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This is a viewing reference copy only. Further digital preservation work may be required for any re-use.
The story of the carpenters’ dispute of 1949 in which the Communist-led Carpenters Union was de-registered by Peter Fraser’s Government in cahoots with the Federation of Labour.
Includes footage of Waihi and a shot of the gravestone of Frederick George Evans. Charley Oakley, one of the strike leaders of 1913, talks about the strike and compares the reasons with that of the 1940 strike. He states that the 1940 strike was started because the bosses and the government (Labour) tried to reduce wages. The Arbitration Court cut out travelling allowances. The strike was to maintain conditions, not to improve them.
Also includes downtown Auckland and a trade union meeting at Carlaw Park, attended by 3,000 members. Speeches are made by Jock Barnes, Eddie Taylor and Roy Stanley. “Two Aucklands” are depicted. The business buildings and homes or the wealthy are compared with derelict housing of the workers.
Union publicity of the day described the film as, “The first on-the-spot film of an industrial dispute ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. Workers demonstrate through Queen Street, Auckland. Trade Unionists’ solidarity meetings. Boycott scenes; watersiders, drivers, railwaymen. Police interference with pickets. On-the-spot pictures of a real scab meeting.”
The film showing solidarity within the trade union movement ends stating that “there have been losses and gains, but lessons have been learnt. This is not the End, but the Beginning.”