1886: The first year of the Australasian Shearers Union

In 1911, founding AWU President William Guthrie Spence published his History of the AWU, chronicling the formation and early years of the Australian Shearers Union, and from 1894, the AWU. Spence’s history remains an enduring, valuable asset to our union’s history, and offers a rare insight into the first year of our union.

Shearing in the late 19th century was physically demanding, difficult work, with long hours, sleeping and eating in rough camps, and spending months of the year travelling from shed to shed across the bush. Efforts to unionise the shearing industry first began in 1874, and Spence notes “eight or nine attempts had been made”, but they all fizzled out.

Spence had his own theory as to why earlier attempts failed. “Men had become habituated to injustice, and as each station had its own agreement and all were not unjust, it required some universal attack in the shape of an additional infringement upon men’s rights to bring the psychological moment. It came in 1886.”

A notice in The Australasian newspaper, published 2 April 1886, advised shearers that shearing rates would be reduced, from 20 shillings per 100 sheep to 17s 6d – with shearers at risk of being sacked if they were accused of “wilful bad shearing or misconduct.”

Spence wrote: “It was the half-crown cut which enabled us to arouse and enrol men and lay the foundations of the organisation, which has since diverted over four and a half millions of money from the pockets of the few into the pockets of the thousands, and has otherwise raised the comfort and status of those who annual reap the wool crop.”

Outrage grew amongst the shearers, and a plucky 24-year-old David Temple stepped forward. “He came and consulted me as to the wisdom of trying to organise the shearers, and we made a start at once,” Spence wrote.

“I wrote a letter which was published in the Ballarat Courier on the 29th May, 1886, urgent combination and offering to assist. This was followed up by other letters.”

The first conference of the ASU

On June 12, 40 shearers gathered with Spence and Temple at the Ferns Hotel in Ballarat. “We held the first general meeting and adopted rules, elected officers.” Spence wrote. “I was elected chairmen, and Mr D Temple secretary.”

From the very beginning, Spence had a vision of one combined union: “Before we began, I laid down the principle that the Union must be intercolonial – must ignore political boundaries – and every member must carry his rights and privileges as a member with him, no matter what colony he was in.” After their first meeting, Spence wrote that “Mr Temple took a run around the western parts of Victoria, but did not meet with much encouragement.”

Shearers in Harden, NSW c. 1886

Later efforts, however, were more encouraging. “We followed up the Riverina and Victoria Shearing by sending three men to New Zealand, where they enrolled over 2,000 members and founded a branch. We enrolled many Maoris and had the rules translated into their language. The result of our efforts on the continent was an enrolment of about 9,000. I enrolled about 800 by communication from the office, but the success of the start and the maintenance of the Union has since been mainly to the system of sending out paid travelling organisers.”

As Temple and the union’s first organisers moved across the colonies of Australia, ten more branches sprang up: Wagga, Bourke, Moree, Cobar, Young, Adelaide, Port Augusta, Casterton, Scone, and Goulburn.

“The year 1886 saw the Union well founded,” Spence wrote. “Organising work only was carried out during that year,” and “the first Conference was held on 19th January 1887. It was confirmed, and it was resolved that the Union rules and agreement should be put into force during the shearing season in that year.”

“So far but few of the squatters had responded to our invitation to come to mutual arrangement, and we had only about £730 to commence what turned out to be practically a four years’ battle with the powerful wool kings of Australia.”

In their first year, the ASU relied heavily on a group of dedicated organisers to hold sheds across the colonies to account:

“The policy of the Union from its inception was conciliation. Copies of our rules and proposed agreement were sent to pastoralists a season ahead in all new country organised, and they were asked to meet us or suggest amendment.

Accustomed to rule as he liked, not only over his shearing floor but over the people of his neighbourhood, the lordly squatter did not take kindly to the coming change. A considerable number saw the wisdom of being friendly, but a very large number thought they could ignore the Union, and never dreamt that men would hang together.”

“We sent out travelling organisers to be if possible at every roll-call to act as the mouthpiece for the men and prevent weaklings from dropping into the old groove of just accepting whatever was offered. We had thirty-three agents of the ASU out in 1887, and they saved the situation. Some of them had a very lively time racing from one roll-call to another. Frequent change of horses was necessary.”

“Camps had to be formed, rations supplied by the Union, and the true location of reserves and roads discovered. Maps were obtained, and in more than one place, when the squatter ordered men off his run, he was astonished to find them set him at defiance by camping within a few yards of the woolshed… The organisers saved the union from defeat. Where they failed to reach a shed, in most cases it was lost.”

The struggle of these organisers paid off; after a year, the ASU had 9,000 members, and Australia’s shearing industry would never be the same again.

The coming years, the union stood at the forefront of some of Australia’s defining moments, from the shearers’ strike of 1891, the formation of the Labor Party, to the creation of Australia’s first-ever Industrial Award, and the first Labor government in the world. The story continues to this very day.