When you dig up Australia’s past history some unsavoury things come to light.
The best that can be said about Australian Unionists is that many joined up to fight during World War 2. Others,well,according to a letter in the Australian by Hal. G. P. Colebatch,of Nedlands,W.A.,23.2.08,took the opportunity to strike for better pay and committed outright sabotage.
Mr. Colebatch wrote that according to Commonwealth Yearbooks the number of working days directly lost by all strikes in W.W.2 was in the vicinity of six million. 200,000 working days were lost on the docks and at times troops ran out of food and ammunition because of the wharf strikes.
Sending all strikers to the front would have been the answer but impossible in Australia where the communists were so powerful.
