On this day, 2 August 1917, a walkout began on the railways in New South Wales which spread across the country and became known as the great strike or Australian general strike. Workers at the Randwick and Eveleigh workshops walked out in protest at a new time and motion system, which spread across the railways. With the background of big drops in real pay during World War I, coalminers, waterfront workers and seamen also walked out, and were later joined by sugar, timber, meat and gas workers: around 100,000 in total. Prime Minister Billy Hughes, a former union official and Labour Party PM, alongside local authorities, organised strike breaking on a mass scale bringing in middle-class and university student “volunteers” to work as scabs, and militarising Port Pirie. Union leaders called off the stoppage having achieved no concessions on 9 September, which was angrily denounced by workers in mass meetings. Some groups of rail, mine and waterside workers kept striking up until December, but eventually they were forced to return to work defeated. However by 1919 the working class had re-organised, and launched a new massive strike wave and drove out the scabs from 1917.
More info about Hughes and this time period in Australian history in our podcast episode on the IWW in Australia: https://workingclasshistory.com/2019/01/28/e19-the-iww-in-australia
Pictured: women workers and strikers’ wives demonstrate during the dispute https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1179485095569972/?type=3