Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T13:08:13.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Placing Peak Union Purpose and Power: The Origins, Dominance and Decline of the Barrier Industrial Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Bradon Ellem  and
John Shields
Bradon Ellem
Affiliation:
Work & Organisational Studies, School of Business, The University of Sydney
John Shields
Affiliation:
Work & Organisational Studies, School of Business, The University of Sydney
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the power and purpose of union peak bodies, focussing on one particularly powerful organisation, the Barrier Industrial Council in Broken Hill. We argue that the power and purpose of all such bodies is multi-dimensional, historically contingent and spatially specific. The most illuminating studies conceptualise peak bodies as agents of mobilisation, with power delegated by affiliates, and of economic and political exchange, with power derived from a ‘structural coupling’ with the state and capital. However, there is a third possible peak body purpose: social regulation and, specifically, the regulation of labour and commodity markets. This was a conspicuous activity of the Barrier Industrial Council, underpinned by success in mobilisation and exchange and by ‘place consciousness’. Understanding the variety of potential power sources holds the key to explaining not only why some peak bodies command more power than others but also why there is so much variation in peak union focus and behaviour.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , June 2001 , pp. 61 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

We would like to thank the journal’s anonymous referees for their constructive criticism of earlier drafts of this piece.

References

Anon. (1952) ‘Paddy O’Neill. The Uncrowned King’, The Conveyor, May, 4–6, June, 22–23.Google Scholar
Bailey, J. (1999) ‘Blue Singlets and Broccoli: Culture in the Service of Union Struggle’, Illawarra Unity, 2(1), 14–35.Google Scholar
Blainey, G. (1968) The Rise of Broken Hill, Macmillan, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Brigden, C. (2000) ‘Beyond Authority: Power Relations in the THC’, in Burgess, J. and Strachan, G. (Eds), Research on Work, Employment and Industrial Relations 2000, Proceedings of the 14th AIRAANZ Conference, Newcastle, Vol. 3, 75–84.Google Scholar
Briggs, C. (1999) ‘The Rise and Fall of the ACTU: Maturation, Hegemony and Decline’, PhD thesis, Department of Industrial Relations, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Carroll, B. (1986) Built on Silver: A History of Broken Hill South, Hill of Content, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Commonwealth Census, 1911, 1921, 1933, 1947, 1954, 1961, Detailed Tables, NSW and NSW Local Government Areas, Occupation.Google Scholar
Cubbon, H.A., Gardner, G.J., Oeser, O.A., Trahair, R.C.S. (1966) Work and Negotiation in the Broken Hill Mining Industry, Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Dabscheck, B. (1977) ‘The Internal Authority of the ACTU’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 19(4), December, 388–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dale, G. (1918), The Industrial History of Broken Hill, Fraser and Jenkinson, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Eklund, E. (1994) ‘“We Are of Age”: Class, Locality and Region at Port Kembla, 1900 to 1940’, Labour History, 6, May, 72–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eklund, E. (1999) ‘“Intelligently Directed Welfare Work”? Labour Management Strategies in Local Context: Port Pirie, 1915–29’, Labour History, 76, May, 125–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellem, B., Shields, J. (1996), ‘Why Do Unions Form Peak Bodies? The Case of the Barrier Industrial Council’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 38(3), March, 377–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellem, B., Shields, J. (1999) ‘Rethinking “Regional Industrial Relations”: Space, Place and the Social Relations of Work’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 41 (4), December, 536–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellem, B., Shields, J. (2000a) ‘Making a “Union Town”: Class, Gender and Workers’ Control in Inter-war Broken Hill’, Labour History, 78, May, 116–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellem, B., Shields, J. (2000b) ‘H.A. Turner and “Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve”: Explaining the Rise of “Closed Unionism” in the Broken Hill Mining Industry’, Labour and Industry, 11(1), August, 69–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairweather, D.F. (1996) ‘Fairweather, Andrew (1882–1962)’, in Ritchie, J.D. (Ed), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 14, Melbourne University Press, 131.Google Scholar
