Australian Strikers

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Brisbane General Strike, 1912
January 24,  2012 marked the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Brisbane General Strike

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The strike began when members of the Australian Tramway Employees Association were dismissed when they wore union badges to work on January 18, 1912. They then marched to the Brisbane Trades Hall where a meeting was held. That night a mass protest meeting of 10,000 people was held in Market Square (now King George Square).

The Brisbane tramways were owned by the General Electric Company and managed by Joseph Stillman Badger, an American, who refused to negotiate with the Queensland peak union body, then known as the Australian Labour Federation. After this rebuff a meeting of delegates from 43 Brisbane based Trade Unions formed the Combined Unions Committee and appointed a General Strike Committee. The trade unionists of Brisbane went out on a general strike on January 30, 1912.