Authorities in the great lockout at Mount Isa Mines (MIM) targeted the written word as the most threatening weapon workers had in their arsenal.
It’s the 60th anniversary of the industrial dispute which closed the mine for eight months.
A duplication machine, now kept at the Mount Isa Council Library, played a pivotal role in the workers’ resistance.
Main image – MIM Industrial Dispute 1964-1965 – courtesy Mount Isa City Library
Neil Byrne was just 14 years old when MIM shut its gates on workers who had chosen to be paid wages rather than piece rates, the latter being at the centre of the dispute.
Mr Byrne and his teenage friends were tasked with distributing pro-action pamphlets on their bicycles under the cover of darkness.
The situation got ugly very quickly, he said.
“I was only 14 at the time, but I was pretty aware of what was happening. They had an illegal printing press that would move from house to house every day. I used to deliver pamphlets on my pushbike at night, putting them in people’s mailboxes.
“I was given specific instructions by my Dad, if the police came along, to drop everything on the ground and deny everything.
“They (police reinforcements) were sent there for one reason: to act as strike breakers. That’s what they were. On the picket line, one officer told my father very clearly, ‘If you guys do anything, we’ve been given instructions to break your skulls.’”
Related: The industrial action that helped build a city
While the lockout attracted support from union halls across the country, divisions appeared as some miners returned to work against the picket. In other cases, entire families left the inland city.
The treatment of the hardcore organisers of the dispute remains one of the most bitter memories of that time.
A resolution between The Australian Workers Union, other unions, the Trades and Labour Council, the Nicklin Government, and MIM facilitated a return to work and excluded what Mr. Byrne called ‘The 44.’
Mr Byrne was at pains to say he was speaking about history and wanted to avoid re-opening old wounds
His father and uncle, both local AWU executives, were among this group who were blacklisted from ever working in the mining industry again.
The AWU bookended what he described as ‘the cast of villains’ which changed as the action progressed.
“The villains to start with were the mines who wouldn’t agree to the terms that the men were asking for. And then that progressed through and through, and then the villains became some of the workers who went back to work.
“And then the villains became the police and the Nicklin Government who declared a state of emergency, which was totally unnecessary. That was political.
“Then at the end, the unions themselves became the villains because what the AWU did to those 44 men was disgusting. They threw their men out.
“They did a dirty deal behind closed doors with the government and the mines and 44 men were basically barred from ever working in the mining industry ever again in Australia.”
Mr. Byrne cited former National President of the Australian Workers Union, William Patrick ‘Bill’ Ludwig OAM, as a key instigator of this deal.
The eight-month dispute ranks alongside the shearers’ strike of 1891 as one of the most significant industrial actions in Australian history.
Mr. Byrne paid tribute to his mother, who, he said, kept their family of seven children going on union handouts throughout the dispute.
While conditions eventually improved for miners, he said, “There was very little victory—most of it was loss.”
Neil Byrne operated an electrical business for more than 30 years in Mount Isa.
