The 1951 waterfront dispute

During the Second World War the Labour government set up a Waterfront Control Commission (later the Waterfront Industry Commission) to run the wharves, which were vital to the war effort. After the war, relations between the government, the mostly British-owned shipping companies and the New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union, led by Harold (Jock) Barnes, Toby Hill and Alexander Drennan, were especially tense. As the Cold War deepened, ministers denounced the union's leaders as 'communist wreckers', although neither Barnes nor Hill was a member of the Communist Party. Sidney Holland's National Party won the 1949 election promising to confront militant unionism head on. In April 1950 the watersiders and other militant unions left the Federation of Labour and formed a breakaway Trade Union Congress.

In January 1951 the Arbitration Court awarded a 15% general wage increase, which did not cover waterside workers. The shipping companies offered them 9%, arguing that earlier waterfront increases should be taken into account; Te Ara notes that the watersiders had already negotiated a 6% rise. The union refused to work overtime from 13 February, the employers refused to hire men who would not work extra hours, and the union's members were locked out. The employers and the government called it a strike; to the watersiders it was a lockout. On 21 February the government declared a state of emergency. Holland warned that New Zealand was 'at war' in Korea (see Kayforce sent to Korea) and at home, where it faced a 'menace from the enemy within'. On 27 February troops were sent onto the Auckland and Wellington wharves to load and unload ships.

Using its powers under the Public Safety Conservation Act 1932, Cabinet issued regulations that imposed censorship, gave police sweeping powers of search and arrest, and made it an offence to assist strikers. Even giving food to their children was outlawed, although NZHistory says police seldom enforced this. The government also deregistered the union. Labour MP Mabel Howard called the dispute 'a war on women', and at Wellington's Clifton Terrace school strikers' children were kept apart at playtime in case they shared their lunches. Farmers, market gardeners and tradespeople gave food and services, and Freda (Fuzz) Barnes led the Auckland Women's Auxiliary, which helped supply the families. Watersiders hid printing presses in their houses and distributed hundreds of thousands of illegal pamphlets. Coal miners, freezing workers, seamen, hydro-electric workers and others struck in protest, and at the peak about 22,000 workers were off the job. NZHistory notes that this was only 8% of union members. The Federation of Labour, which NZHistory says was controlled by Fintan Patrick Walsh, backed the government, and Walter Nash's Labour opposition refused to back either side.

On 30 April a railway bridge near Huntly was dynamited, and Holland called it 'an infamous act of terrorism'. By the end of May new unions of strike-breakers had been registered in the main ports. On 1 June, a day that became known to unionists as 'Bloody Friday', police broke up a march up Queen Street in Auckland; NZHistory puts the marchers at up to 1000, and Te Ara's biography of Fuzz Barnes at over 1,000. Barnes was knocked to the ground and later fined 15 guineas for inciting disorder. The watersiders conceded defeat on 15 July, after 151 days. Te Ara says more than a million working days had been lost.

The national union was split into separate unions for each port. Many watersiders were blacklisted from the wharves for years, and most of the union's leaders, including Jock Barnes, could not return to their old jobs there. Holland called a snap election, held on 1 September 1951, and National won 54% of the vote and four more seats than in 1949. The defeat strengthened the Federation of Labour's control of the union movement, and bitterness between the watersiders' supporters and its leaders lasted for decades. For many unionists the watersiders' loyalty card, bearing the words 'stood loyal right through', became a prized badge of honour. NZHistory calls the dispute the biggest industrial confrontation in New Zealand's history, and Te Ara calls it the most expensive.