Flynn, B. (1988) ‘Trade Unions and the Law: The Broken Hill Dispute’, Journal of Industrial Relations, 30(1), March, 32–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, G. (1994) ‘The Authority of the ACTU’, Economic and Labour Relations Review, 5(1), June, 81–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagan, J. (1981) The History of the ACTU, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Howard, W.A. (1990) Barrier Bulwark: The Life and Times of Shorty O’Neil, Willry, Kew, Victoria.Google Scholar
Howard, W.A. (1992), ‘The Rise and Decline of the Broken Hill Industrial Relations System’, in Tenfelde, K. (Ed), Towards a Social History of Mining in the 19th and 20th Centuries, C.H. Beck, Munich, 1992.Google Scholar
Hyman, R. (1975) Industrial Relations: A Marxist Introduction, Macmillan, Lonon.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonas, A. (1996) ‘Local Labour Control Regimes: Uneven Development and the Social Regulation of Production’, Regional Studies, 30(4), 323–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, B. (1978) Silver, Sin and Sixpenny Ale: A Social History of Broken Hill, 1883–1921, Melbourne University Press, Carlton.Google Scholar
Kimber, J. (1998) ‘“A Case of Mild Anarchy”? The Rise, Role and Demise of Job Committees in the Broken Hill Mining Industry, c1930 to c1954’, BA (Hons) thesis, School of Industrial Relations and Organisational Behaviour, University of New South Wales.Google Scholar
Le Duff, G.R. (1969) ‘Factions in the Labour Movement in Broken Hill, 1914–1919’, BA (Hons) thesis, School of Social Science, Flinders University.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford (first published in French, 1974).Google Scholar
Markey, R. (1994) In Case of Oppression: The Life and Times of the Labor Council of New South Wales, Pluto Press, Leichhardt with the Lloyd Ross Forum, Sydney.Google Scholar
Martin, R.M. (1958) ‘The Rise of the Australian Council of Trade Unions’, The Australian Quarterly, 30 (1), March, 30–42.Google Scholar
Martin, R.M. (1966) ‘The Authority of Trade Union Centres: The Australian Council of Trade Unions and the British Trades Union Congress’, in Isaac, J.E. and Ford, G.W. (Eds), Australian Labour Relations: Readings, Sun, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Massey, D. (1984) Spatial Divisions of Labour: Social Structures and the Geography of Production, London, Macmillan.Google Scholar
Maughan, B. (1947) ‘Review of Industrial Negotiations 1920–1946’, unpublished manuscript, Charles Rasp Memorial Library, Broken Hill.Google Scholar
O’Neil, W.S. (1969) ‘How We Ran the Barrier Industrial Council at Broken Hill’, Industrial Relations Society of Victoria, Monograph Series, 2.Google Scholar
Peck, J. (1996) Work-Place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets, The Guilford Press, Lonon.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1997) ‘“Lead Bonus Happy”: Profit-sharing, Productivity and Industrial Relations in the Broken Hill Mining Industry, 1925–83’, Australian Economic History Review, 37(3), 222–255.Google Scholar
Storper, M., Walker, R. (1989) The Capitalist Imperative: Territory, Technology and Industrial Growth, Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Taksa, L. (2000) ‘Like a Bicycle, Forever Teetering Between Individualism and Collectivism: Considering Community in Relation to Labour History’, Labour History, 78, May, 7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsokhas, K. (1986) Beyond Dependence: Companies, Labour Processes and Australian Mining, Oxford University Press, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Turner, H.A. (1962) Trade Union Growth, Structure and Policy, Allen and Unwin, Lonon.Google Scholar
de Vyver, F.T. (1960) ‘Australian Labor’s Closed Preserve: The Mining Town of Broken Hill’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 59, 409–424.Google Scholar
Walker, K. (1970) Australian Industrial Relations Systems, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (first published 1956).Google Scholar
Woodward, O.H. (1965) A Review of the Broken Hill Lead-Silver-Zinc Industry, Second edn., West Publishing, Sydney.Google Scholar