The Red Feds: Revolutionary Industrial Unionism and the New Zealand Federation of Labour, 1908-14

"This is the first full history of the most turbulent period in New Zealand's industrial history: the period of the "Red" Federation of Labour, from its beginnings in the coal mins of the West Coast of New Zealand. The story begins with the Blackball Strike of 1908, and finishes with the great strike of 1913, and its aftermath. The central actors in this story are the "unskilled", as they were coming to be known -- the miners, wharfies, shearers, labourers, flaxies, and seamen, without whom there would have been no Red Federation ... In his penetrating study of the period Erik Olssen focuses on the rank and file workers and their leaders, in their dramatic battle to achieve dignity and power, and the struggle over strategies. Much here is new. The author provides sensitive accounts of the world of work, vivid portraits of the revolutionaries who led the Federation, including Savage, Hickey, Fraser, Holland, Webb, and J.B. King. He explores the Australian dimension to New Zealand's labour history, describes working class life, the role of ideology, the impact of the Wobblies, and examines in detail the upheavals of 1912-1913. The result is a dramatic and thorough account of the decisive events in the making of New Zealand's working class ..."--Inside front cover.