On 14 February 1951, waterside workers rejected the shipowners’ wage offer and refused to work overtime. Within two weeks the government had deregistered their union, passed emergency regulations making it a crime to publicly support the union or provide funds, and sent the military onto wharves to do watersiders’ work. For five months, 14,000 watersiders, miners, seamen, drivers and freezing workers defied the government. Workers, employers and the government were contesting many issues including: the 40 hour week, arbitration, the shape of the union movement and anti-communism. But underneath all of them was the question of workers’ power within society and how the benefits of post-war prosperity would be distributed.

At the heart of every protracted industrial dispute is a material question: can workers survive without wages longer than employers without workers? While the urgency of this question vibrates through everyone involved as weeks become months, it does not necessarily get the same level of attention when histories are written. A materialist history of 1951 brings women’s work into the centre. This talk uses material from police files to reveal aspects of the 1951 waterfront lock-out that were not previously known, such as how the state particularly targeted Māori watersiders and the selective and contradictory use of emergency regulations.

The 1951 struggle – all 151 days – has become the stuff of legend on the New Zealand left. This talk will be accessible for those who only know the vague shape of the legend, and revealing for those who have studied its history. The stories and legends have been useful, but our struggles in the present are strengthened when we embrace the past in all its complexity.

Grace Millar is a labour historian and trade unionist. She is writing a book about the 1951 waterfront lockout.

As ever, this event is free to attend and open to the public.