Wharf Labourers.

*THE WORKER*

Brisbane August 4, 1894

Wharf Labourers.

Since the dissolution of the Brisbane Wharf Labourers' Union, the men who eke out a starvation living on the wharves are tyrannically treated by the shipping companies. A few wharf labourers, in what are called steady gangs, average about 28s., but the majority only receive from 6s. to 15s. per week. To earn this they must attend the wharves at all hours and wait and wait according to the command of the petty bosses who carry out the instructions of managers of soulless companies. No matter how long the men have to wait they are now only paid for actual working time, and sometimes to earn only a couple of shillings they have to hang around for eight or ten hours. If they do not there is no work for them when a steamer arrives. It was not so when they had a union, and the absence of it makes the conditions under which the Brisbane wharf labourers now work as bad as that of the London docker before the latter formed one. There is only one remedy to cope with the ship owners and if the companies will not permit a union openly without victimising its members then men must organise secretly for the present and make ready, for their time will come sooner or later. Without a union, workmen will be for ever helpless. They might as well recognise this fact as gospel truth and act up to it if they want fair play, for they can only get that by standing by one another.