theme of Australian labour history. Regional centres attract investment by downplaying industrial militancy. Companies present positive images of their treatment of employees through their publications and the mass media in order to make a favourable impression on consumers, investors and industrial regulators. The propaganda war is an important part of any industrial dispute or political campaign.	2
Robert Dargaval examines the 1921–22 Tasmanian timber dispute, which occurred over attempts by employers to restore a 48-hour week. While the union was defeated at the national level, they did succeed, through their links with local communities, in having non-union labour removed.	3
The final two articles focus on New Zealand. Michael Barry looks at the various organisational relationships, stretching from farmers to consumers, that supported the New Zealand meat industry in the 1960s and 1970s. He then explores the divisions that occurred in this industry, particularly between the employers' association and individual meat processing employers. He also examines how this tension affected the way employers dealt with unions and industry competition. Melanie Nolan and Shaun Ryan explore the growth of female representation, both at the rank-and-file and executive levels, in New Zealand trade unions since 1975. By the mid-1990s a 'gender revolution' had occurred: the percentage of female union officials matched the percentage of women in the paid workforce. The article evaluates the contribution of separate union structures for women and the 'organising model of unionism' to this transformation. They conclude that, while the former was crucial, the later has been exaggerated.	4
While the journal continues to attract a wide range of manuscripts, there is a notable decline in the number of submissions relating to labour and working class parties and politics. Labour History would welcome historical articles concerning labourism, 'new labour', labour populism, the Communist Parties and the rise of the Greens in Australasia. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the election of Hawke's federal Labor Government and the journal would welcome retrospectives of the Hawke/Keating years. Despite the dominance of the Howard Government federally, the Labor Party currently holds power in all states and territories. We would welcome historical examinations of the Labor Party at the state and indeed local levels of government.	5
This issue contains several other items as well as our book review section. Jonathan Rees provides a brief report on the role of the Bessemer Historical Society in the US and its efforts to preserve the records of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; the latter is noted for both the infamous 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the Rockefeller Plan of employee representation. Jonathan's report sets the scene for the thematic of our November 2003 issue; it will focus on working life and culture in Australian museums and will be edited by Andrew Reeves and Bobbie Oliver. Bruce Scates contributes a review article that — given the Iraq conflict — is very timely; it examines five major books in which labour historians 'confront' military history. There is an obituary for Jack Hutson contributed by Peter Love. Jack's contribution to our understanding of industrial relations and labour history in Australia has had a profound impact on the way many of us teach and do our research. He was also a prominent activist in the Melbourne Branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History. He will be greatly missed.	6
Greg Patmore

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