Pig Iron

The Dalfram was a passport to celebrity

On November 15 it berthed at Port Kembla's No.4 Jetty. Pig iron was waiting at the wharf in rail trucks. Percy Sloan, the calling foreman, arrived at the lane behind the Wollongong Hotel. Among the empty beer barrels and bottles Sloan set out to recruit labour to load the Dalfram. It was the'bull system' of pick-up ­ free selection by employers of casual labour offering for work. The union had a bitter struggle to replace this humiliation with a roster. The Watersiders' Secretary, Ted Roach, had already warned his members of the Dalfram's mission. He stopped Percy Sloan's pick-up for the Port Kembla Stevedoring Co. and made a speech. He referred to the current boycotts of Japanese goods, international action to help China, Japanese ambitions embracing Australia, the Nanking massacre and other atrocities. Unanimously, the men at the pick-up carried a resolution'We wonıt load pig-iron for Japan.'

Such was the celebrity of the pig iron dispute, books have been written about it. The first, (above)War on the Waterfront: Menzies, Japan and the Pig-iron Dispute, was written by former union historian and journalist Rupert Lockwood. A second book, Unchartered Waters, celebrating both the Dalfram dispute and the building workers Green Bans, was launched beside a memorial to the dispute in Wollongong in June.

It was the lead up to World War II and Japan was already spilling blood in China.

As always at the time, the conservative government turned a blind eye and for companies like BHP it was business as usual. But maritime workers took matters into their own hands. They joined dockers in London and the US refusing to load Japanese cargo. The Government retaliated by threatening sanctions against all union ports unless embargoes were lifted. All ports acceded. Except Port Kembla.

The attorney general was none other than Bob Menzies. When he threatened to replace the wharfies with non union labour, not one worker in the town would scab. The shipıs crew, the community, churches, the Chinese community and local business all supported the workers. From this time on Menzies became known as Pig Iron Bob.

Menzies had an unforgettable visit to Wollongong. The South Coast Timesreported:

"It was certainly the most hostile demonstration in the history of the town.

Over 1,000 men, women and children, carrying hundreds of banners, gave him a particularly warm reception as he left the car and went to lunch. It was only with considerable difficulty that he was escorted across the street at the Town Hall to meet the deputation."

BHP locked out its 4000 steelworkers and after a month long protest the waterside workers reached agreement with the government that they would load the Dalfram but no further pig iron exports would go to Japan. And the Transport Workers' Act, better known as the dog collar, would be lifted.