Bushmen's Official Proclamation

*THE WORKER* 
Brisbane, February 7, 1891

The following official proclamation has been issued to the members of the Q.S.U. and Q.L.U. :-

Fellow Unionists,

An unprovoked and unjustifiable attack has been made upon the above unions by the squatters' associations. It therefore becomes our duty to take such action as will best conserve our interests and frustrate the attempts of organised Capitalism to crush unionism and reduce wages in this district.

The terms which the capitalists are attempting to enforce are known to you all. The agreements, which apply to both shearers and shed hands, deny us the right to resist any insidious undermining of our unions, even though such undermining should take the form of the introduction of that “ cheap and reliable ” labour which so many squatters seem to prefer to their own flesh and blood. In other ways the squatter __ whose treatment of the bushman first brought the bush unions into resistance ___ is made the sole arbiter of the working conditions of those whom Capitalism can force to sign away their rights as men. Even the Eight Hour day is not conserved. Even the wages which have been so hardly earned may be forfeited without appeal to law under this unrighteous agreement, practically at the option of the squatter.

On top of this, it is demanded that shearers pay for the combs and cutters broken in the squatters' “ labour saving machinery ” and that labourers submit to reductions on the scale of wages established for years past, the reductions in some items being as high as 33 percent.

So sweeping and unreasonable are these attempted changes that some importance has been attached to a malicious statement which asserts that the squatters' associations submitted their proposals to the annual meetings of these unions. It has seemed absurd that such an attack should be made without even the appearance of consulting us beforehand. We have to inform you, therefore, that our unions have been insultingly ignored in the matter, that no official information concerning agreements or reductions has been received from the squatters and that the first heard of the affair was from advertisements in the newspapers and from the managers of sheds at which our members expected to start work in due course.

It is very evident from the whole circumstances that the squatters, intention is to endeavour to wipe unionism out of existence and to make a bold bid for the unqualified mastership of the wage-earners of the District. They evidently imagine that because our comrades, the maritime men, went down before the shipping companies that therefore the bush workers must go down before the squatting companies.

Fellow–unionists ! We call upon you all, individually and unitedly, to pull the unions through this fight let the cost be what it may. You all know what the squatter was and what he is and what we shall be if we let him get the whip hand over us. Here in the bush we have no voice in the making of the laws and no share in the Government, we are disfranchised and denied all rights as citizens, we have only our unions to which we can look for justice and if our unions go down we are totally enslaved.

Fellow-unionists, the squatters expect the Queensland bush unions will fight hard but they do not know how hard. We call upon you to show them, not underestimating the difficulties that confront us or the power of the organised Capitalism that backs the squatters, but relying with confidence upon the devotion of the bushmen of Queensland to their unions and to the Labour cause.

For it is not ourselves alone we fight for, though we ourselves have much at stake. The Queensland bush is to be a battle ground where on is to be decided whether Capitalism can crush Australian unionism altogether into the dust. Remembering this we ask each one and all together to resolve that come what may we will not be beaten, that when the battle is over our unions shall still live. We have a right to resolve this, for disfranchised though we are we are the men whose labour mainly upholds Queensland. It is our toil that brings rich dividends to banks and fat incomes to squatters and profitable trade to great cities. Yet we have no votes by which we can secure laws to protect us even in our earnings and the squatting companies dream of dragooning us into submission with hordes of police protected blacklegs when we refuse to work under any conditions which the profit-mongers who fleece us choose to draw up in some bank-parlour.

Fellow-unionists our cause is just as every man knows. We have found the verbal agreement work more smoothly and satisfactorily than any other. It was last year worked under by the great majority of stations in Queensland without complaint or cause for complaint. The Darling Downs was satisfactorily worked under an agreement which we are willing to work under there for the ensuing year also.

The wages of the Q.L.U. scale are not in excess of the last three years' rates. If the squatters had meant fairly they would have asked us to a conference to consider any points they wished to improve or any better conditions they desired to make, in exactly the same way that we asked them to meet us when our unions were first formed. That they did not do so indicates to us that they do not want a conference but have deliberately planned an attack on us. Nevertheless, we have requested the General Executive A.L.F. To ask for an open conference from the Federated Employers' Union and we are prepared to show at such a conference, if it is agreed to by the squatters, that these unions desire nothing but what is just and right.

Should a conference be held we still hope that the struggle may be averted but should an unprovoked fight still be forced upon us we consider that those who force it should help pay for it, particularly as many of our bitterest enemies are sheltering themselves behind earlier sheds, expecting that the battle will be decided one way or another before it reaches them. The Central District Council has therefore unanimously resolved:-

That any employer or member of the Pastoralists' Association in the colony of Queensland who does not before the first of March accept through this office the agreement of the Queensland Shearers' Union and the scale of wages of the Queensland Labourers' Union, shall pay for every week or portion of a week after that date an additional sixpence per hundred for shearing, wages of members of the Q.L.U. to be increased pro'rata.

Those squatters who have bound themselves by bond to break down our scale of wages, our agreements and our organisation can thank nobody but themselves if they find it expensive to get their work done by competent union hands, when the blacklegs they rely on do not come to time. If they want conference, we still offer it to them, but if they want fight, we offer that also.

Fellow-unionists! From time to time it may be again necessary to address you but for the present there is only this to add: If the worst comes to the worst we can always ride down to Brisbane and ask the Government that swamps in surplus labour to help Capitalism degrade wage-earners what it is going to do with 10,000 able-bodied bushman unemployed because they hung out for the fair thing.

By order of the Central D. C.

Strike Committee:

W. J. Bennett

W. Fothergill

J. R. Riseley

M. Murphy

A. J. Brown

Central D.C. Office Barcaldine, February 1, 1891